In its simplest terms, scrolljacking is the web industry term for repurposing the scroll wheel/motion for something other than the expected advancing up or down the page. Though some may have a more specific definition, this is the one we’re going to work with in describing unexpected behavior triggered from scrolling.

There are several ways developers have scroll jacked different sites at varying levels of “jackedness,” if you will. Doing a quick Google search, you can find plenty of strong opinions on scrolljacking, most of which reveal vehement opposition.

In this post, I will explain and critique a few different scrolljacking techniques and give my thoughts on how and when this can be a positive experience.

Technique 0: Parallax

Probably the most common example of scrolljacking these days is a parallax background — when a background image moves at a different speed than the rest of the content on the page, creating an interesting layered effect. This is a very minor example of scrolljacking, though it does use the scroll to manipulate the page in a way that is not consistent with what users expect from a scroll wheel.

I’ve decided to make this “Technique 0” because at this point, though it is falling out of favor, most users don’t bat an eye at seeing parallax backgrounds. Of course any element can have the parallax effect applied to it, though backgrounds are the most common.

Technique 1: The Full Jack

Some sites feature elements that are essentially slides which take over the full browser area and use the scroll wheel to advance or rewind. Some examples of this technique can be found at Apple, Huge Inc, and Yapstone.

These are pretty easy to get used to, though this can be frustrating for a user who may want to jump around the content or quickly scan the whole page. These are sections that demand your attention the same way a pop-up does. You are not able to continue to the rest of the page until you get past the scroll-jacking section. Pop-ups are universally hated, so why should scrolljacking sections be viewed differently?

Technique 2: The Slight Jack

Some sites still show the expected scrolling of text with a background image that becomes fixed and perhaps changes to a different background image at a certain point. It eventually either becomes relative again and scrolls up the page or gets covered by content below the particular section. This would be a pretty low level of scroll “jackedness,” and perhaps the least offensive. A couple examples of this technique can be found at The New York Times and Grammarly.

Technique 3: The Fading Jack

A third variation can be found at dstillery. This technique utilizes both fixed background and foreground elements, and then uses scroll position to fade through text and imagery.

This is the least intuitive example for the end user. It is easy to get to a point where you can use the scroll wheel a bit and nothing will change because you have passed one trigger but have not yet hit another. Issues like this can make it seem like the site is broken by not responding to your scroll.

So What’s the Big Jacking Deal?

Scrolljacking alters the fundamental truth users have come to expect from using their scroll wheel. Think of it like renting a car and then when some a-hole cuts you off on the freeway, you go to honk your horn but instead you get a spray of washer fluid and the wipers start wiping at full blast.

OK, so scroll jacking certainly doesn’t create dangerous situations, but still, it goes against everything a user has learned to expect from their previous experiences with scrolling, both on the web and in most applications.

How Can Designers/Developers Practice Responsible Scrolljacking?

Probably my favorite example of scrolljacking, which I would call a slight variation to Technique 2 comes from Melanie Daveid. This is an example of half of the screen starting as relative, becoming fixed for a certain duration, and then becoming relative again.

Only half the screen gets jacked at a time, so you always see the continuity of the page scroll. We’ll call this technique “The Half Slight Jack.” Then she’s got the cherry on top at the bottom of her page with her scroll event animation.

In my opinion Melanie Daveid has it right on, and Technique 2 is pretty good as well. When it comes to scrolljacking, as long as something on the page is still moving in an expected way, the user is getting that motion and a good deal of the control they expect.

It can be used as an interesting and interactive way to tell a story without the use of a slider or accordion, which, by the way, can be used against you when it comes to SEO.

Though scrolljacking has many opponents, I don’t see it going away anytime soon. I’m going to guess it will become more prevalent throughout the web and that UX designers will continue to come up with new ways to scrolljack, many of which will continue to get serious opposition from the web community.

Sometimes a prospect comes to your website, finds exactly what they want, and makes a purchase. This post is not about these people. This post is about the vast majority, who visit your site a few times. They also visit other sites and comparison shop.

They mull over the decision to buy something — researching, searching, reading, and thinking. This post is about these prospects. The people who just need a little nudge to get them over the finish line.

We know from research that on average it takes six touches before a prospect converts. So the obvious question most marketers should be asking is, how do you keep these people engaged?

Use Retargeting to Bring Potential Customers Back

Retargeting is a method of digital advertising that aims to entice users back to an advertiser’s site after they have left. Advertisements are show to customers who have demonstrated what we call intent, which is an action they’ve performed on an advertiser’s site that shows they’re interested in a product or service.

Intent signals come from a variety activities. The classic use case is when a customer puts a something into a shopping cart, but does not complete a purchase. That action of putting an item into the cart shows clear purchase intent.

To be effective, web retargeting uses a combination of tailored messaging and targeted ad placement, that capitalize on the intent signals found on the website. With that in place, display ads are bought on digital advertising exchanges and served on news sites, blogs and other locations online — wherever your customer might be browsing.

Web retargeting is popular in nearly every vertical from ecommerce and travel, to B2B and entertainment. It’s great for any brand interested in engaging current or prospective customers online. The technology to find users again has grown to work across most websites, social networks and even email.

5 Proven Tips to Keep Leads Engaged With Retargeting

1) Segment your audience.

Poor segmentation is one of the main culprits of low performance in a retargeting campaign. Once segmented, you can target each group with creative and content that’s most relevant to them.

You can set up basic URL segments with audiences defined by specific pages they visited while on your website. Some common groups to create include:

1. Homepage (Upper-funnel): Target prospects with branding message or discount offers to get new customers in the door.
2. Category pages (Mid-funnel): These users have demonstrated interest in a specific product type; re-engage them with a general  ad for that product category (i.e., shoes).
3. Specific product pages (Lower-funnel): If a user has looked at a specific product offering (i.e., men’s blue Nike Air sneakers), they can be retargeted with an ad for those specific shoes.
4. Shopping cart: These are very high intent users. Target these customers with ads for those specific products they looked at, and include an enticing offer, such as free shipping, to encourage them to complete the purchase.

2) Leverage email.

Did you know that email can be easily incorporated as a inventory source for retargeting now? The best part about email retargeting is the inventory is free. Sending an email as part of a retargeting campaign doesn’t require bidding on ad exchange for a placement. It does have some limitations, for example you shouldn’t send out more than one email to a specific prospect per day.

A well designed email is a great way to remind a customer of a specific item they looked at, send a specialized offer or coupon code, or promote similar items to one that they pursued before. On average, retargeting emails have an open rate of 60%, convincing customers to click 15% of the times.

