Have you ever heard an acronym but you didn’t know what it meant? It can really throw you off your game in a conversation. I usually try to write it down discreetly or, if I have a laptop, look it up online without anyone seeing.

But industry-specific acronyms can have multiple meanings, and sometimes Wikipedia doesn’t do them justice.

That’s why we curated 34 of the most common marketing acronyms and 41 of the most common business acronyms — and put them into an epic glossary you can skim, study, or bookmark and save for later.

The more you know, the more likely you’ll be able to understand and participate in conversations going on around you.

34 Common Marketing Acronyms & Abbreviations

AIDA: Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action

The four steps of the now somewhat outdated Purchase Funnel, wherein customers travel from consideration to purchase. Learn more here about a more current purchase consideration cycle.

BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline

The four criteria sales reps use to qualify prospects. A famous tool for sales reps and sales leaders to help them determine whether their prospects have the budget, authority, need, and right timeline to buy what they sell.

• B = Budget: Determines whether your prospect has a budget for what you’re selling.
• A = Authority: Determines whether your prospect has the authority to make a purchasing decision.
• N = Need: Determines whether there’s a business need for what you’re selling.
• T = Timeline: Determines the time frame for implementation.

The BANT formula was originally developed by IBM several decades ago. We don’t think BANT is enough anymore: Learn more about the qualification criteria set by HubSpot’s VP of Sales.

BR: Bounce Rate

Website bounce rate: The percentage of people who land on a page on your website and then leave without clicking on anything else or navigating to any other pages on your site. A high bounce rate generally leads to poor conversion rates because no one is staying on your site long enough to read your content or convert on a landing page (or for any other conversion event).

Email bounce rate: The rate at which an email was unable to be delivered to a recipient’s inbox. A high bounce rate generally means your lists are out-of-date or purchased, or they include many invalid email addresses. In email, not all bounces are bad, so it’s important to distinguish between hard and soft bounces before taking an email address off your list. Learn about hard and soft bounces here.

CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing

A U.S. law passed in 2003 that establishes the rules for commercial email and commercial messages. This regulation gives recipients the right to have a business stop emailing them, and outlines the penalties incurred by those who violate the law. For example, CAN-SPAM is the reason businesses are required to have an “unsubscribe” option at the bottom of every email. Learn more about CAN-SPAM here, and check out this post to discover what factors affect email deliverability.

CASL: Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation

A Canadian law passed in 2013 that regulates the sending of “commercial electronic messages.” CASL covers email, texts, instant messages, and automated cell phone messages sent to computers and phones in Canada. Learn more of the details on CASL here.

CMO: Chief Marketing Officer

The most coveted job in the marketing organization chart. A CMO’s skill set is rooted in marketing fundamentals but expands into personnel development, quantitative analysis, and strategic thinking. Learn more about what it takes to be a CMO here.

CMS: Content Management System

A web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to create, edit, and manage a website. Helps users with content editing and more “behind-the-scenes” work like making content searchable and indexable, automatically generating navigation elements, keeping track of users and permissions, and more.

At HubSpot, we think COS (Content Optimization System) is better than CMS. Find out why.

COS: Content Optimization System

Take a CMS (Content Management System), and optimize it to deliver customers the most personalized web experience possible. Learn more about HubSpot’s COS here.

CPA: Cost-per-Action

An internet advertising model where the advertiser pays for each specified action someone takes, like an impression, click, form submit, or sale. You can decide if a given action is a lead or a sale. Marketers use it to figure out spending for the desired action they are driving people toward.

CPC: Cost-per-Click

The amount of money spent to get a digital advertisement clicked when running a PPC advertising campaign. CPC is used to assess the cost effectiveness and profitability of your campaign.

CPL: Cost-per-Lead

The amount it costs for your marketing organization to acquire a lead. This factors heavily into customer acquisition cost (CAC), and is a metric marketers should keep a keen eye on.

CR: Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who completed a desired action on a single web page, such as filling out a form. In general, pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly (though there can be exceptions to this rule).

CRM: Customer Relationship Management

A set of software programs that lets companies keep track of everything they do with their existing and potential customers.

