At one point or another, we all need inspiration to do our jobs better. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a marketing veteran who has navigated through years of changing technology or a newbie fresh out of college — we all need examples of outstanding content. It helps us get through creative ruts, make the case to our boss for experimentation, and improve our own marketing.

Most of the time, inspiration is easy to find because most marketing content is publicly available. You can scour the internet or go on your favorite social network to see what your connections are talking about.

But there’s one marketing channel that is really, really hard to find good examples of unless you’re already in the know: email. There’s nothing casual about it — you usually need to be subscribed to an email list to find great examples of emails. And even if you’re subscribed to good emails, they are often bombarding you day after day, so it’s hard to notice the gems.

Because it’s so difficult to find good email marketing examples, we decided to do the scouring and compiling for you. Read on to discover some great emails and get the lowdown on what makes them great — or just keep on scrolling to get a general feel for each. However you like to be inspired is fine by us!

15 Examples of Effective Email Marketing

1) charity: water

When people talk about email marketing, lots of them forget to mention transactional emails. These are the automated emails you get in your inbox after taking a certain action on a website. This could be anything from filling out a form to purchasing a product to updating you on the progress of your order. Often, these are plain text emails that email marketers set and forget.

Well, charity: water took an alternate route. Once someone donates to a charity: water projects, their money takes a long journey. Most charities don’t tell you about that journey at all — charity: water uses automated emails to show donors how their money is making an impact over time. With the project timeline and accompanying table, you don’t even really need to read the email — you know immediately where you are in the whole process so you can move on to other things in your inbox.

2) BuzzFeed

I already have a soft spot for BuzzFeed content (21 Puppies so Cute You Will Literally Gasp and Then Probably Cry, anyone?), but that isn’t the only reason I fell in love with its emails.

First of all, BuzzFeed has awesome subject lines and preview text. They are always short and punchy — which fits in perfectly with the rest of BuzzFeed’s content. I especially love how the preview text will accompany the subject line. For example, if the subject line is a question, the preview text is the answer. Or if the subject line is a command (like the one below), the preview text seems like the next logical thought right after it:

Once you open up an email from them, the copy is equally awesome. Just take a look at that glorious alt text action happening where the images should be. The email still conveys what it is supposed to convey — and looks great — whether you use an image or not. That’s definitely something to admire.

Without images:

With images:

3) Uber

The beauty of Uber‘s emails is in their simplicity. They let their email subscribers know about deals and promotions by sending an email like the one you see below. We love how brief the initial description is, paired with a very clear call-to-action — which is perfect for subscribers who are quickly skimming the email. For the people who want to learn more, these are followed by a more detailed (but still pleasingly simple), step-by-step explanation of how the deal works.

We also love how consistent the design of their emails is with their brand. Like their app, website, social media photos, and other parts of their visual brand, their emails are represented by bright colors and geometric patterns. All of their communications and marketing assets tell their brand’s story — and brand consistency is one tactic Uber’s nailed in order to gain brand loyalty.

4) TheSkimm

We’ve written about TheSkimm’s daily newsletter before — especially its clean design and its short, punchy paragraphs. But newsletters aren’t TheSkimm’s only strength when it comes to email. Check out their subscriber engagement email below, which rewarded my colleague Ginny Mineo for being subscribed for two years.

Emails triggered by milestones like anniversary emails and birthday emails are fun to get — who doesn’t like to celebrate a special occasion? The beauty of anniversary emails in particular is that they don’t require subscribers to input any extra data, and they can work for a variety of senders and the timeframe can be modified based on the business model.

Here, the folks at TheSkimm took it a step further by asking her if she’d like to earn the title of brand ambassador as a loyal subscriber — which would require her to share the link with ten friends, of course.

5) Mom and Dad Money

Think you know all about the people who are reading your marketing emails? How much of what you “know” about them is based on assumptions? The strongest buyer personas are based on insights you gather from your actual readership, through surveys, interviews, and so on, in addition to the market research. That’s exactly what Matt Becker of Mom and Dad Money does — and he does it very, very well.

Here’s an example of an email I got in my inbox a few weeks ago. Design-wise, it’s nothing special — but that’s the point. It reads just like an email from a friend or colleague asking for a quick favor.

Not only was this initial email great, but his response to my answers was even better: Within a few days of responding to the questionnaire, I received a long and detailed personal email from Matt thanking me for filling out the questionnaire and offering a ton of helpful advice and links to resources specifically catered to my answers. I was very impressed by his business acumen, communication skills, and obvious dedication to his readers.

6) Poncho

Some of the best emails out there pair super simple design with brief, clever copy. When it comes down to it, my daily emails from Poncho, which sends me customizable weather forecasts each morning, takes the cake. They’re colorful, use delightful images and GIFs, and very easy to scan. The copy is brief but clever — some great puns in there — and aligns perfectly with the brand. Check out the copy near the bottom asking to “hang out outside of email.” Hats off to Poncho for using design to better communicate its message.

7) Birchbox

The subject line of this email from beauty product subscription service Birchbox got my colleague Pam Vaughan clicking. It read: “We Forgot Something in Your February Box!” Of course, if you read the email copy below, they didn’t actually forget to put that discount code in her box — but it was certainly a clever way to get her attention.

And the discount code for Rent the Runway, a dress rental company that likely fits the interest profile of most Birchbox customers, certainly didn’t disappoint. That’s a great co-marketing partnership right there.

8) Postmates

I’ve gotta say, I’m a sucker for GIFs. They’re easy to consume, they catch your eye, and they have an emotional impact — like the fun GIF in one of Postmates‘ emails that’s not only delightful to watch, but also makes you crave some delicious Chipotle.

You too can use animated GIFs in your marketing to show a fun header, to draw people’s eye to a certain part of the email, or to display your products and services in action. Here are the best places to find GIFs on the internet, and here’s an easy Photoshop tutorial for making your own.

9) Dropbox

You might think it’d be hard to love an email from a company whose product you haven’t been using. But Dropbox found a way to make their “come back to us!” email cute and funny, thanks to a pair of whimsical cartoons and an emoticon.

Plus, they kept the email short and sweet to emphasize the message that they don’t want to intrude, they just want to remind the recipient that they exist and why they could be helpful. When sending these types of email, you might include an incentive for recipients to come back to using your service, like a limited-time coupon.

10) InVision App

Every week, the folks at InVision send a roundup of their best blog content, their favorite design links from the week, and a new opportunity to win a free t-shirt. (Seriously. They give away a new design every week.) They also sometimes have fun survey questions where they crowdsource for their blog. This week’s, for example, asked subscribers what they would do if the internet didn’t exist.

Not only is their newsletter a great mix of content, but I also love the nice balance between images and text, making it really easy to read and mobile-friendly — which is especially important because their newsletters are so long. (Below is just an excerpt, but you can read through the full email here.) We like the clever copy on their call-to-action buttons, too.

11) Warby Parker

What goes better with a new prescription than a new pair of glasses? The folks at Warby Parker made that connection very clear in their email to a friend of mine back in 2014. It’s an older email, but it’s such a good example of personalized email marketing that I had to include it in here.