With some research, AdRoll discovered that when running both traditional email and email retargeting, email retargeting produced 3x the open rate and 6x the clickthrough rate.

3) Dig into your CRM.

A typical CRM campaign is focused on one channel, email. Why limit your CRM efforts only to that channel? With CRM retargeting you can market to customers from your database with display ads. This has a few advantages over email including the ability to increase the frequency of messaging, emails can’t be sent more than once per day.

It also helps your brand stay top of mind as customers browse the internet, not just when they look at their inbox. You can even upload a lead list of prospects and target ads directly at a specific segment that’s not in your CRM.

To get started we recommend creating segments from existing prospects and customers, defining where they are in the funnel, and then using retargeting software to reach those segments with web and Facebook ads. Whether you’re storing contact data in an email platform, already leveraging a CRM tool, or just storing customer purchase history in a spreadsheet, CRM data onboarding allows the flexibility to use multiple data sources to re-engage your contacts with relevant content.

This approach can work well for B2C companies who wish to target in-store buyers and event attendees. A great example of a use case is Kiehl’s recent campaign, where they targeted their in-store convertors for repeated sales, using a combination of website data and CRM email lists.

4) Use dynamic creative.

If you’re not using dynamic creative, you should definitely consider it. Dynamic creative is a system that allows for an ad’s creative to be generated on the fly, based on how well its various elements are performing.

For instance, a call-to-action on an ad might be susceptible to a higher clickthrough rate (CTR) when it’s red as opposed to blue. Dynamic creative would test these variations and then serve up the winning color to the larger audience. It’s popular with direct-response digital marketers and retailers because it simply performs better. Being able to show the exact product that a customer browsed in an ad is powerful.

And it performs better than showing a generic item that they might not like. Last year, AdRoll advertisers increased their campaign spend for dynamic-creative ads by 30% quarter over quarter (QoQ) from Q3 to Q4, compared with a 16% increase in total spend for static ads. And the trend was validated by results: highly-personalized, dynamic ad campaigns delivered costs per acquisition (CPAs) that were 60% lower than those for static campaigns.

Some best practices to consider include:

1. Use clean, mobile-friendly designs. You want to make sure your ads display well on mobile. A straightforward and simple design is better suited for display across multiple devices, they also load quickly, providing a better customer experience. Drop the flashy Photoshop art and use a white background that allows the product to be easily swapped out depending on what the customer last viewed.
2. Keep messaging consistent. This one is a given. You want to avoid confusing customers, so check all your creative and confirm that your promotions are consistent across different ad placements, campaigns, vendors and channels. Nothing is more frustrating for a consumer than seeing a discount for a item they just purchased for full price.
3. Showcase multiple products. Dynamic carousel ads on Facebook can display the most relevant products to customers, regardless of device — desktop, mobile, or tablet. Each ad spotlights an individual product and its price. Consider including a call-to-action (CTA) button, such as “Shop now,” to encourage clicks.

5) Get smarter with attribution. 

In marketing or advertising, attribution is the process of identifying a set of user actions (“events” or “touchpoints”) that contribute in some manner to a desired outcome, and then assigning a value to each of these events.

Because technology is evolving daily, attribution in advertising is oftentimes considered a confusing and complex topic. But, that doesn’t mean you should bury your head in the sand and ignore it. It’s obvious at this point that just using a last-click (meaning the last element a lead clicked on before converting) attribution model is an antiquated method of measuring advertising success.

At the most basic level, using last-click doesn’t value any other advertising that a user saw prior to clicking. It also incentives platforms to bombard users with ads, who would make purchase anyway. It’s like giving out coupons to people in the checkout line and then taking full credit for the sale. Clearly, that is not the best allocation of valuable marketing resources.

There are a variety of platforms, technology and approaches that you can use to improve how you do attribution. For example, AdRoll encourages people to use a blended attribution model. One that takes into both views and clicks. This is an easy way to account for viewing an ad, but also retains the immediacy and clarity of last-click.

The Bottom Line

Retargeting is a core aspect of nearly every digital marketer’s approach. With these tips you should be able to get even more value from your retargeting campaigns, incorporate new innovations and maximize the return on investment.

Interested in learning more? Join AdRoll and HubSpot for our webinar September 29th, Funnel Vision: Leveraging Display Advertising & Retargeting to Improve Your Digital Marketing Efforts

The last time I went on vacation, Facebook and Instagram announced two big product changes that I was left scrambling to catch up on when I returned.

Know the feeling? If you work in social media marketing, my guess is you know it all too well.

Social media is constantly evolving, making today an exciting time to work in marketing. This can also mean that you sometimes feel as if you’re falling behind on your general social media knowledge and education.

The solution? Podcasts.

In this blog post, we put together a list of 10 podcast episodes that deliver helpful and actionable guidance for social media marketers looking to brush up on their skills in a quick and entertaining way.

10 Amazing Podcasts About Social Media

1) Marketing Smarts: How ‘Dolphin Tale’ Brought 800,000 Visitors a Year to Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In this episode, Kerry O’Shea Gorgone speaks with Chief Marketing Officer of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Bill Potts. They discuss Winter the dolphin, whose story of recovery from losing her tail was chronicled in the movie Dolphin Tale. Thanks to their social media and public relations teams’ relentless work to get Winter’s story shared with local media outlets, she eventually became the star of a hit film (seriously, rent this movie).

In light of the Aquarium’s newfound fame, Potts talks about their strategies for maintaining the momentum of the Dolphin Tale films by investing in social media more than ever. In particular, they’ve experienced a lot of engagement by live streaming video of their animals on Facebook Live, Periscope, and Snapchat. (You can learn how to master Facebook Live with the help of this free guide.)

[Live-streams are] not super-rehearsed. They really are authentic. We focus on the animal, we focus on the story, and we don’t script it. We have an outline of what we want to be reviewed during the live webcast, but we make sure they’re naturally delivered. They’re really not rehearsed. They just happen. We do schedule and plan them, and we do know what’s going to be discussed, but we make it really authentic. It’s a one-take deal.”

Key Takeaways:

• All organizations have a story to tell, whether it’s about their mission, an individual, or a certain achievement. Give it the direction it needs to garner attention from media.
• Don’t just talk about yourself: Get others to talk about you on social media and in the press to earn more attention. (Here’s a handy PR guide to help with that.)
• Live streams should be raw, unscripted, and authentic: You can practice using the technology, but ultimately, remain flexible to allow room for more genuine content. (Check out this live streaming checklist before you get started.)
• Don’t be afraid to experiment with how and where you’re sharing video content. For example, the aquarium turns over their Snapchat to trainers working with animals 1:1 so followers can see how the aquarium helps marine life up close.
• Learn about your audience and where to reach them: For the aquarium, it’s mothers on Facebook.