At the simplest level, CRM software lets you keep track of all the contact information for these customers. But CRM systems can do lots of other things, too, like tracking email, phone calls, and deals; sending personalized emails; scheduling appointments; and logging every instance of customer service and support. Some systems also incorporate feeds from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others.

The goal is to create a system in which Sales has lots of information at their fingertips and can quickly pull up everything about a prospect or existing customer. 

CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization

The process of improving your site conversion using design techniques, key optimization principles, and testing. It involves creating an experience for your website visitors that will convert them into customers. CRO is most often applied to web page or landing page optimization, but it can also be applied to social media, CTAs, and other parts of your marketing. Learn more here.

CTA: Call-to-Action

A text link, button, image, or some other type of web link that encourages a website visitor to take an action on that website, such as visiting a landing page to download a piece of content.

The action you want people to take could be anything: Download an ebook, sign up for a webinar, get a coupon, attend an event, and so on. A CTA can be placed anywhere in your marketing — on your website, in an ebook, in an email, or even at the end of a blog post. Learn more about how to make CTAs effective.

CTR: Clickthrough Rate

The percentage of your audience that advances (or clicks through) from one step of your marketing campaign to the next. As a mathematic equation, it’s the total number of clicks that your page or CTA receives divided by the number of opportunities that people had to click (ex: number of pageviews, emails sent, etc).

DM: Direct Mail, or Direct Message (Twitter)

Direct Mail: The delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail; also called “junk mail” by its recipients. Direct mail is a dubious investment for most businesses — here’s why.

Direct Message: A message on Twitter used to get in touch with Twitter followers directly and in private. DMs can be sent from one person to another, or within a group. Most accounts only allow DMs from their followers, but many businesses allow DMs from anyone. To learn more about how DMs work, check out this resource from Twitter. 

GA: Google Analytics

A service by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic and traffic sources, and measures conversions and sales. Marketers use it to get to know their audience, trace their customers’ paths, and make a visual assessment of how visitors interact with their pages. Click here to find out why analytics from HubSpot and Google don’t match.

KPI: Key Performance Indicator

A type of performance measurement companies use to evaluate an activity’s success. While KPIs are used throughout a business, marketers look at KPIs to track progress toward marketing goals.

Examples of KPIs include CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), leads generated, and homepage views. Choose KPIs that represent how your marketing and business are performing. (Learn more blogging KPIs here, and learn more about email marketing KPIs here.)

PPC: Pay-per-Click

An internet advertising model where advertisers pay a publisher (usually a search engine, social media site, or website owner) a certain amount of money every time their ad is clicked. For search engines, PPC ads display an advertisement when someone searches for a keyword that matches the advertiser’s keyword list, which they submit to the search engine ahead of time. 

There are two ways to pay for PPC ads:

1. Flat rate, where the advertiser and publisher agree on a fixed amount that will be paid for each click. Typically this happens when publishers have a fixed rate for PPC in different areas on their website.
2. Bid-based, where the advertiser competes against other advertisers in an advertising network. In this case, each advertiser sets a maximum spend to pay for a given ad spot, so the ad will stop appearing on a given website once that amount of money is spent. It also means that the more people click on your ad, the lower PPC you’ll pay and vice versa.

Learn more about getting started with PPC here.

PR: Public Relations

PR is all about getting a company in front of the right audiences at the right time with messages that make its spokespeople sound like human beings, not robots. The idea is to earn media attention, rather than buy it. The goal? To inform the public, prospective customers, investors, partners, and employees, and prompt them to adopt a certain view about the company, its leadership and employees, and its products or services. 

Today, that effort has a lot to do with content creation and distribution. For example, a good PR employee might work with an online newspaper to publish an article featuring their company in an attractive light. Download our free, step-by-step press release templates here, along with a full guide of tips and ideas for effective promotion strategies and answers to frequently asked PR questions.

PV: Page View

A request to load a single web page on the internet. Marketers use them to analyze their website and gauge how large their audience is. 

QR Code: Quick Response Barcode

Scannable barcodes used by marketers to bridge offline and online marketing. When people see them, they can take out their smartphone and scan the QR code using a QR barcode scanner app. The information encoded by QR codes can include text, a URL, or other data. Learn how to create a QR Code here. 