The subject line was: “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring.” What a clever email trigger. And you’ve gotta love ’em for reminding you your prescription needs updating.

Speaking of which … check out the clever co-marketing at the bottom of the email: If you don’t know where to go to renew your subscription, the information for an optometrist is right in the email. Now there’s no excuse not to shop for new glasses!

12) Cook Smarts

I’ve been a huge fan of Cook Smarts‘ “Weekly Eats” newsletter for a while. The company sends yummy recipes in meal plan form to my inbox every week. But I didn’t just include it because of its delicious recipes … I’m truly a fan of its emails. I love the layout: Each email features three distinct sections (one for the menu, one for kitchen how-to’s, and one for the tips). This means you don’t have to go hunting to find the most interesting part of its blog posts — you know exactly where to look after an email or two.

I also love Cook Smarts’ “Forward to a Friend” call-to-action in the top-right of the email. Emails are super shareable on — you guessed it — email, so you should also think about reminding your subscribers to forward your emails to friends, coworkers, or heck, even family.

13) HireVue

“Saying goodbye is never easy to do… So, we thought we’d give you a chance to rethink things”. That was the subject of this automated unsubscribe email from HireVue. We love the simple, guilt-free messaging here, from the funny header images to the great call-to-action button copy.

Not only are the design and copy here top-notch, but we applaud the folks at HireVue for sending automated unsubscribe emails in the first place. It’s smart to purge your subscriber lists of folks who aren’t opening your email lists because low open rates can seriously hurt email deliverability. We sent out a similar email in December 2015 when we automatically unsubscribed people once they became unengaged, which you can read about here.

14) Paperless Post

When you think of “holiday email marketing,” your mind might jump straight to Christmas, but there are other holidays sprinkled throughout the rest of the year that you can create campaigns around.

Take the email below from Paperless Post, for example. I love the header of this email: It provides a clear call-to-action that includes a sense of urgency. Then, the subheader asks a question that forces recipients to think to themselves, “Wait, when is Mother’s Day again? Did I buy Mom a card?” Below this copy, the simple grid design is both easy to scan and is quite visually appealing. Each card picture is a CTA in and of itself — click on any one of them and you will be taken to a purchase page.

15) Stitcher

Humans crave personalized experiences. It’s science. When emails appear to be created especially for you, you feel special — you’re not just getting what everyone else is getting. You might even feel like the company sending you the email knows you in some way, and that they care about your preferences and making you happy.

That’s why I love on-demand podcast/radio show app Stitcher‘s “Recommended For You” email. I tend to listen to episodes from the same podcast instead of branching out to new ones. But Stitcher wants me to discover (and subscribe to) all the other awesome content they have — and I probably wouldn’t without their encouragement.

I think this email is also quite a brilliant use of responsive design. The colors are bright, and it’s not too hard to scroll and click — notice the CTAs are large enough for me to hit with my thumbs. Also, the mobile email actually has features that make sense for recipients who are on their mobile device. Check out the CTA at the bottom of the email, for example: The “Open Stitcher Radio” button prompts the app to open on your phone.

These are just some of our favorite emails. Don’t just follow best practice when it comes to your marketing emails. Every email you send from your work email address also can be optimised to convert. Try out our free email signature generator now. Check out some more of our favorite HubSpot marketing email examples.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2013 and has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The holy grail of content marketing and SEO is to be ranked in the top 10 on Google for a high volume search term.

If you accomplish that, your site will enjoy long-lasting, inexpensive organic traffic — which is an absolutely wonderful thing. That said, SEO is very much a rich get richer game.

So what happens if you are the poor in this scenario? How can you break into the top 10?

Unfortunately, great content isn’t always enough. In most cases, you need links from authoritative sites pointing to your content. But how can you build these initial links to help boost your content into the top 10 if no one knows who you are?

Over the past several months, I’ve been experimenting with building links from educational (.edu) resources. Using this approach, I’ve been able to push my blog into the top 10 on Google for several competitive and high volume search terms.

Want to know exactly how I did this? Keep reading.

The EDU Resource Link-Building Framework

In July of 2015, my company started prioritizing content marketing and blogging.

Through the first five months, we blogged a lot, but we were really only targeting low-competition, long-tail keywords with very little search volume. Not too surprisingly, despite our aggressive blogging, we were getting very few visitors from organic search.

In January 2016, we published a post: “100+ Job Boards For Job Seekers and Recruiters.” With this post, we tried something new: We targeted the keyword “job boards” — which gets 10,000 searches a month and has high-authority sites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and Monster ranking in the top positions.

Despite the competition, after applying the EDU resource link-building framework, over the next several months the number of referring domains and backlinks shot up.

Because of this, we moved into the top 10 results for the search terms “job boards,” “top job boards,” and “best job boards.”

And our organic traffic to this post grew 85% over April and May. 

So, what is this technique and how can you do this for your site?

How does it work?

Almost every university, college, and community college has a collection of websites with resources available for faculty, staff and students. These are usually simple pages with lots of links that a department or staff member has created.

For example, check out the site below created by Dr. Mark Gellis and hosted by Kettering University:

This page perhaps looks a little old fashioned, but it’s chock-full of helpful links and is actively updated. Best of all, the domain has a domain authority (DA) of 59.

And there are tons of pages like this. 

The EDU resource link-building framework is a step-by-step process for finding resource pages like this and for getting links from them.

In what follows, I will show you exactly how to do this.

How to Build Valuable EDU Links in 4 Steps

Before I break down the details for each of these steps, here’s an overview of the framework:

• Step 1: Create a spreadsheet to keep track of your resources.
• Step 2: Find matching EDU resources.
• Step 3: Evaluate links and collect emails.
• Step 4: Reach out and get your links.

There you have it. Looks simple enough. Let’s get into how to execute each of these steps.

Step 1: Create a spreadsheet to keep track of your resources.

Before we get into finding and collecting matching EDU resources, we need a place to store all the backlink gold we are going to collect in Step #3 of the framework.

Using Google Docs, create a spreadsheet with the following fields:

• URL – This will be the URL for each resource page we collect.
• Contact Method – This will be either an email or perhaps the URL to a contact form.
• Name – The name of the best contact.
• Contact Date 1 – This will be the date that we contact the owner of the resource.
• Response? – For keeping track of whether you heard back from this resource contact.
• Contact Date 2 – This will be the date of our follow up email to the resource owner.
• Notes – Here we will keep track of anything that may be important regarding our conversation with the resource owner.

Step 2: Finding matching EDU resources.

Now that we have our data collection spreadsheet setup, we need to go find some resources. 

We are going to use Google to find potential matching resources. To do so, use a combination of the following queries to identify potential matches:

• “keyword” intitle:resources
• “keyword” intitle:resources intitle:submit
• site:*.edu “keyword” resources

Your keyword does not have to perfectly match the article you are trying to get links to. If your content is really specific, you may want to move up the topic hierarchy and use something a little more general. For example, let’s say you wrote an article about HMO versus PPO health insurance, then you will probably get better results searching for a more general term like “health care.”