Duration: 25:20

2) Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield: How to Get Started with Facebook Live

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

This episode of Amy Porterfield’s marketing podcast features Kim Garst of Boom Social, where they discuss best practices and strategies for using Facebook Live. Main themes of this episode included determining how often to broadcast, apprehension about broadcasting live and making mistakes, and uncertainty about measuring success.

I think the reason live video is so impactful (again, this is my opinion and what I’ve seen through my personal experiences and watching other people) is that people are so attracted to people who are not just real, but people that are relatable. In other words, they can see themselves having that issue.”

Key Takeaways:

• Consistency is a contributor to successful live streams: Create a regular schedule on Facbeook Live or Periscope to expand your reach after you stop broadcasting live.
• Carefully choose your broadcast’s headline: Remember, this is an opportunity to grab more attention from followers.
• Incorporate an offer into pre-outreach for your Facebook Live event. For example, tell followers that you’ll be giving away promo codes, ebooks, or checklists that they can only download if they tune in.
• Have a strategy to achieve a specific goal for every single broadcast, and don’t just talk for the sake of sharing.
• Find a way to capture people’s attention while they scroll: Facebook only counts “Views” as users who watched for 10 seconds or more.

Duration: 55:31

3) Social Media Marketing: Content Creation Hacks

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

This episode, hosted by Social Media Examiner Founder and CEO Michael Stelzner, focuses on social media content creation with the help of special guest and social media pro, Nick Westergaard.

In the interview, Westergaard discusses the fact that everyone knows they need to create content, but not everyone knows how to do it most effectively. Many content creators don’t operate with a comprehensive strategy, which can make people object putting in the work to make content pay off. Westergaard mentions the term “checklist marketing,” which he says refers to marketers tackling every new marketing strategy like an item on a to-do list without objectives or strategy in mind.

You have to gamify it a little bit and think about, if you’re creating one thing, how many more things can I create out of this? … By planning one piece of content, I create many.”

Key Takeaways:

• Try a team approach to social media content creation to both share the workload and curate a diverse array of content — even from colleagues who aren’t marketers.
• Experiment with user-generated content: Develop a campaign around an event or hashtag so your followers are sharing photos and messages that you can share with your networks.
• Repurpose content: If you’re writing a blog post or designing an infographic (here are some helpful templates for that), find a way to create smaller pieces of it that can be used as social media posts. Additionally, you can string smaller pieces of content together to create an ebook or guide.
• Take part in #TBT: Align your older content with current events and re-share it on social media. This takes advantage of nostalgia marketing and re-promotes content you’ve already created.

Duration: 41:08

4) TED Radio Hour: Why Do We Like What We Like?

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In this episode of the TED Talks podcast, host Guy Raz interviews several TED speakers who’ve talked about branding:

• Filmmaker and Producer of Super Size Me Morgan Spurlock discusses how brands impact our purchasing decisions.
• Management Advisor and Author Joseph Pine touches on the power of authenticity.
• Ogilvy & Mather Group’s Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland explores the real versus perceived value of different products.

Their discussions are varied and well worth the full listen, but the overarching theme was how brands’ perception impacts their success (or lack thereof). Pine mentions that customers make choices because they’re bought into the dreams and imagery surrounding big brands, and that once they start using the product, they start to believe the message.

Ubiquity is the death of authenticity.”

Key Takeaways:

• Take advantage of the opportunity to cultivate and promote what makes your brand unique. There’s always room for bragging on social media — just do it in moderation.
• Be authentic and real, but don’t say that’s what you’re doing. Consumers want authenticity, not disingenuity.
• Tell stories with a sense of place to drive greater authenticity: Set the stage when sharing blog posts, updates, and videos on social media so followers can see the kind of activities your organization is up to.
• A/B test different types of post on social platforms to see how they perform comparatively: Consumers don’t objectively think a product or service is good or bad — branding and marketing messages impact their perception, and that’s in your hands.

Duration: 49:13

5) The Growth Show: Episode 100: Guy Kawasaki’s Unconventional Advice on Growth

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In this episode of The Growth Show, HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar sat down with Canva Chief Evangelist Guy Kawasaki to discuss Instagram Stories versus Snapchat Stories, Facebook Live video, and organizational growth challenges.

During the discussion, Kawasaki admits that he prefers Instagram to Snapchat due to its superior content discoverability features and analytics options. And when it comes to Facebook Live, he is bought in.

In fact, he mentions that while taking a break from streaming on vacation, his Facebook reach was only 400,000 users, versus the 1 million users he sees when he’s streaming regularly. (Spoiler alert: He also lets listeners in on his secrets to greater engagement during live streams — but you’ll have to listen to find out what they are.)

I don’t want positive, supportive, wonderful, reinforcing engagement on social media. I want any kind of engagement.”

Key Takeaways:

• Facebook Live drives greater engagement and reach than publishing recorded video or sharing a YouTube link.
• When you’re streaming live on Facebook, have a second screen (and ideally a teammate) available to see what comments or questions are rolling in from your audience so you can answer them live.
• Ask your audience questions while you’re streaming live to increase comments, Likes, and followers.
• Publish regularly and frequently to increase engagement on social media platforms.

Duration: 35:01

6) Hashtagged: Focusing on Creating Content and Community Versus Being an Influencer with Dan Joyce

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In this episode of Hashtagged, host Jordan Powers interviews Dan Joyce, a content creator on Instagram, about the cultivation of vibrant and engaged social media communities. Joyce was one of Instagram’s very first users.

They swap stories about how they started using Instagram first as a creative outlet, and then eventually as a tool for content creation and personal networking. As a professional content creator, Joyce initially began experimenting with Instagram, but it’s since evolved into a powerful network that photographers and other content creators can harness:

[The] platform has provided a breadth of knowledge about photography and content creation in a way that makes big social network a lot smaller … There are so many types of content being shared on Instagram, it’s created its own ecosystem.”

Key Takeaways:

• You can’t force becoming an influencer or thought leader, even on social media. Share lots of unique and creative content to grow your social network, and followers will come after.
• Individuals and brands can use Instagram as a more professional portfolio of photographs and Snapchat as a more lighthearted photo log of their day-to-day.
• Experiment with the types of posts you share on Instagram: Powers found that when his posts are more about content creation than networking, they end up performing better. (Here are 18 photo and video ideas for Instagram to try.)