RSS: Rich Site Summary

An RSS Feed is a web feed that publishes frequently updated information like blog posts, news stories, and podcasts. They let publishers syndicate data automatically, which is why they’re sometimes known as “Really Simple Syndication.” When you subscribe to a website’s RSS, you no longer need to check their website for new content — instead, your browser will automatically monitor the site and give you timely updates.

RT: Retweet

A re-posting of a tweet posted by another user on Twitter. There are a few ways you can do this: 

1) You can retweet an entire tweet by clicking the retweet button, indicated below.

2) You can post a “retweet with comment” that includes your own commentary in addition to the information you’re retweeting. 

When you see “Please RT” in someone’s tweet, it means they are requesting that their followers retweet that tweet to spread awareness. Learn more about retweets here.

SaaS: Software-as-a-Service

Any software that is hosted by another company, which stores your information in the cloud. Examples: HubSpot, Dropbox, IM clients, and project management applications.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Techniques that help your website rank higher in organic search results, making your website more visible to people who are looking for your brand, product, or service via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

There are a ton of components to improving the SEO of your site pages. Search engines look for elements including title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links — and that’s just to name a few. Search engines also look at site structure and design, visitor behavior, and other external, off-site factors to determine how highly ranked your site should be in the search engine results pages. Learn more about SEO here.

SLA: Service Level Agreement

For marketers, an SLA is an agreement between a company’s sales and marketing teams that defines the expectations Sales has for Marketing and vice versa. The Marketing SLA defines expectations Sales has for Marketing with regards to lead quantity and lead quality, while the Sales SLA defines the expectations Marketing has for Sales on how deeply and frequently Sales will pursue each qualified lead.

SLAs exist to align sales and marketing. If the two departments are managed as separate silos, the system fails. For companies to achieve growth and become leaders in their industries, it is critical that these two groups be properly integrated. Learn how to create an SLA here.

SM: Social Media

Social media platforms are places you can post links, photos, videos, and other content, in the hopes that thousands of people will see it, click on it, interact with it, and share it with their own networks. Some of the big ones: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

SMM: Social Media Marketing 

When people use social media to market their business to customers, potential customers, journalists, bloggers, employees, potential employees, and anyone else in the social universe.

Download our guide to global social media marketing here to learn how to run social media campaigns for a worldwide audience. 

UV: Unique Visitor

A person who visits a website more than once within a defined period of time. Marketers use this term in contrast with overall site visits to track the amount of traffic on their website. If only one person visits a webpage 30 times, then that web page has one UV and 30 total site visits.

WOM: Word-of-Mouth

The passing of information from person to person. Technically, the term refers to oral communication, but today it refers to online communication, as well. WOM marketing is inexpensive, but it takes work and involves leveraging many components of inbound marketing like product marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing. Learn more about creating a powerful WOM marketing strategy here.

41 Common Business Acronyms

ASP: Application Service Provider

Internet hosting that provides computer-based services (aka SaaS products) to customers over a network. 

API: Application Programming Interface

A computer programming term meaning a series of rules. APIs allow an application to extract information from a service and use that information in their own application, or sometimes for data analysis. It’s kind of like a phone for applications to have conversations — an API literally “calls” one application and gets information to bring to you to use in your software. APIs facilitate the data needed to provide solutions to customer problems.

HubSpot has APIs that developers use to get information from our software into theirs. It’s important for marketers to understand what APIs can do to factor them in to their marketing strategies. Learn more about how marketers can use APIs here.

B2B: Business-to-Business

Companies that sell to other businesses. Examples: Slack, Google.

B2C: Business-to-Consumer

Companies that sell directly to consumers. Examples: Amazon, Apple, Nike.

CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost

This is your total Sales and Marketing cost. To calculate, follow these steps for a given time period (month, quarter, or year):

1. Add up program or advertising spend + salaries + commissions + bonuses + overhead.
2. Divide by the number of new customers in that time period.

For example, if you spend $500,000 on Sales and Marketing in a given month and added 50 customers that same month, then your CAC was $10,000 that month. (Learn more here.)