However, it is important that the EDU resources you find here are relevant to your article. Relevancy is one of the most important characteristics for quality backlinks.

Step 3: Evaluate links and collect emails.

This is the most labor-intensive part of this framework, and unfortunately there’s not really a better method than brute force.

Evaluating Links

You will need to open each search result and check to see if it’s a resource page that is a likely fit for a link to your site. If the page looks like it has potential, then add the site to your spreadsheet, filling in the URL column.

One thing to note here: The number of outbound links from the EDU page does impact the quality of a potential backlink. Fewer links is better, so prioritize those resources.

Collecting Emails

Next, you need to figure out who to contact.

Sometimes, you’ll get lucky, and the owner of the page will have an email available directly on that resource page. If you do not see an email readily available, then the next thing to look for is a “Contact” or “Contact Us” link. This will usually be available in the top navigation bar, side navigation or bottom navigation menu.

Sometimes this will take you to a contact form instead of an email. This is fine, just add the URL of the form into the spreadsheet under the “Contact Method” column.

If you are still not able to find a way to contact the EDU, then also take a look for links to things like About Us, Staff, or Directory listings. These will often lead you to an email contact or contact form. Make sure you also keep track of the contact name if you find one — although it’s not strictly necessary.

You can try using a tool like BuzzMarker to speed up this process. It’s a Chrome plugin that will crawl a page you are on looking for emails. However, I find in comparison to a human eye, BuzzMarker is going to miss a lot of link building opportunities.

Step 4: Reach out and get your links.

In this final step, we are going to go back to our spreadsheet and go through each contact and reach out to them. This is the tricky part, as you want to be sure that your outreach and intent is very clear. No one wants to help out a scam artist looking to build shady links, so be sure to highlight the fact that you’ve done your homework, and that the suggestion you’re providing is both relevant and valuable. 

To help you understand what that type of outreach looks like, check out the templates I use below:

1st Email:

Subject: Your Resource Page

Hi NAME,

I stumbled across your site URL while doing some research on TOPIC.

I wanted to give you a heads up about an article I recently published: YOUR PAGE

I think it could be a good resource for your page. If you are still updating this site, I wanted to see if you’d be willing to consider adding my article as a resource?

Either way, keep up the awesome work!

Cheers,

YOUR NAME

If I do not receive a response within two days, then I send a follow-up email, which will be a response to my original email. The second email is essential. I always get a better response rate on this email because people feel guilty about ignoring my first email.

2nd Email:

Subject: RE: Your Resource Page

Hi NAME,

I just wanted to send a quick follow up and see if you had an opportunity to look at that post I sent you. If not, no problem.

If you do a get a few minutes, I’d love to hear whether you think it might be an appropriate resource for your career resources.

Details here: YOUR PAGE

All the best,

YOUR NAME

Note the language I used here: Phrases like “If not, no problem” and “whether you think it might be an appropriate resource” help to demonstrate that you’re just trying to help them, not spam them. 

You can use my exact templates or craft your own, but here are a couple of best practices for EDU outreach to keep in mind:

• Keep your email short and to the point.
• Resource pages are created for outbound utility links. As long as your page is a good fit, the author of the page should appreciate your suggested link. Don’t be too shy about asking for a link but don’t be too pushy.
• Make sure you keep track of your responses because a lot of the time you may receive a soft commitment to reviewing your post or linking to you.
• Follow up and re-open the conversation with any soft commitments a month or two later. I did this recently, and was able to score a couple more links.

Using the exact templates above for the outreach I did for “100+ Job Boards For Job Seekers and Recruiters,” I received a 17% response rate, built 8 EDU backlinks, and got social media shares to the students of two different universities.

Why Does This Work?

There are a few different reasons why this is so effective …

• High Domain Authority: Most of these EDU sites have been around for many years and as a result have great domain authority. This is important because since the quality of the sites from Google’s eyes is good, it doesn’t take that many links to have a major impact on your search rankings.
• Low Friction: Often these pages are controlled by a single person, so once you get them to agree to add your link, the turnaround is quite fast.
• Easy Ask: The resource pages you are collecting with this framework are setup for outgoing links. Provided you are giving the owner something that will be of value to their audience, they will be happy to link to you because you are making their page better.

Time to Test It Out

You may be thinking that this seems like a lot of work to score a handful of backlinks, but the reality is, it is a lot of work if you want to rank in the top 10 on Google.

It doesn’t happen by magic. It takes consistent, proactive effort. And if you want to build long-lasting search value with the content you produce, you have to focus on content promotion.

I believe that EDU resource link building is one of the most effective means to do this. Within a few months of using this framework, we have increased our organic traffic by a factor of 10 with a handful of blog posts. And now you can do the same.

I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions, so share them in the comments below or reach out via Twitter: @seanfalconer.

It’s a priority for almost every agency to scale up and attract larger and more prestigious clients, as well as the best talent.

And change is inevitable as you grow, and it should be embraced, but how do you make sure you remain agile while scaling from a small to a medium-size agency, or from medium to a large one?

How to Grow and Still Keep Your Agency Agile

Learn to Work Collaboratively

Connectivity and innovation in technology are changing the way agencies work — for the better — and you’ll need to embrace this movement as you grow your team and number of clients. 

To start with, you should be using a project management tool to make every project visible to your team and where applicable, clients as well. Luckily, there are a lot of options available, such as Basecamp, Active Collab, and many more. Implementing a system like this means that your team and clients can keep track of what tasks are on deck as well as delivery dates.

In addition, collaborating on documents is something that can save time and reduce the back and forth that occurs when working separately on the same documents. I am a big advocate for Google Docs, but there are other alternatives. It’s particularly useful when there are several team members working on a pitch or proposal document.

Remain Transparent

Transparency may not be the first thing that comes to mind when talking about remaining agile; however, it‘s important from both a team and client perspective. As you grow, people begin to feel more disconnected from leadership and clients and from knowing what’s really going on in the company. 

Implementing collaborative project management is a good first step torward being transparent as it allows complete visibility into a project and gives clarity on everyone’s responsibility for each element of a project or campaign. 

Now, what level of transparency you put on the table is completely up to you, but I believe in putting as much transparency on the table as you can. Introducing something such Slack into your workflows means you can make internal communication visible to anyone in the company, and if it’s the right fit for your agency, you can even do the same thing with your clients.

Creating a private channel in Slack for each client will allow the operational team and the client to get a full view of all conversations about their account. This can be scary, but it’s equally empowering. If you want to give it a try, roll it out slowly. Test it with one client you have a strong relationship at first. You might be surprised at the results!

Define Your Culture

Building a great culture is tough — really tough. But if you can get it right, you’ll reap the benefits. This is especially true during high growth periods where the agency team can feel the stress as the limits of the company are tested. 

It’s easy to lose sight of your digital agency‘s culture as you grow and become busier, focusing on delivering more work for clients. But you should make culture a priority, remembering to adhere to your core values. 