Duration: 40:18

7) Inbound Marketing Today: 7 Social Media Mistakes Companies Make & How You Can Avoid Them

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

Inbound Marketing Today is hosted by Neil Brown, founder of the Brown Creative Group, and in this episode, he discusses common mistakes businesses are making on social media:

1. Treating all social media sites as if they’re the same and not changing up how you share content.
2. Too much automation.
3. Not posting on social media frequently enough.
4. Not responding to questions or comments.
5. Deleting negative posts, comments, and reviews.
6. Trying to be active on every social media channel.
7. Not having a lead generation strategy.

You want to use automation to make marketing more efficient, not to appear as a bot. Social media should be social.”

Key Takeaways:

• Social media is an arm of your customer service team: Aim to be helpful, positive, and delightful to your customers.
• It’s better for engagement to have a comprehensive strategy for only two social media platforms than to post at random on all platforms.
• Maintain your voice’s authenticity. You’re a human speaking for an organization, so don’t forget to be real, and connect with people when they seek assistance or give feedback.

Duration: 12:14

8) Social Pros: Why Most Social Media Writing Sucks & How to Fix It

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In this episode of Convince and Convert’s Social Pros, hosts Jay Baer and Adam Brown interview Josh Bernoff — chief troublemaker at Without Bullsh*t — about writing quality content for social media.

Bernoff’s mission is to eliminate convoluted writing from marketing, and he thinks it’s a challenge because we were rewarded for writing long papers when we first learned to write in school. Now, that experience is impacting social media posts, press releases, and blog posts in a detrimental way.

You’re not creating art. You’re creating effective communication, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that simply and directly.”

Key Takeaways:

• Get to the point. You should aim to say what you mean in the first 2-3 sentences of whatever you’re writing.
• Adopt Baer’s ROAM content marketing checklist: Who are the readers? What are your objectives? What follow-up action do you want to inspire from the reader? What impression will people have of your organization when they read your content?
• Always have another set of eyes look over your content, even Facebook captions. Never publish a first draft.

Duration: 53:40

9) #AskGaryVee: YouTube Growth Strategies, Business Risks & VanyerMedia’s New Office

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In his podcast #AskGaryVee, Digital Marketing Expert Gary Vanyerchuk answers questions from his followers (delightfully coined “VanyerPeeps”), and his entertaining responses make it worth the listen. At the beginning of this episode, Vanyerchuk answers questions from a VaynerPeep about strategies for hacking YouTube growth.

Vanyerchuk believes that for all content creation — be it blog, video, or social media — the distribution is more important than the creation, and that those priorities are often the opposite to modern marketers. It’s not enough to write a great blog post, or produce a great YouTube video: it has to be seen and picked up by the right people, and that won’t happen unless you hustle for it.

You have to continue to bring value and produce good content, but you also need people to know about it.

Key Takeaways:

• Try collaborating with other YouTubers or influencers in your space on social media. If you can’t offer them exposure, what can you offer them in exchange for their partnership? Always offer value.
• Use targeted hashtags on Instagram to grow your audience there. Do some research to determine which tags are generating the highest levels of engagement.
• Join forums within your industry communities to develop a network of support that you can reach out to for social sharing, promotion, and participation in your social media campaigns.

Duration: 17:55 (YouTube answer ends at 8:00)

10) Social Media Social Hour: Behind the Data: A Quantitative Look at the Future of Social Media

Click here to listen to this podcast episode

In this episode of Social Media Social Hour, presented by Scoreboard Social and Casual Fridays, host Tyler Anderson interviews CEO of the Social Fresh, Jason Keath, to discuss the outlook of the future of social media. Social Fresh recently conducted a survey of over 500 participants about how brands are measuring, or not measuring, the ROI of their social media strategies.

Anderson and Keath discussed many of the findings in the report, with results often circling back to the outlook that video will continue to dominate social media in terms of engagement and ROI. This episode provides in-depth analysis and conversation without being too lengthy, with lots of helpful tips and actionable next steps for listeners along the way.

No one is seeing a return on what they’re doing on Snapchat right now… but people are passionate about the engagement opportunity.”

Key Takeaways:

• Prioritize social networks that deliver the greatest ROI: According to the report, those networks are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn (in that order).
• Instagram is projected to overtake Twitter in terms of popularity and ROI. Keath speculates that it’s because Instagram is less saturated than Twitter, which leads to greater engagement.
• Get the ball rolling on a video strategy: The number of respondents creating video assets on a monthly basis is growing — it ranked third for assets marketers are creating after images and blog posts.

Duration: 35:10

Are you a social media marketer? What podcasts do you listen to that we missed? Share with us in the comments below.

The inbound movement has always been about one thing: being relevant and truly helpful to your audience.

This approach shouldn’t change, but as consumer habits evolve, marketers and salespeople must adapt to better connect with and help their prospects and customers.

To better understand how consumers are changing, we collected data from 4,500 marketers and salespeople from around the globe, resulting in the 2016 State of Inbound report. It details benchmark data on ROI, the lowdown on collaboration between Marketing and Sales, and a look at what the industry’s foremost marketers are adding to their strategy in the coming year.

Check out the full report here or view some of the most interesting highlights below. 

8 Stats You Need to Know From the 2016 State of Inbound Report

1) Inbound organizations are 4X as likely to be effective. [Tweet this]

Over the past few years of the State of Inbound report, we’ve established the challenges and priorities of marketers and salespeople. But this year, we introduced a new angle in our study: Do marketers believe their organization’s marketing strategy is effective?

As it turns out, we’re glad we asked. Out of all the datapoints in the report, the fact that inbound marketers are much more likely to be satisfied with their organization’s playbook is among our favorite insights.

2) 1/3 of marketers think outbound marketing tactics are overrated. [Tweet this]

It’s not simply the effectiveness of the inbound philosophy that encourages us, but the success of inbound when compared to alternative methods. Each year, marketers tell us that outbound practices are overrated.

While we admit we might be a bit biased, when we cut the data outbound marketers agreed. According to this year’s data, 33% of inbound marketers and 31% of outbound marketers rank outbound marketing practices such as paid advertising as the top waste of time and resources.

Marketers aren’t just saying outbound is overrated — the data supports it. Our survey revealed outbound marketing teams have more trouble proving ROI, securing budget, and training their team compared to their inbound counterparts.

3) Organizations that can calculate ROI are 1.6X as likely to receive higher budgets. [Tweet this]

Speaking of calculating ROI, organizations that are able to do so receive higher budgets. Additionally, 72% of organizations that calculate ROI say their marketing strategy is effective. Only 49% of organizations that don’t calculate ROI say the same.

The logic here is clear: Marketers that calculate ROI both receive more budget and are more successful. With the help of an inbound methodology, all of these goals are easier to achieve.