CEO: Chief Executive Officer

The most senior corporate officer, executive, or administrator in charge of managing a company. This person is responsible for maximizing the company’s value and making high-level decisions about policy and strategy, and typically reports to the board of directors.

CFO: Chief Financial Officer

The senior-most executive responsible for managing the financial risks at a company, including financial planning, record-keeping, and reporting. This person is the financial spokesperson of the company, and typically reports to the CEO and the board of directors.

CIO: Chief Information Officer

The senior-most executive responsible for the management, implementation and usability of information and computer technologies at the company. The CIO figures out how these pieces of technology benefit the company or improve an existing business process, and then integrates a system to actually make that benefit or improvement happen.

COO: Chief Operating Officer

The senior-most executive responsible for managing and overseeing the ongoing business operations within a company. The COO typically reports to the CEO and tends to be second-in-command within the company.

CSO: Chief Security Officer

The senior-most executive responsible for developing and overseeing all the policies and programs that protect the people, intellectual assets, and tangible property of a company. This includes everything from privacy and data protection to environmental security, health, and safety.

CTO: Chief Technology Officer

Sometimes called the “chief technical officer,” the CTO is the senior-most executive responsible for focusing on all the scientific and technological issues within an organization. This role is most common in companies within technology-based industries of all different types, from software and ecommerce to biotech and automotive.

CLV or CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value (See LTV)

CoCA: Cost of Customer Acquisition (See CAC)

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets

A language that manages the design and presentation of web pages: color, look, feel, and so on. It works together with HTML (see HTML), which handles the content of web pages. Think of HTML as the skeleton of your webpages, while CSS is the clothing.

With CSS, you can create rules to tell your website how you want it to display information. And you can keep the commands for the style stuff — fonts, colors, and so on — separate from the commands for the content. They’re called “cascading” because you can have multiple style sheets, with one style sheet inheriting properties (or “cascading”) from others. Learn more here.

CX: Customer Experience (See UX)

DNS: Domain Name Server

A server that translates a web address into one or more IP addresses. (See IP Address.)

EOD: End Of Day

Colloquially, EOD means the end of the business day — whatever that means to the person speaking. I might tell a colleague, for example, that I’ll get her the report “by EOD tomorrow.” In some cases, EOD takes on the more formal meaning of the end of the trading day in financial markets.

EOW: End Of Week

Similarly to EOD, EOW simply means end of the week. In colloquial terms, this might mean around the end of the business day on Friday.

HTML: Hyper-Text Markup Language

The language used to direct the architecture of your website, landing pages, and emails. HTML lays out the structure of your website, from the title and first header, to a bulleted list, to your footer. “HTML is the skeleton of your webpages, while CSS is the clothing.” Learn more here.

IP Address: Internet Protocol Address

A numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.

ISP: Internet Service Provider

An organization (commercial, community-owned, nonprofit, or otherwise privately owned) that provides internet services. 

LTV: Lifetime Value

A prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer. To calculate LTV, follow these steps for a given time period:

1. Take the revenue the customer paid you in that time period.
2. Subtract from that number the gross margin.
3. Divide by the estimated churn rate (aka cancellation rate) for that customer.

For example, if a customer pays you $100,000 per year where your gross margin on the revenue is 70%, and that customer type is predicted to cancel at 16% per year, then the customer’s LTV is $437,500. (Learn more here.)

LTV:CAC: Ratio of Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost

The ratio of LTV to CAC. (See LTV and CAC.)

Once you have the LTV and the CAC, compute the ratio of the two. If it costs you $100,000 to acquire a customer with an LTV of $437,500, then your LTV:CAC is 4.4 to 1. 

MoM: Month-over-Month

Changes in levels expressed with respect to the previous month. These changes are more volatile than quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year and tend to reflect one-off events like holidays, website troubles, natural disasters, and stock market crashes. Compare the average of whatever you’re measuring in Month X with Month Y to calculate the MoM change.

To calculate percentage growth: Subtract Month Y number from Month X number, divide the result by Month X number, then multiply the final result by 100.

MTD: Month-to-Date

A time period starting at the beginning of the current month and ending at the current date.

MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue

The amount of revenue a subscription-based business receives per month. Includes MRR gained by new accounts (net new), MRR gained from upsells (net positive), MRR lost from downsells (net negative), and MRR lost from cancellations (net loss).

NPS: Net Promoter Score

A customer satisfaction metric that measures, on a scale of 0-10, the degree to which people would recommend your company to others. The NPS is derived from a simple survey designed to help you determine how loyal your customers are to your business.

To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of customers who would not recommend you (detractors, or 0-6) from the percent of customers who would (promoters, or 9-10).

Regularly determining your company’s NPS allows you to identify ways to improve your products and services so you can increase the loyalty of your customers. Learn more about how to use NPS surveys for marketing here.

NSFW: Not Safe For Work

An Internet slang term used to warn people that the content they’re about to read or watch — whether it’s an email, video, forum, or something else — is not suitable for a work environment. Usually, this means there’s profanity or inappropriate content, and it’s best to watch it on your own time.

OOO: Out of the Office or Out-of-Office

OOO can be used in two ways:

• As a phrase, meaning “out of the office.” As in, “I’m OOO next week.”
• As an adjective, meaning “out-of-office.” As in, “I wrote an OOO auto-reply so I don’t have to check email while I’m on vacation.”

It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on vacation; it just means you’re not physically in your office. In other words, you can be OOO in Aruba with your family, or you can be OOO at a conference, at a doctor’s appointment, at your daughter’s soccer tournament, and so on.

Usually, when you’re OOO, you set up an auto-reply for your email. Here’s a list of 17 of the best OOO email messages we’ve ever seen in case you need some inspiration.

PM: Project Manager

PMs are, quite literally, the managers of a project. Although they usually don’t participate directly in whatever it takes to produce the end result of a project, they’re there to regulate a project’s progress, figure out ways to reduce the risk of failure, maximize benefits, and minimize costs. They’re also the first point of contact for anything that might go wrong. 

PTO: Paid Time Off

PTO is a time-off policy some companies have that give employees flexibility in how they use their allotted vacation and sick days. Typically, it means a company gives its employees a bank of hours that pool together given vacation days, sick days, and personal days. Employees can then pull from this bank as needed.

PTO is often earned on a month-to-month basis or every pay period, and if employees take off more time than they have PTO available, they then technically “owe” the company for that time — or they can arrange with their employer to take the time off without pay.

PTO can differ greatly depending on the position and company you’re in. It’s best to check with your HR department to get more information on your policy.

QoQ: Quarter-over-Quarter

Changes in levels expressed with respect to the previous quarter. QoQ numbers tend to be more volatile than year-over-year, but less volatile than month-over-month.

QTD: Quarter-to-Date

A time period starting at the beginning of the current quarter and ending at the current date.

ROI: Return On Investment

A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of an investment. The formula for ROI is: Gain from Investment minus Cost of Investment, divided by Cost of Investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or ratio. If ROI is negative, then that initiative is losing money. The calculation can vary depending on what you input for gains and costs.

Marketers should measure the ROI on every tactic and channel they use. Many facets of marketing have fairly straightforward ROI calculations (like PPC), but others are more difficult (like content marketing).

SMB: Small-to-Medium Business

Usually defined as companies that have between 10 and 500 employees.

SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

A SWOT analysis is when a company conducts a study to pinpoint its internal strengths and weaknesses and its external opportunities and threats. It gives a strategic view of the main opportunities and challenges that exist within their particular market.

The outcome of the analysis? A high-level action plan containing the most important tasks that will impact the success of a given department or the organization as a whole.

Learn how to do a content marketing SWOT analysis here.

UI: User Interface

A type of interface that allows users to control a software application or hardware device. A good user interface provides a user-friendly experience by allowing the user to interact with the software or hardware in an intuitive way. It might include a menu bar, toolbar, windows, buttons, and so on. Learn how to create a user-friendly website registration process here.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

Also known as a web address, a URL is a specific character string that refers to a resource. It’s displayed on the top of a web browser inside an “address” bar. Learn how to optimize your URLs for search here.