That’s why it’s so important to define your culture from the start. As you scale, these values, ideas, and attitudes will be imparted on new hires and used during hiring to vet candidates. This is what allows you to remain agile, helping new employees to immediately understand what the agency stands for, how people interact internally and with clients, and what the ultimate goal they are working toward is. 

Focus on the Business Over Financials

People do their best work when they are in an environment they feel inspired and comfortable in. If you want to build an agency that continues to produce amazing results for clients, focus on the business, not the financials.

I am not saying that you should ignore cash flow. Cash is oxygen for an agency looking to scale. However, the focus should be on building a great agency, not just bringing in revenue. This type of financial pressure can create a toxic environment. Happier staff who truly enjoy working with your clients will do more for bringing in more new business than anything else. 

This can be a tricky one to keep on top of because more revenue and more new business is alluring, especially if your goal is growth. But remember that you want to scale while also staying true to your values and delivering great results for clients. By focusing on this, you can both retain your culture and grow the agency.

Don’t Build Walls

As your staff number increases, it can be easy for barriers to be erected between teams, which often results in a lack of communication between departments. This causes duplicate efforts and can result in mixed messages to clients as teams work on the same accounts but without communicating with one another. 

This is a difficult thing to fix once it’s in place, so watch for signs of problems and try to implement fixes before it becomes ingrained in how people work.

The responsibility for this often rests with the leadership on each team — make sure they are communicating with one another and are working to instill the company culture in their team members. And create processes that make it easy yet encourage different departments to work together and rely on each other.  

Google is no stranger to algorithmic change. And usually, those changes are made for the sake of the user. Looking at a history of Google’s product announcements, usability is usually at the heart of the modification.

So when Google announced its impending smackdown on mobile pop-up ads earlier this week, it came as no surprise that the major reason behind it was to enhance the user
experience.

For many businesses, the announcement carries major implications. Those that rely on advertisements as a primary source of revenue, for example, will be some of the hardest hit. To help you navigate this change, we put together everything you need to know below, from what the update entails to how to prepare accordingly.

What’s New in Mobile Search Results

Back in 2014, Google added a “mobile-friendly” label for search results that were optimized for such platforms — where text is readable without zooming or horizontal scrolling, and links are spaced well enough so that there’s a reduced chance of mis-tapping.

But two years later, Google has found that 85% of mobile search results are optimized that way. As a result, the search engine is doing away with that label, and introducing new mobile-specific ranking criteria.

And now, pages with mobile pop-ups — or what Google is calling “interstitials” — probably won’t be ranking as highly when these algorithmic changes take effect on January 10, 2017.

“Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible,” Google’s official announcement states. “This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller.”

Not all pop-ups are created equal, though, so there are some specifics around which types of interstitials Google considers to be disruptive to the user experience. Some are legally required — like ones used by liquor companies that verify the user’s age — so they won’t impact the page’s rank.

According to the official statement, interstitials affected by Google’s crackdown include the following:

• “Showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user navigates to a page from the search results, or while they are looking through the page.
• Displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content.
• Using a layout where the above-the-fold portion of the page appears similar to a standalone interstitial, but the original content has been inlined underneath the fold.”

Source: Google

What Does It Mean For Marketers?

As we mentioned before, the companies that rely on these interstitials for income will be especially impacted by this change. They’re the ones who, as Emma Hinchliffe of Mashable points out, need that ad revenue to survive. Now, these businesses face a difficult choice: Rank, or profit.

But losing SEO traffic can “crush” these companies, says HubSpot’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, Marcus Andrews. And that makes sense — 51% percent of digital media is consumed via mobile, compared to a lagging 42% on desktop.

Andrews suggests that, if they haven’t done so already, marketers solve for mobile SEO first. The pain that comes with changing a revenue model is inevitable, but shorter-term — and businesses that rely on advertiser dollars, he says, should figure out ways “to make money that don’t totally disrupt the mobile user experience.”

“Google is very focused on the user,” Andrews continues. “Marketers are always looking for hacky ways to increase traffic and conversion rates, and every once in a while, Google needs to make a correction to improve the user experience.”

That actually creates a great opportunity for marketers to think more about the user — both the experience, and what that person is offered. It’s what HubSpot’s Director of Product Development, Nicholas Holland, calls a “forcing function.” It makes marketers seriously consider the increasing overtaking of mobile technology, and what the implications will be on their overall business operations.

Basically, these developments from Google are a giant wake-up call to those who “create a bad viewer experience,” Holland says — especially those who might not even realize it. Now, they absolute must “think through alternative revenue methods.”

But what are those methods, exactly?

First — if it isn’t obvious by now — remove any pop-ups you’ve been using.

“As inbound marketers, we rely on driving relevant visitors to content,” says HubSpot’s Principal Product Marketing Manager, Jeffrey Vocell. “Interstitials, especially interruptive ones, do not provide a good experience, and in many cases actually block or limit the content that can be seen.”

That’s why your best option might be to create valuable content that draws the visitors that Vocell is alluding to. When you do that, Holland advises, you can focus on driving revenue — or at least leads — using calls to action and embedded forms. (And to learn more about converting those leads, check out our free ebook on optimizing landing pages.)

Replacing intrusive interstitials with valuable content is a double-edged SEO sword. Not only are you giving the user what he or she is searching for — and improving your rank accordingly — but you’re also getting rid of the invasive pop-ups that, come January, would be lowering it.

What You Can Do Now to Prepare

If you’re freaking out about Google’s announcement, that’s okay — but please, don’t be. As we mentioned, these changes actually provide a great opportunity to use inbound marketing to generally enhance your marketing presence — on mobile, or otherwise.

Here’s what you can do to get ready for the rollout:

• Ditch your interstitials — unless they’re required by law. Those include age verification displays, as noted above, and pop-ups that let your user know you use cookies.
• If you relied on interstitials for ad revenue, figure out where that money is going to come from now.
• Find ways to generate revenue without obstructing the user experience, and in a way that optimizes your page for mobile. Both of those factors will likely remain crucial to search engine rank.
• Know that those solutions often exist in the content you create. Make something valuable for the user. By gating it behind a landing page, you’re generating leads — and eventually sales — in a much less intrusive way that brings visitors to you.

What do you think about Google’s latest announcement, and what are you doing to prepare for it? Let us know in the comments.

Many schools are steeped in history, which makes it hard to change public perception. Transforming the image of your school or one of its programs can be Marketing’s biggest challenge. But as student needs and the education market evolve, rebranding your school may set you on the path to full enrollment classes.

Creating a new brand identity is an intensive process itself. But the work doesn’t end there. Once your school has developed its new brand and the key messages, you know need to let the world know! Invest as much thought and effort into your roll out. Otherwise, your school’s image is only transformed in your own minds. You need to start letting other people know.­­

Where Do Your Personas Fit?

Did your personas drive the rebranding effort or do they need freshening up now that it’s done?