4) Marketers struggle most with metrics-driven challenges. [Tweet this]

Marketers find tracking and making sense of their metrics a challenge. This year, 65% of marketers admit that their top challenge is generating enough traffic and leads. This is followed by 43% who struggle proving the ROI of marketing activities and 28% who are trying to secure enough budget.

All three of these top challenges are metrics-driven. Without the proper tools to track concrete campaign results, this will continue to be a struggle.

5) Inbound organizations with an SLA are over 5X as likely to be effective. [Tweet this]

When we began publishing this report eight years ago, much of our data revolved around the adoption of inbound marketing. As the message spread, we began to see why it’s crucial for both marketing and sales teams to adopt the inbound methodology together. One of the main ways this is done is through a service-level agreement (SLA).

Despite the fact that only 22% of organizations say they have a tightly aligned SLA, the benefits of having one are clear: 82% of marketers with an SLA think their marketing strategy is effective. In fact, there is no combination of factors more strongly correlated with marketing success than being both inbound and having an SLA.

6) 40% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is getting harder. [Tweet this]

While marketers struggle with tracking the metrics of their campaigns, salespeople admit that getting a response from prospects is their top challenge. However, as you dive deeper into the data, you see the problem goes beyond prospects not answering email or phone calls.

Instead, there’s a disconnect between Marketing and Sales around the quality of leads. According to this year’s report, 59% of marketers say they provide salespeople with their best quality leads, while salespeople rank marketing leads last. In fact, marketing-sourced leads are ranked behind referrals and sales-sourced leads by all sales levels from the C-suite to individual contributors.

There’s always room to improve the handoff between Marketing and Sales. For the coming year, both departments will need to continually communicate and refine their SLA, even if there’s already one in place.

7) Marketers think video and multimedia platforms have the potential to disrupt. [Tweet this]

As marketers prepare for the future, many plan to add more multimedia content. In the past, content marketers poured their efforts into their blog. With the rising trend of content decentralization, marketers are now seeing the benefit of publishing on additional channels.

In our study, marketers are accounting for video’s global appeal, with 48% planning on using YouTube and 39% looking to add Facebook video. Podcasts are enjoying a resurgence in popularity, while others are turning to more visual platforms such as  Instagram and Snapchat.

But, don’t think the age of the blog is over. Decentralized content marketing is all about augmenting your blog to make it more effective, not scratching all of your existing strategy. Marketers can start by repurposing their most successful blog content into additional multimedia formats.

8) 22% of salespeople don’t know what a CRM is. [Tweet this]

Marketers are not the only ones who should be thinking about how new technologies can alter their future strategy. A quarter of all salespeople say improving their sales technology is their top priority over the next year. Yet, 22% of respondents still don’t know what a CRM is and 40% continue to use Excel or Outlook to store customer data. It’s no wonder so many salespeople are spending an hour or more on data entry every day.

The more time salespeople spend on data entry, the less time they have to sell. And if lead records are stored in a haphazard way, there’s potential for a prospect to get contacted by multiple reps, receive redundant emails or calls, and end up with a disjointed and frustrating selling experience. As Sales looks to improve their numbers and scale their business, implementing a CRM should be a top priority for the future-thinking sales organization.

Want more data-backed insights? This is just a preview of the State of Inbound report. Download the report for free to discover how inbound marketing and sales is evolving.

It’s no secret: Many agencies struggle every single day to acquire new clients.

And while a strong marketing mix of advertising, social media, and public relations can certainly go a long way in promoting your agency, none of these channels quite equal the value of a positive client referral.

According to Wharton School of Business, a referral customer costs a lot less to acquire and has a higher potential for retention and loyalty. In fact, a referred customer has a 16% higher lifetime value than a non-referred customer.

Client referrals are one of the most powerful user acquisition channels you can use to grow your agency, since you’re able to go straight to the decision maker without having to exchange a bunch of calls or cold emails.

When I was running a lead generation agency, I noticed that the deals that came through referrals had the shortest sales cycle. In fact, leads generated through referrals convert roughly 30% better than leads generated from other marketing channels. People are more willing to commit to an agency that they trust — and the best way to build early trust is through a client referral.

Referrals are undeniably powerful, but how can you generate quality referrals for your agency? The most underused tactic for getting referrals is leveraging customer feedback. In this post, I’ll cover some simple ways you can leverage customer feedback to get more referrals for your agency.

5 Ways to Leverage Client Feedback for More Referrals 

1) Identify your advocates

Identifying potential client advocates can seem like a huge challenge for a busy agency, but using a simple Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey can help make the process a little easier. Using an NPS survey can help you pinpoint potential advocates and turn your client feedback channel into a referral growth engine.

A Net Promoter Score is a customer loyalty metric utilized across multiple industries to measure how happy a customer is with your product or service. An NPS score is determined by sending out a single-question survey to your clients that asks: How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?

Respondents are asked to score their answer based on a 1-10 scale. Responses of 7 or 8 are labeled as “Passive”, and scores of 0 to 6 are considered “Detractors.” If a client responds with a score of 9-10, they’re labeled “Promoters” of your business. This group is most likely to provide referrals.

2) Follow up with your promoters

Just sending out a Net Promoter Score survey isn’t enough. You need to follow up with potential advocates and keep the positive momentum rolling along. What’s the use of seeing a set of data with people who selected 9 and 10 if you’re not going to use it to your advantage?

You have to mobilize your promoters by engaging with them. Your promoters are your advocates. They are the people who took the time to select a NPS response and pretty much raised their hands saying, “I am willing to recommend your agency to my friends.”

Once you have identified your promoters, you should formulate a plan to follow up and make it easy for them to refer your agency to their professional network. Consider using an automated NPS follow-up tool (such as YesInsights) to immediately reach out to your promoters with a discount or referral code.

If you have an employee at your agency who handles new business development, you can have them reach out personally and see if your promoter would be interested in referring your agency. The key here is to make it easy for your promoters to refer your services to their professional network. Referrals and recommendations from real clients will outperform any share button or social media campaign over the long term.

3) Use promoter feedback for testimonials on your website

“One of the best ways to connect with prospects is by using stories from existing customers.”

– Alex Turnbull from
Groove

People are more likely to trust your agency early on if they have social proof of your expertise. Groove, a helpdesk software company, found that adding quality testimonials to their homepage, guest post landing pages, and email marketing led to an increase in conversions by up to 15%. As a tech founder myself, I’m more likely to try a product or service with a good testimonial from someone that I know or know of that’s an industry expert.

For an agency, testimonials and case studies are one of your most powerful assets. A great way to get testimonials for your agency is simply by asking for client feedback and turning that exact same feedback that you receive into a testimonial on your website.