UX: User Experience

The overall experience a customer has with a particular business, from their discovery and awareness of the brand all the way through their interaction, purchase, use, and potential advocacy. To deliver an excellent customer experience, you have to think like a customer, or better, think about being the customer. Learn more about this mindset here.

YoY: Year-over-Year

Changes in levels expressed with respect to the previous year. YoY incorporates more data than MoM or QoQ, so it gives you a better long-term view.

YTD: Year-to-Date

A time period starting at the beginning of the current year and ending at the current date.

These are just 75 of the most used terms at the moment. New trends are emerging all the time, and the truly best marketers make it a point to continue learning. If you’re interested in continuing your marketing education, consider trying one of these types of marketing trainings.

Got a marketing or business acronym to add to the list? Comment below with the term and its definition.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

Crafting a standout resume requires a whole lot of work.

Not only do you have to write the darn thing, but you also have to check (and double-check) for typos, even out your margins, make sure you’re not repeating the same action verb ten times … the list goes on.

While there are a lot of little things you’ll want to check before sending your resume to a recruiter, some are more important than others.

Download our 10 free marketing resume templates here.

In the name of prioritization, check out the infographic below from StandoutCV for a list of nine of the resume mistakes you definitely don’t want to make the next time you apply for a job — and how to avoid them.

Whether you’ve worked in the industry for 25 years or two years, it can be difficult to navigate the complexities of a career. This includes figuring out the internal politics, processes, and opportunities that drive growth within a company and the small steps and education that lead to defining the different stages of a person’s professional career.

Making decisions about both of these paths benefit from having a mentor: someone who can be a guide, a motivator, and an advocate. And it’s a smart investment for companies to make: According to a study by Jerry Wilbur, mentoring is a significant predictor of career success. Mentees earn more money and experience more satisfaction in their work.

Yet, few agencies consider the impact or invest resources in mentorship programs that can increase employee motivation, happiness, and most importantly, retention. Attrition in agencies is especially problematic. According to a recent study by the 4A’s and LinkedIn, the rate of turnover at agencies increased 10% compared to competitive industries. The report also found that 54% of agency employees left because they were concerned about the opportunities for advancement in their current position.

Creating a Mentorship Program

A clear career path is important but also is the idea that the company you are working for is invested in your professional growth and development. It was this core concept that spurred MEC, a global media planning agency with around 650 employees in the U.S., to launch a formal mentorship program in March.

“Everything we do is to make sure that our employees feel engaged and rewarded and motivated to stay — our intention and our purpose is in keeping great people as long as we can keep them,” said Kristen Metzger, who is the managing partner of people and culture at MEC.

MEC faces a competitive marketplace like so many in the industry, and Metzger believes that those agencies that offer better guidance around long-term goal planning and foster stronger relationships between team members are in a better position to attract and retain talent. If an employee leaves because he says he didn’t know what his career path at the company looked like, then that’s “shame on us,” she said.

In addition, mentorship programs help solve a few common employee frustrations:

Give employees a feedback loop outside of the traditional routes.

There are some questions you want to ask but that just would make for an awkward encounter with your manager. This is typically more important for new hires; however, navigating the internal politics, culture, traditions, and relationships in a new company can be the most complex part of adjusting to and succeeding in a new role. When you have a mentor who is removed from judging your performance, it makes it easier to ask those questions, vent about small things, and open up about fears, worries, and the inevitable stumbles.

Reveal a different side of the company.

Retaining top talent requires some creativity when it comes to growth. Some individuals are happy to stay in the same position for five or more years, while others want movement and new challenges to remain happy. By pairing a person up with someone from another department or team, you are exposing the employee to new knowledge about the way the business is run, people with different ideas and perspectives about the industry, and new opportunities. This is especially important for people who may love the company but have found out that they are just not passionate about their current position.

Increase motivation and performance.

A Society for Human Resource Management survey of managers found that only 2% were providing quarterly or ongoing feedback to employees. People crave feedback, and they need it more than once or twice a year. They want recognition of their efforts and advice on how to improve. And a mentor can provide some of that missing validation and guidance when someone is craving more interactions with peers or people they see an experts. Mentors can provide that push to employees to not only perform better in their current positions but to also take on learning something new, pursuing a side project, or getting involved in industry events.