In some cases, schools may have learned so much about their personas, their pain points and motivations, that they decided to revise their image to better suit where their personas are now. More likely, a school wants to transform its image to appeal to different, more target-rich, market.

Either way, don’t start planning a roll out until you have your personas updated. This includes identifying the meaningful questions and topics your new personas have for each stage of their enrollment journey, and how to frame them in the context of your new messaging.

Need to make your student or parent personas still? Try this free template for schools >>

Translate Your New Messages into Content

Now you’re ready to trumpet your new image to the world. You do that through your content. Start by reworking your SEO and PPC strategies to reflect your new key messages to attract the right people.  After you’ve identified new keywords to target, you can freshen up some old blog posts with a new message spin and keywords. You also want to build out a new blog editorial calendar that reflects the work you did both on new persona topics and your new keyword strategy. 

Your rebranding effort probably includes a new visual scheme as well, requiring a major website overhaul of its aesthetics, text, and photos. An updated website anchored by your new image and messages is worth sharing. You can write a press release announcing the new website and how it reflects the school’s mission and message.  

Repurpose your press release content as articles to go out in alumni and staff/faculty newsletters. Base an email campaign to your current database promoting your new image and directing them to a blog post or video you’ve made presenting your school’s new story. 

You also want to attract new prospects who will be motivated by your new image with a couple pieces of new anchor content. Anchor content is high-value, gated content you promote to generate leads into your database. This could be an analysis of education or employment trends that play into your new image, or preparation and application tips for a certain student population you want to encourage to apply.

You can build a landing page around the anchor content, as well as promote on your website and via social media. With anchor content, you not only get your new image out into the marketplace, you’re actively using your new message as the draw to get the right kind of prospects to identify themselves to you. 

The Roll Out Becomes Habit 

Living your school’s new image extends far beyond the roll out. The roll out is the announcement. While active promotion of your new image as “new” will eventually end, using your content to deliver your school’s message never stops. In fact, as your school brings in classes under the new vision, your school will start to collect the real-life stories of your students, faculty, alumni and school life that reflect this vision. These will all become stupendous sources of content you can use to emphasize and reinforce the reality of your school’s image.

So every plan needs a timeline, where you can chart the roll out steps, as well as how to proceed after you hit the tipping point when you’re no longer in roll out mode.

• Prior to formal announcement: You should already have researched and created a new SEO strategy. You can start seeding old and new blog content with this strategy. Think of it as a stealth roll out.
• Generating excitement for the new image: You might decide you want to share with alumni, faculty, staff and current students the upcoming changes. In addition to newsletter articles or internal emails describing the backstory and hopes of the new image, you can include calls-to-action for them to share linked content through their social media accounts. If you don’t want this to pre-date your formal announcement, time this to occur shortly after it.
• Formal announcement: This is timed to the roll out of your new website, along with a press release.
• In the months following the formal announcement: Run social media ad or PPC campaigns. Continue to encourage internal stakeholders to promote new image content via social media. Publish new blog, newsletter, and email content centered on more personal stories that emphasize the new school values you want associated with your school.
• Further down the line: Two, five years down the line, your new image is no longer new. Ideally by this point, your school is truly seen in the light that you’d hoped when you started the re-imaging process. These are the years where your new image either solidifies or you risk it never attaching. Either way, this isn’t the time to slow down. Especially now that you’ll have a good body of metrics, feedback, and other research you can use to refine how and when you deliver the right value messages in ways that attract prospects and drive enrollment.

Recreating your school’s image in the eyes of alumni, current community, and the wider public is never going to be an easy task. Yet keeping clear, consistent messaging throughout your content will go a long way to staying on track.

Hiring marketers for your company is not an easy job. Ironically, a lot of it is actually about marketing to potential candidates. But the best marketer’s out there know when they’re being marketed to, and are therefore tuning out the old-school recruiting noise.

Those copy-pasted job descriptions filled with buzzwords and new challenges aren’t going to suffice anymore, which is why HubSpot Academy and Udemy for Business teamed up to bring you: How to Hire and Train Marketing All-Stars.

In this ebook, you’ll learn how to focus on career context to attract your target candidates, as well as how to spot future marketing all-stars who will be able to make their mark on your company.

By the end of this ebook, you’ll know:

• How to reach your target candidates.
• How to spot future marketing all-stars.
• The inbound recruiting framework.
• How to deliver on your promise with career training.
• A new model for career training.

Download your copy of How to Hire and Train Marketing All-Stars now.

Not all creative insights are useful.

For instance, if you decided to design a four-story car with one wheel, no one would deny that the invention is creative, but it’s not likely to be hailed as the next big thing in transportation.

Creativity needs to be informed by real perspectives and grounded in a real-world context. If you want to change the way people drive, you need to fully understand how they drive now, what they find challenging, and why they drive in the first place.

Ultimately, good design means creating something that people actually want to use. It’s really quite simple in theory: If you consider the unique pain points and experiences of those around you, you’re better able to devise creative, applicable solutions to their problems. The big challenge lies in stepping outside of your own calcified biases to adopt a more empathic perspective.

Applied Empathy

At Sub Rosa, a Manhattan-based strategy and design studio, enabling employees to escape their biases and develop a more empathic form of reasoning is vital to the agency’s core philosophy and daily practice. Not only have they launched a successful podcast on the topic, they’ve also made empathy an integral part of their office’s culture.  

Michael Ventura, Sub Rosa’s founder and CEO, recognized a deficit in the way empathy was discussed and practiced in agency culture.

“So many of the articles that we read and see out in the world are very theoretical when they talk about empathy,” Ventura said. “It sounds very squishy. It sounds very loose, sometimes a little hippy-dippy. We really wanted to think about how empathy can be practically applied, and what is the process that would take.” 

Born from Ventura’s desire to make empathy a tangible business practice and cultural cornerstone at Sub Rosa, applied empathy is essentially a method of detatching from your personal biases and tuning into the greater context of a situation. 

“It’s fun to have the ‘wouldn’t it be cool if,’ type conversations,” Ventura said, “[But] you can’t blue sky something if you don’t have a perspective. Empathy is a great way of allowing creative problems to be solved with a grounding in the reality that they need to be deployed within.”

An Empathic Framework for Creative Projects 

While it may seem easy to dismiss applied empathy as another marketing buzzword, Sub Rosa’s commitment to empathy is backed up by an impressive portfolio. The agency has worked on high-profile projects for Pantone, Pepsi, and HP, among others. 

Ventura credits their sustained success with a strategic framework developed to objectively employ empathic reasoning on their clients’ projects. Centered around asking the right questions prior to writing the initial brief, the three-pronged process aims to help the agency develop a deep understanding of what a client wants to solve for or accomplish.

“The way we look at problem solving is really across these three buckets — company, consumer, and context,” Ventura said.

1) Consider the Company’s Structure and Culture

To begin to understand where their client is coming from, Ventura and his team ask questions that reveal a client’s cultural challenges and potential structural hurdles in their business model. Is their culture set up to support their objectives? What are their current strengths and weaknesses? Do they have the right team in place?