There are two ways you can approach this: One is by analyzing all the comments you get from the NPS survey, and then personally emailing each respondent to ask for permission to use their comment as a testimonial.

The second way would be to send out a short survey soliciting client feedback from promoters. Let’s say you worked with a client recently and you know that they’re delighted by the results based on a recent NPS survey. This would be an ideal client to reach out to about writing a quick testimonial for your website.

4) Turn passive clients into promoters by acting upon critical feedback

Eric Siu, founder of Single Grain, likes to ask his clients, “What’s one service we can add to our list that will make you super happy?”

People value service that goes above and beyond their expectations, and they tell others about those experiences. As an agency, your top goal should be to provide the most elegant experience for your clients. This is done by creating exceptional experiences that cultivate long-lasting and positive client relationships. One of the best ways to turn clients into promoters who are likely to refer your agency is to act on their critical feedback.

Think about some initiatives you can implement to make your customers sit up and say, “whoa that was great.” Account managers checking in regularly with the clients or the CEO of the agency personally reaching out and engaging with the clients is a great way to boost these type of advocate-building experiences.

5) Offer a referral incentive to your clients

By now, you should be actively engaging with your clients and ultimately trying to generate as much feedback as possible. If you’re sending out surveys and actively engaging, you can also offer them a referral program where your client can gain some sort of incentive for referring their professional network to your agency.

After you send out your NPS or one-click survey asking the client for their feedback, consider directing users to a thank you page offering a reward for sharing their testimonial on social media or via email.

Does this necessary need to be a cash offer or a referral program? Nope. You can add value to your customers by offering extra training on new products, sending them some free t-shirt or swag, or even taking them out for a day of golfing. Each of these examples show you’re genuinely investing in the relationship.

Ever notice how everyone in a workplace knows who the bad boss is—except the bad boss? If you’re supervising others, and you’re frustrated with their performance, it’s possible that the problem isn’t your team. You could be the not-so-great boss.

Disengaged employees cost the U.S. more than $500 billion in lost productivity annually, and most of that disengagement can be traced back to poor leadership and management. From large corporations to small marketing agencies, the impact of a bad boss can have catastrophic consequences to morale, revenue, and customer satisfaction.

This infographic from EOS Worldwide, the creators of the [Entrepreneurial Operating System®], explains the difference between a Great Boss and a Not-So-Great Boss so you can figure out where you fall on the spectrum and take steps to move away from the dark side.

Before the days of smartphones — if you can remember such a time — taking a great photo was a labor-intensive process. You’d have buy a fancy camera and editing software for your desktop computer, and invest some serious time and energy into learning how to use them.

But thanks to our mobile devices and the editing apps that come with them, we can now take high quality photos and edit them without too many bells and whistles — all from the same device that we use to make calls.

Brands are catching on, too — the kinds of visuals remain important to marketing. But make no mistake: Taking a great photo on your smartphone is not as simple as pointing and shooting. There are plenty of bad smartphone photos out there — I’m sure you’ve seen at least a few.

What’s the secret to taking great pictures with your smartphone, then? As it turns out, there are a few of them. Check out these tips below to improve your smartphone photography game. (And once you have the photo-taking part down, check out some of the best photo editing apps for mobile.)

How to Take Better Photos on Your Phone: 18 Tips & Tricks

1) Use gridlines to balance your shot.

One of the easiest and best ways to improve your mobile photos is to turn on the camera’s gridlines. That superimposes a series of lines on the screen of your smartphone’s camera that are based on the “rule of thirds” — a photographic composition principle that says an image should be broken down into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, so you have nine parts in total.

According to this theory, if you place points of interest in these intersections or along the lines, your photo will be more balanced, level, and allow viewers to interact with it more naturally.

Source: Digital Photography School

To switch the grid on …

• iPhone: Go to “Settings,” choose “Photos & Camera,” and switch “Grid” on.
• Samsung Galaxy: Launch the camera app, go to “Settings,” scroll down and switch the “grid lines” option to “on.”

Source: Lynda.com

2) Focus on one subject.

Many of the best photos include just one, interesting subject. So when taking a picture of one, spend some extra time setting up the shot. Some professional photographers say that the subject shouldn’t fill the entire frame, and that two-thirds of the photo should be negative space — that helps the subject stand out even more.

But be sure you tap the screen of your smartphone to focus the camera on your subject — that’ll help to ensure that it’s focused and the lighting is optimized.

Pro Tip: Once you’ve taken your photo, you can use filters and apps to make the subject even more vivid, or to crop it to frame the subject correctly. The brightness, contrast, and saturation of the photo can also be adjusted accordingly — all from your phone.

Source: Patrick Janelle

3) Embrace negative space.

“Negative space” simply refers to the areas around and between the subjects of an image –and it can take a photo from “good” to “great.”

When you include a lot of empty space in a photo, your subject will stand out more and evoke a stronger reaction from your viewer. And what does negative space looks like? It’s often a large expanse of open sky, water, an empty field, or a large wall, as in the examples below.

Source: Eric Christian

4) Find different perspectives.

Taking photos from a unique, unexpected angle can make them more memorable — it tends to create an illusion of depth or height with the subjects. It also makes the image stand out, since most mobile photos are taken either straight -on or from a bird’s eye view.

Try taking a photo directly upward and playing with the sky as negative space, like in the first photo below. Or, you can try taking it at a slight downward angle.

Pro Tip: If you take a photo and find the perspective is a little askew or tilted, use the SKRWT photo editing app to make the lines look clean and square.

Source: iPhone Photography School; Paul Octavious

5) Play with reflections.

There’s something so idyllic about seeing the sky reflected in a body of water. There’s a reason why we love seeing that — our eyes are drawn to reflections. So look for opportunities to play with them in photos.

There are plenty of out-of-the-box places to find reflections — puddles, larger bodies of water, mirrors, sunglasses, drinking glasses, and metallic surfaces are just a few.

Source: Joshua Lott; Carlos Copertone

6) Use leading lines.

In some photos, there’s a line that draws the viewer’s eye toward a certain part of the frame. Those are called leading lines. They can be straight or circulinear — think staircases, building facades, train tracks, roads, or even a path through the woods.

Leading lines are great for creating a sense of depth in an image, and can make your photo look purposefully designed — even if you just happened to come upon a really cool shape by accident.

Source: Carlos Copertone; Paul Octavious

7) Look for symmetry.

Symmetry can be defined as “a vague sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance.” And pictures that contain symmetry can be incredibly pleasing to the eye — it’s also one of the simplest and most compelling ways to compose a photo.

In photography, symmetry usually means creating an image that can be divided into two equal parts that are mirror images of each other. That’s a bit different than reflections — symmetry can be found “in the wild,” as per the staircase picture, or you can set up your photo accordingly, like photographer Eric Christian did in the first photo below.

And remember — use those gridlines from tip #1 to line everything up perfectly.

Source: Eric Christian; Carlos Copertone

8) Keep an eye out for repetitive patterns.

Repetitive patterns are very pleasing to the eye — they appear whenever strong graphic elements are repeated over and over again, like lines, geometric shapes, forms, and colors. These patterns can make a strong visual impact, and photographing something like a beautiful, tiled floor can be enough to create a striking image. Other times, it’s more fun to keep an eye out for where they appear naturally or unintentionally, like with the congruent fire escapes on the left.

Source: Patrick Janelle

9) Mess around with color blocking.

Isn’t it cool when an entire photo is black and white, except for a single object? It turns out that yes, indeed, there are apps for that. One of our favorites is Touch Color — an app that automatically converts a picture to grayscale and lets you fill in the parts you want to colorize.

Color blocking can help to highlight the elements of a photo that you want to stand out, like a plant or something else with a bold hue. It achieves a similar goal as negative space, in that it can help a single subject stand out — but with color blocking, the photo’s other elements remain intact for a cohesive image.

Source: Coloring Pages

10) Avoid zooming in.

When you take a photo from a distance, it’s tempting to zoom in on something specific you’re trying to capture. But it’s actually better not to zoom in — doing so can make the photo appear grainy, blurry, or pixelated.

Instead, try to get closer to your subject — unless it’s a wild animal, in which case we would advise keeping your distance — or take the photo from a default distance, and crop it later on. That way, you won’t compromise quality, and it’s easier to play around or optimize a larger image.

Source: Obama Pacman

11) Capture small details.

You may have heard the phrase, “It’s the little things.” Sometimes, that also applies to photos. Close-up images that capture small, intricate, and delicate details can make for really compelling visual content. Keep an eye out for textures and patterns like peeling paint, a gravel road, or a tile tabletop.

Pro Tip: Use the “sharpen” tool in your favorite photo editing app to (conservatively) sharpen the details of your photo. You might also download the Camera+ app and use its Clarity filter, which is what The Wall Street Journal‘s Kevin Sintumuang calls the app’s “secret sauce — it adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot.”

Source: Paul Octavious; Eric Christian

12) Use natural light.

Let’s face it: You’d be hard-pressed to find a great smartphone photo that was taken with a flash. Most of the time, they make a photo look overexposed, negatively altering colors and making human subjects look washed out. In fact, even the iPhone 7’s flash is rumored to have some flaws.

So instead of using flash, take advantage of the sources of natural light you can find, even after dark. That gives you a chance to play with shadows, like in the second image below, or create a silhouette with other ambient sources of light, like traffic and surrounding buildings.

Once you’ve taken the photo, play with the “Exposure” tool in your favorite photo editing app to see if you can make the image slightly brighter, without making it too grainy.

Source: Patrick Janelle; Paul Octavious

13) Create abstracts.

Abstract photos are meant to capture the essence of an object, or a series of them, without revealing the entire landscape as a whole. In other words, they serve the purpose of creating unique, surprising images from ordinary subjects.

This look can be accomplished by cropping an abstract portion of an otherwise normal photo, or by taking close-up shots of objects that leave the viewer wondering — in admiration, of course — what the subject might be. And subjects with patterns or repetition are great candidates for abstract photography, like in the photo of sliced figs below.

Source: iPhone Photography School; Patrick Janelle

14) Take candids.

Posed photos can be great for the sake of memories — happy moments with friends, family, or the occasional run-in with a celebrity. But sometimes, candid shots of people doing things, or people with people, can be far more interesting.

That’s because candid photos are better able to effectively capture the emotion and essence of a moment. One of the best ways to capture this kind of shot is to just take as many photos as possible. You’ll have more to choose from, and the best photos often happen when the “stars align,” so to speak, in a single moment — everyone’s eyes are open, one person is tilting their head just so, and you finally got a shot of your chronically closed-lip friend smiling with his teeth.

Source: Patrick Janelle

15) Be non-conventional.

Composition is a huge part of what makes a photo great, but so is the photo’s subject. Some of the most delightful and remarkable photos come out of cool, unique ideas. Images are more effective than text at evoking emotion from your viewers — that often means getting your photos to say something.

Try thinking outside of the box when it comes to what you’re capturing — your viewers could be pleasantly surprised by a cool or unexpected subject.

Source: Paul Octavious

16) Make ’em laugh.

Speaking of evoking emotion, sometimes the most memorable photos are the ones that make us giggle. The image below of an older woman wearing a brightly-colored shirt stating “Hi hater” is funny because it’s unexpected — and there’s a part of us that admires her, too. The second image of the dog toy on a dinner plate pokes fun at classic Instagram food shots, but it’s from a dog’s perspective. If you can make your audience laugh, they’re likely to enjoy your photo.

Source: Baddie Winkle; Jeremy Veach

17) Attach an external lens.

Want to get really fancy? External lenses are for you. There are actually several out there that can be attached to the top of your smartphone’s native camera lens — from fish-eye to wide-angle lenses, these add-ons can bring an entirely new quality and perspective to your photos.

According to Wirecutter, the best camera lenses for iPhone photography are made by Moment, a manufacturer of mobile lenses. Start there, or do some research to find the lens add-ons that fit your smartphone photography needs.

Source: MobileFun.co.uk

18) Don’t afraid to edit.

Composing and taking your smartphone photo is just the first step to making it visually compelling. Editing your photos is the next step — and a very critical one, at that. Filters can be a valuable photographic tool, particularly when it comes to two goals: 1) Removing blemishes from a picture, and 2) making food look even more delicious.

For the first, InStyle magazine compiled a fun list of “The Best Instagram Filters for Every Beauty Complaint” — and now, the iPhone photos app offers many similar filters. There are also apps like Pho.to, which can automatically retouch facial photos without a lot of work. And when it comes to those photos of your daily meals? One of the latest apps available is Foodie, which comes with its own set of filters optimized for different types of food.

But there are many other great photo and video editing apps out there for mobile devices — check out this post to see some of the best ones out there.

Source: LINE Corp.

What tips do you have for taking photos with smartphones? Add to this list in the comment section.

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

If there’s one marketing tactic that nonprofits often undervalue, blogging would likely be it. 

What’s so great about blogging? Blogging is a low-cost marketing asset with long-term returns. It is strongly related to attracting high-quality traffic, generating new supporters, and increasing awareness for your mission. But getting started with (or perfecting the art of) blogging is no easy task. 