The goal here, Ventura explained, is “getting out of our own perceptions and getting into [the client’s] vantage — really understanding from the client side: what do they have that’s going to help achieve this and where their deficiencies exist.”

When examining a client’s internal environment, Ventura stresses that it’s also important to excavate their indigeny — their history, underlying values, and central identity. Understanding what’s indigenous to the client and their organization is crucial for crafting authentic work that accurately reflects the business. If the client’s company isn’t actually the most innovative product in the world, don’t make a campaign that claims they are. 

2) Consider the Consumer’s Perspective

Next, Ventura‘s team turns their attention toward the client’s target consumers, delving into their perspective to gain a deeper understanding of their interests, desires, and challenges.

What do the client’s customers or consumers care about? What kind of content do they read? Where do they go out for fun?

“Whatever it might be,” Ventura said, his team is focused on “getting ourselves empathically into the eyes and the minds and the hearts of the consumer, and looking outward from them to see the rest of the problem.”

3) Consider the Greater Context

According to Ventura, it’s not enough to simply make something that people want to buy. “You can have a business that has a good product and a customer who wants to buy it, but if they ignore the context, they’re missing a very important third leg of the stool,” he said.

To underscore the importance of grounding your work in a real-world context, Ventura likes to use the now-defunct SUV company Hummer as an example.

Back in 2008, Hummers were one of the most popular cars on the road. “There was a company who thought that big, aggressive, gas-guzzling vehicles were something to make and something someone would want,” Ventura said. “Low and behold, they were right. There were a certain group of people who thought that car was great.”

Despite their initially enthusiastic niche, Hummer’s business plan had a major flaw: They ignored the rising eco-consciousness of the world and the impending gas and financial crises.

“Unfortunately, Hummer goes out of business,” Ventura said. “Because while they had a willing audience to buy and a product that was interesting to that audience, they ignored the critical third leg of the stool, which is the context that they’re operating within.”

Recognizing Empathic Deficits

Cultivating an empathic practice isn’t always natural or easy, but the first step is beginning to recognize specific empathic strengths and deficits in yourself.  

To communicate these challenges more effectively and concretely, Sub Rosa’s team has developed a series of empathic archetypes that characterize individual components of empathy.

“For some people, they’re an optimistic problem solver,” Ventura said. “For some people, they’re better at looking for the chinks in the armor. There’s a million scenarios in between. What we set out to do was understand a set of archetypes that one would need to embody in order to be comprehensively empathic.”

What they ended up with was a set of seven empathic archetypes: 

• Sage: Be present — inhabit the here and now.
• Inquisitor: Question — interrogate assumed truths.
• Convener: Host — creatively anticipate the needs of others.
• Confidant: Listen — summon the patience to observe and absorb information.
• Cultivator: Commit — purposefully nurture and actively develop.
• Explorer: Dare — be confident and unafraid to take risks or pivot.
• Alchemist: Experiment — constantly test and try.

“The development of those archetypes was a way for us to almost create a scenario where we can play outside of our own biases or proclivities and actually work through problem solving with a different hat on,” Ventura said. “That type of process has allowed our organization to really learn a lot about ourselves as individuals who work and solve problems because we can understand where we most often land in those archetypes.”

As a starting point to figuring out which archetype you default to, ask yourself: Which of these archetypes am I more naturally inclined to? Which ones feel less natural?

Ventura explained there is immense value in knowing where you currently stand: “If someone was very inclined to be an explorer — which is about being daring, being confident, unafraid to take risks — and they are not very naturally inclined to be a sage — which is about really listening before speaking, absorbing information — one might actually force himself into the sage archetype more regularly so that they can have a bit more empathy for a problem from all sides.”

Discussing empathy isn’t always easy — particularly with your colleagues — but these archetypes provide a straightforward and common language for talking about the usually abstract topic. 

“We all speak the same language,” Ventura said. “Everyone at Sub Rosa knows these archetypes and has an understanding of how they play a role in problem solving. If I say to my colleagues, ‘I’m never really good at the explorer in these types of situations. Can someone help me work through that?’, we’ve now created a shorthand for the deficit. We now have this muscle memory and this shorthand that allows us to solve problems collaboratively by being self-aware.”

Feature image courtesy of Sub Rosa.

Lead magnets are an effective technique for gaining a prospect’s contact information. The problem is that these magnets can take a lot of time and energy to produce. Podcasts, e-learning courses, video series, and contests all sound great but seriously, who has time for that?

In this article, I want to show you nine different lead magnets that you can create today by recycling content that you already have.Every blog post in your archive has the potential to generate new leads for your business so let’s make sure that your blog is a lead generating machine.

1) The Mini Ebook

The mini ebook is perfect when you have a series of blog posts about a related subject. For example, if you were running an online pet store then you might pick out the following five posts from your blog to combine into an ebook:

• The 5 pieces of equipment that every puppy needs
• The ultimate guide to housetraining a puppy
• The first 6 months: what you can expect from your new puppy
• The puppy nutrition guide: what your dog should and shouldn’t eat
• The 7 things you should never do when training a puppy

These posts could be logically compiled into an ebook entitled “The Puppy Planner: Everything you need to know to prepare for your first puppy”.

This type of ebook is effective because you are making life easy for visitors to your website. Rather than asking them to find all this content one article at a time, you’re packing it up into a convenient bundle that they can keep and refer back to. The most successful lead magnets offer an irresistible and instant reward to your visitors and the mini ebook certainly ticks that box.

2) The Ultimate Guide

If you’re in an industry that is already well established then it can be hard to come up with original content. Sometimes other people have covered a subject in such detail that it’s almost impossible to add extra value. In this situation I would recommend producing an Ultimate Guide.

An Ultimate Guide is a comprehensive collection of the best articles about a particular subject. The main difference between this and a mini ebook is that you are not recycling posts from your own blog but rather linking directly to other sites. It’s important that you don’t copy and paste someone else’s content into your guide but rather just include a link back to the original article.

In this example Brian Dean from Backlinko.com produced Link Building: The Definitive Guide

Link building is a complicated and broad subject so Dean’s definitive guide saves his audience a lot of time looking for this content. And since so many other experts have written fantastic content about link building Dean also saved himself the time of competing with content that already exists.

Rather than just listing the links, Dean adds extra value to his audience by categorizing them and including a brief introduction for each category. This guide has also been well designed, reiterating that this a valuable resource that should be kept and referred back to.

Do you work in an industry that is already bursting with quality content? Why not think about making your own Ultimate Guide.

3) The Bonus Pack

Offering additional content that is not included in the original blog post is the perfect way to reward readers who opt-in. If you have an article titled “The 5 Pieces of Equipment That Every Puppy Needs” then you could offer readers an exclusive PDF with a few more pieces of equipment that may have come on the market since the original post was published.

In his article “How to go from one Facebook ad to $197 in less than 60 seconds“ blogger Bryan Harris took this one step further and combined a PDF version of the article along with 5 links that weren’t in the original post – people only got these bonuses when they subscribed.