Nonprofits in particular often struggle to find the time to create content on a consistent basis. And for those who do have the time, having the know-how to create blog content that drives results is a whole other battle. 

While we can’t write your blog for you, we can give you and your team the tools you need to create awesome blog content yourself. Sound like something you might be interested in? Our free ebook, An Introduction to Blogging for Nonprofits will show you: 

• Why your organization should blog
• How to find content and contributors for your blog
• How to optimize your blog posts for search engines and social media
• How to promote your blog
• How to measure your blogging

You can download your copy of An Introduction to Blogging for Nonprofits here!

Think other nonprofits you know would like this ebook? Tweet it out for them to see. 

Banner ads get a bad rap, and are often thought of as old-school due to their disruptive nature. But believe it or not, there’s way to make inbound-y banner ads that actually drive results.

However, even marketers that recognize the value of banner ads struggle to design ones that don’t seem spammy, let alone ones that get desired results.

You have to learn how to present the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, which is why HubSpot and Bannersnack teamed up to bring you How to Make Banner Ads That Don’t Suck.

In this guide you’ll find 10 steps for creating high-quality banner ads that generate the results you want and help you reach your goals.

More specifically, you’ll receive:

• The basics of banner ads: sizes, files, and formats.
• Design tips and best practices on choosing color and imagery.
• How to write the best copy for your banner ads.
• Tons of good examples from real brands.
• Much more on creating inbound-y ads to actually drive results.

Download your copy of How to Make Banner Ads That Don’t Suck here.

Have you ever given your order at a fast food drive-through, only to be asked, “Would you like fries with that?”

This is a classic example of upselling — a sales technique used to sell additional goods or services to existing customers.

Among agencies and freelancers, upselling can seem tricky. According to the 2016 Agency Pricing & Financials Report, a staggering 51% of agencies don’t have a plan in place for upselling and retention. That means more than half of agencies are missing out on the opportunity to generate more revenue from existing accounts, increase client retention, and build deeper, lasting relationships.

Sleazy sales reps will try to upsell everyone and anyone — regardless of whether or not the client actually needs the additional service — but when you focus primarily on your client’s experience and goals, upselling benefits both agencies and clients tremendously.

Check out eight strategies below to help get you started.

8 Strategies For Upselling Your Clients

1) Take the time to understand what success means to them.

Before you can attempt to sell additional value to your client, you need to have a firm grasp on what kind of success is important to them. Early in your relationship, you should set aside time to sit down and discuss what your client wants to gain from working with you. Explore not only the immediate needs of the project at hand, but also the client’s larger, long-term plans.

Cultivating a deep understanding of your client’s priorities is important for building trust right from the start. If you know what your client values and where she wants to go, then you can identify areas where your agency can offer additional services down the line.

2) Set and track measurable goals.

At the outset of your first project with a new client, make sure you agree upon clear, measurable indicators of success. Leverage what you’ve already learned about your client’s priorities and goals, and develop an action plan with straightforward milestones to keep track of your progress.

To identify a need for additional services later in the client’s lifecycle, you need a way to recognize areas where the current plan is falling short, or places where she could afford to beef up her resources for a better outcome. This is where careful tracking becomes essential.

If you tell a client that she needs to devote more to her social media spend, you’d better have the data to back it up. In terms of upselling, having data to point to will bulk up your argument, and help demonstrate to the client that you have her best interest in mind. 

3) Identify clients with a real need for additional services.

Not every client is a good fit for an upsell, and you should never, ever try to push additional services on a client who doesn’t truly need them. As a general rule, if you can’t explain how the additional spend will benefit the client’s overall goals, then it’s not an upsell worth pursuing.

For example, if you’re considering pitching your client on additional email marketing services, but email marketing doesn’t fit directly into her long-term plan to expand her reach, you shouldn’t force it. If you try to sell services that have a slim chance of delivering a positive outcome to the client, you risk causing major damage to the relationship and potentially losing her business altogether.

Instead, focus your upselling efforts on clients with an evident gap in their current plan. If a client wants to increase her reach, but you don’t think she’s going about it the right way, there’s probably an opportunity to sell her on a new plan.

4) Start providing value as soon as possible with quick wins.

Nobody is going to invest additional resources in your agency until you’ve proven that you can deliver tangible results for their business. To set yourself up for a long and mutually beneficial relationship with a client, you should focus on providing quick wins as soon as possible.

A quick win project is anything that delivers immediate value to a client. Some examples could be an audit of a client’s existing content strategy, an evaluation of a client’s website to identify new opportunities, or even a content offer and simple promotional plan.

A quick win project doesn’t have to be a big production for your team, it just has to demonstrate that you’re fully committed to bringing real returns to your client right from day one. The sooner you can show your client measurable success, the sooner you can deepen the relationship and prove your agency’s expertise in additional areas.

5) Pitch ideas — not just upgrades.

Your clients need to fully understand why you think an additional service or project is a good idea. If you approach her and say, “I think you need to spend more on social media,” she might get the wrong idea and jump to the conclusion that you’re just trying to line your own pockets.

Always pitch a new service upgrade in the context of an idea. If you see an opportunity to help a client increase her leads from email marketing, your team should come up with a real plan to help her get there. Don’t just tell her that she needs to spend more — give her an easily understood plan to see where her money will be spent and how it will contribute to the overall success of her business.

6) Time upsells with project milestones.

Finding the perfect way to approach a client about additional services and projects can be tricky, but it’s really all about the timing. After the completion of a successful project or a big milestone (e.g., reaching a new lead goal), take the chance to step back and ask your client, “What’s next?”

Conversations about the future offer a natural opportunity to bring up new ideas and projects you want to accomplish with your client. Pitching an upsell is especially effective after enabling a big win for your client, since she has definitive proof of your expertise and will be more open to committing to future projects with you.

7) Provide a transparent pricing breakdown.

Put yourself in your client’s shoes for a moment: If someone said you needed to start paying them more money for vaguely defined additional services, you probably wouldn’t bite. In fact, you would probably feel like they were trying to take advantage of you. 

How you price your services shouldn’t be a mystery to your clients. When you’re negotiating an upsell, it’s especially important to provide transparent pricing information. Make sure you give your client a complete breakdown of the new project and thoroughly explain what exactly her money is going to support. If a client knows where her hard-earned resources are going, she’ll feel more comfortable about investing in a long-term partnership with your agency. 

8) Identify trends and apply to your sales process.

Once you’ve successfully upsold a few clients, you’ll begin to develop a better idea of what types of clients benefit the most from additional services. Keep track of the traits these clients have in common, and incorporate trends into your sales process to proactively identify upselling opportunities on an ongoing basis.