This lead magnet was so successful that 42% of the people who saw it opted-in to receive the Bonus Pack. Imagine the leads you would have if almost half the people who visited your website gave you their email address!

4) The Resource Guide

If you have written a strategic blog post then you might want to consider offering a Resource Guide as a lead magnet. A Resource Guide is a collection of things that help people achieve results.

Dean used this strategy in his post “Seo Tools: The Complete List.” He offered a free download that detailed the 153 tools featured in his post – the perfect resource for a reader to keep and refer to whenever they need.

The Resource Guide could be as simple as list of five books or apps that you recommend. Since it is easier to buy a tool to get results than it is to actually implement a strategy, your readers will love this.

What resources could you recommend to a potential customer that would help them to achieve better results?

5) The Checklist

Instructional blog posts are just waiting to be turned into Checklists – and they couldn’t be easier to create. Just take your blog post and simplify it into a series of bullet points. Next, remove any points that don’t contain actionable advice. Split the list into several numbered steps to make the outcome more achievable.

Bonus points if you offer the Checklist in a printable format so people can physically tick-off as they go. That sense of achievement is a great feeling that people will attribute back to you.

This Ultimate Webinar Checklist from HubSpot is an incredibly valuable lead magnet because of how practical it is. Hosting a webinar involves balancing a lot of different tasks coming together at the same time. This checklist informs you about everything you need to watch out for from pre to post webinar. 

6) The Workbook

The Workbook is an incredibly effective lead magnet, especially for service businesses. In its simplest form a Workbook is a download-and-complete resource that helps people to apply the principles of your blog post to their business.

Neil Patel offers this highly practical Workbook for writing blog posts that rank in Google. It includes exercises like planning your blog post structure and experimenting with different introductions.

Patel’s example is brilliantly simple in its execution. He keeps the design to a minimum so people won’t worry about their ink running out when printing and he has left plenty of room for people to write their answers.

The goal of a Workbook is to have the participant learn by doing. As the teacher in this scenario you are positioning your business as an expert on the matter at hand. With that in mind you want to choose the exercises that you set in your Workbook carefully. Ideally you want to gradually tease information out of the participant so that at the end of the Workbook they can combine their short answers into a comprehensive piece of work – in Patel’s case the participant would have had a complete blog post written by the time they finished.

A Workbook is the perfect stepping stone to your premium products or services so be sure to include a strong call to action at the end which clearly tells the participant how you can help them to apply their new found knowledge.

Is there a particular subject that you could help you audience understand more clearly with a Workbook?

7) The Secret

One of the best lead magnets that I have ever seen was produced by Tim Soulo. It was so effective that I immediately opted-in without thinking. Suolo had written a blog post about sending an outreach email to well known blogger Rand Fishkin. His call-to-action was:

This call-to-action was pitch perfect because it got me curious. I just had to know what the email subject was. I also knew that it would be a relatively short read so I wouldn’t have to commit to a lengthy ebook – lazy I know but that’s human nature sometimes!

Suolo’s lead magnet is just 1 page and was just made with a standard Word Processor. There was no point in spending time or money on the design in this case because the secret is the only thing that matters.

I blurred out the tell-tale image and text in the above screenshot – if you want to know Suolo’s secret then you’ll just have to download the lead magnet!

Do you have any behind the scenes insights to a blog post that are compelling enough to offer as a downloadable secret?

8) The Cheat Sheet

If your blog post covers a complicated topic then it might be a good idea to offer readers a one-page sheet that they can refer back to when they need to refresh their memory. This could be a glossary of terms or just a brief summary of some key points.

This type of download-and-keep resource takes the pressure off readers so they don’t have to memorize or implement your strategy immediately. It does compel readers to opt-in to your list though which is the ultimate aim.

In this example, Jay Acunzo offers a Visual Cheat-Sheet for Editing to Help You Move Faster. The goal here is to help his readers to edit their work while still moving quickly through the process. A Cheat Sheet is the perfect resource here because the compact format means that people can quickly glance at it while they are going through the edit process. It really is a complementary tool for an existing process.

9) The Guestbook

If you have used guest blogging as a backlink strategy then you probably agreed to not republish that particular post on your own blog. This is fairly common as Google punishes sites that duplicate content so it’s in nobody’s best interests.

What you can do though is compile all these guest posts into a book format. Since the content will be gated behind a lead capture form there is no risk of Google flagging it as duplicate content and you get to squeeze a little bit of extra value from that content you worked so hard on.

Conclusion

There you have it, nine ways to recycle your existing content into lead generating assets. Since you already have the content, each of these lead magnets should take no longer than 20 minutes to produce. Just think of the all the extra leads you could generate if you added a lead magnet to each blog post in your archive.

With the average attention span dipping to just 8.25 seconds — as short as that of a goldfish— today’s marketers are tasked with creating content that’s engaging enough to appeal to distracted consumers.

With that in mind, Snapchat — a real-time messaging and multimedia app — has become an increasingly attractive channel for those looking to engage the 18-34 year old demographic and grow their brand’s social media presence.

This is largely due to the fact that Snapchat content is inherently time-bound: Snapchat Stories disappear after just 24 hours. This constraint helps command the immediate attention of an audience, while forcing brands to master the art of succinct, interesting content.

And while many brands are hitting the nail on the head in this space, it’s not easy. That’s why we put together this guide to dive into the nitty-gritty of how to create an effective Snapchat Story — and why it’s a feature should be leveraging.

What is a Snapchat Story?

Before we get started, let’s review the differences between a Snap and a Story:

• Snap: A direct photo or video message from one Snapchat user to their Snapchat Friend (or several). Snaps disappear 1-10 seconds after they are first opened, and they can be customized
• Story: A photo or video message Snapchat users can view for 24 hours and as many times as they choose within that timeframe. Brands share Stories to engage with a larger audience for a longer period of time.

In this post, we’re going to specifically zoom in on what goes into creating a successful Snapchat Story, but you can refer to our Snapchat for Business ebook for a more comprehensive look at Snapchat strategy.

How to Create a Snapchat Story

Before You Share

1) Experiment.

My colleague, HubSpot Social Media Manager Marissa Breton, recommends that before stepping behind the helm of a brand’s Snapchat, users play with the Snapchat sharing and editing functionalities with a personal account.

The most engaging Snapchat content is authentic to the voice and personality of a brand, so experimenting with what Stories your personal Snapchat friends engage with will be great preparation. To learn more about opening a personal or brand Snapchat account, check out Breton’s article on how to use Snapchat for business.

2) Adjust your privacy settings.

Additionally, you should change your Settings so Everyone can see your Stories, instead of just My Friends to promote greater visibility for your brand.

You can navigate to your Settings by pressing the icon at the top of your Snapchat view, then by pressing the gear icon, then adjusting who can view your Story under “Who Can…”

Creating a Snapchat Story

1) Take a Snap.

Snapchat opens to the camera view, so you can tap the icon to take a photo or press and hold it to record a video.

You can add a lens if you are sharing a photo or video selfie by pressing down on your face until different lens options appear, such as the one pictured below:

Source: Snapchat

2) Customize your Snap.

Now comes the fun part: Deciding how you want to make your Snap Story unique.

Source: Snapchat

Once you take a Snap, you have a few options:

• Discard your story by pressing the “X” icon in the top left.
• Add emojis by pressing the post-it icon, then choosing a fun icon that fit your brand’s voice.
• Add a caption by tapping on the image or video and typing into the gray bar.

• Add a doodle by tapping the pencil icon and using your finger to scribble on the screen.

• Add a filter by swiping left on your Snap. (Pro Tip: If you want to use two filters on a photo or video, hold one thumb down on the first filter, then continue swiping left until you decide on the perfect filter combo.)

There are more filters to choose from based on where you are located while Snapping. These are called Geofilters, and they provide another layer of individualization and connection with your local audience. To access this feature, you’ll need to adjust your setting first, as shown below.

You can also pay to make a custom, on-demand Geofilter using your own design. This is a great way to engage your followers if you host an event.

Source: Snapchat

• Adjust the duration of how long your Story plays using the stopwatch icon. The maximum length of an individual Snap is 10 seconds, however you can create multiple Snaps to add to your Story to achieve a longer effect.

• Save your Story to your phone’s photo album by clicking on the icon indicated below:

• Share the Snap to your Story by clicking the icon indicated below. This will share the photo or video with your Snapchat friends, or anyone if you made your account public.

• Send your Snap to Friends and share it on your Story by tapping the blue arrow.

When you publish a Snapchat Story, it lives on your profile for 24 hours, during which viewers can check it out as many times as they would like. Most brands and individuals publish multiple images/videos in a string that can serve as the narrative of their Story, live-sharing, or simply a fun collage.

Source: Snapchat

You can also publish your Snapchat Story on a Live Story, a compilation of Snaps and Stories submitted by users at different events worldwide. If you’re near a location or event that is being featured on a Live Story by Snapchat, you have the option to select “My Story” and “Live Story” when selecting the blue arrow to share your Snap. If your Story is selected for the Live Story, anyone will be able to view your photo or video, and more people will be exposed to your brand.

Source: Snapchat

After You Share

1) Save your Story.

Snapchat recently introduced Memories, where you can save Snaps and Stories to your account to prevent them from disappearing after 24 hours. From Memories, you can share new Stories, edit and view past ones, and re-share past Stories on your profile (for example, to commemorate events).

Source: Snapchat

2) Track your results.

Breton notes in her article that one of Snapchat’s weaknesses is its analytics: The only data you can pull refer to views (), replies, and screenshots () — and those numbers are only available within the 24-hour timeframe of you publishing a Story.

To view your own Story and to pull these numbers:

1. Swipe left on the Camera screen to reach the Stories screen.
2. Tap the circular thumbnail of your Story, or the three gray dots on the right-hand side.
3. Tap each individual Snap to view the number of views and screenshots.

By tracking these numbers for each Story, and viewing how they evolve over time, you can glean a rough idea of how your Snapchat influence and following is growing.

Breton suggests analyzing clickthrough rate to determine how many people are viewing every image or video that you share in your Story through to the end. Are some viewing the first Snap or two, but not the entire series? Analyzing these numbers will help you decide which types of content perform best, and how many Snaps you should be publishing in your Stories to best connect with your audience.

4 Tips for Creating Great Snapchat Stories

Content creators and community managers, rejoice: With only 10 seconds available per Snap, your Story won’t require the production lift that’s typical of blog posts, ebooks, or social media campaigns on other networks.

Take advantage of the extra time Snapchat allots you to strategize how to make your Stories as strong and engaging as possible. Here are a few suggestions to get you headed on the right path:

1) Experiment with the format.

Breton suggests taking advantage of the ease of Snap Story production by experimenting with how different types of Stories perform when you first start sharing. Test how your followers engage with:

• Videos vs. photos
• Selfies vs. shooting other subjects
• Background sound vs. no sound

2) Change up the theme.

Be sure to show your followers different things each time you publish a Story to keep them wondering what’s next. Ideas for creative Snap Stories from brands include:

Spotlighting events that you’re hosting or attending to give your followers a look into the innovative ideas your brand is creating or promoting. Here’s an example from the social media team at Marie Claire (@MarieClaireMag) taking a tour of NFL Headquarters:

Providing a behind-the-scenes look into your organization’s culture and products to give your followers “insider” status. Here, the Taco Bell (@tacobell) team showed their followers a list of “menu hacks” so they could create their own unique, off-menu dishes:

Getting out of the office and enlisting colleagues and partners traveling on behalf of your brand to share Stories from unique locations for an added “cool” factor. For example, Marriott Hotels (@MarriottHotels) filmed a team member traveling to different boutiques in Atlanta:

Performing mini-interviews with colleagues or visitors to get a look at the faces and personalities behind the brand, as Teen Vogue (@teenvogue) demonstrates in their Story’s Q&A:

Creating how-to videos showing followers how to use products to drive engagement. In their Snapchat Story, Bustle (@bustledotcom) shared a step-by-step guide to an at-home beauty solution and used emojis and doodles to provide specific instructions:

Highlighting “newsjacks” covering breaking news in your industry that your followers will be interested in, too. TrackMaven (@track.maven) publishes a weekly Story that covers marketing news, such as the one below:

3) Have fun with stickers, filters, and doodles.

Don’t forget the editing features when you’re preparing to share your Story. Thrillist’s Dave Infante recommends using emojis as props to add an additional dynamic layer to your Story, like this:

Source: Snapchat

4) Don’t say too long, but don’t leave without saying goodbye either.

The time limit on each Snap in your Story is 10 seconds, but you can publish a series of Stories that work together to create an interesting narrative for your followers. That being said, don’t tell a story that requires too many Snaps. 

When a Story includes too many Snaps, it becomes hard to follow along with, so stick to the highlights. And don’t forget to sign off: Infante suggests a final, closing Snap at the end of your Story to make your conclusion very clear to your followers.

Ready to Get Started?

Now that you know how Stories work — and what goes into a great one, check out this post to brush up on what some of the best brands are doing on Snapchat. And if you want an even deeper dive into Snapchat strategy, download this free ebook.

(P.S. – Keep up with HubSpot on Snapchat (@hubspotinc) to see what we’re saying, too.)

What content do you like to share in your brand’s Snapchat Story? Share with us in the comments below.

 

If you’re among the 50% of us who check email from bed when we should be sleeping, then you know: We, as a society, are completely addicted to our email.

And you can chalk it up to dopamine — the neurotransmitter that makes us keep doing stuff that feels rewarding. Back in the day, those were things like eating, or having a nice conversation.

But now, says psychologist Dr. Laurie Paul, “the brain can become addicted to other things, such as the internet.” That means getting unread email notifications can trigger the same dopamine path. So we repeatedly check it, hoping for the same reward.

Want to kick the habit? This infographic below from Headway Capital has some helpful tips. (And to make the most of your time, check out our free ebook, 27 Email Hacks That’ll Make You More Productive.)