How to Implement a Mentorship Program That Actually Works

Mentorship is a vague term, which hasn’t helped to improve its credibility. But when done right — when it’s something people actually want to participate in and are given the tools to do so in an effective way — a mentor-mentee matchup can provide huge dividends to the people involved in the program and the company as a whole.

MEC’s program, which has 88 participants, followed these tenets when launching its program:

1) Match people by interests or what they want to achieve.

Metzger and her team started by sending out a survey to employees to vet who was interested in being a mentor and who would like to be a mentee. Many people had asked for a formal program like this, but they needed to better understand what specifically employees would find valuable and useful. The survey included a list of 15 possible topics people would like to engage with a mentor or mentee on — from digital fluency to career development to conflict resolution to work-life balance to mobile media.

She wanted people to see the mentorship program as a learning opportunity and a way for people to gain experiences outside of their departments.

Ildi Conrad, the director of learning at MEC, said there were three key themes that emerged from the survey results: 1) People want general guidance on career development and to network with other people in the company. 2) Employees, especially junior-level employees, want to learn more about the media industry, the various jobs available, and the career opportunities they should consider. 3) People want to gain knowledge about a specific area of the business or learn a new skill that would benefit their career.

The survey also asked people to detail what they would like to get out of the program and the qualities they would like to see in a mentor.

“We matched them on a personal basis,” Metzger said. “We literally sat with all of the results of the surveys and paired people together who were like-minded, had similar interests, and wanted similar things out of the relationship.”

While there are automated ways to do this type of matching, Metzger felt that it was important to hand-select the pairs to create the best matchups.

For example: One junior-level female mentee wanted career development advice and was looking to be matched with someone with broader business experience. Metzger’s team paired her with a senior female leader who manages one of the agency’s largest accounts and previously spent time on the client side. Metzger said they’ve spent a lot of time talking about the different opportunities in the media industry and the career paths available, empowering the mentee to take ownership of her career journey.

2) Don’t force it, but make it serious.

MEC didn’t make the mentorship program a mandatory activity for employees, but it did require that mentors and mentees make a serious commitment to the relationship. All pairs signed a “contract” that stated they would make the program a priority and honor their commitments to one another.

Metzger has heard of only one pair who faced challenges meeting frequently and has connected with them to determine how the two would like to proceed with the relationship. The key is to not to force something on people if things aren’t working — they need to decide together if the pace is manageable and address changes that need to be made to make the meetings valuable. Either way, it must be their decision, she said.

3) Empower the mentee to take charge.

At MEC, the mentee is responsible for setting the time and date of the meetings. And they gave each mentee a Starbucks coffee card so they could be seen as the one “taking out” their mentor, providing a cup of coffee for a valuable advice and conversation.

“We want the mentee to feel empowered and to make sure that they understand that they also own the relationship,” said Metzger. “We wanted to make sure that the mentee, who was really leaning in and asking for this, was equally if not more responsible for making sure that it happens.”

The card also encourages pairs to get out of the office where they can have less formal and more private conversations.

4) Create structure, but not too much.

For a mentorship program to work, it needs to be flexible enough to evolve with the relationship, but it also needs some boundaries and requirements to maintain momentum.

In the contract mentorship pairs signed, it provides a simple framework: Pairs should meet once per month for a year. Already stated was the encouragement to meet off-site, and the survey helped people to pre-determine what they wanted to learn from the meetings.

In addition, the people and culture team sends a monthly email newsletter to participants, highlighting news, articles, and resources that can spark conversations for their one-on-one conversations and encourage personal growth. For example, an initial email highlighted the importance of goal setting specific to the mentoring relationship, while another provided guidance on asking open-ended questions that would spark productive conversations. 

5) Allow opportunities for reverse mentoring.

“I think it’s important to note that the mentor mentee relationship is not necessarily senior versus junior,” Metzger said.

For some, the launch of the mentorship program was a way to learn something new from someone who is on the “front lines.”

Marla Kaplowitz, CEO of MEC North America, applied for the mentorship program stating that she “wanted to connect with today’s tech-savvy generation to better understand how they are truly using and connecting with new and emerging tools and technology.” She joked that her mentor would have to be open to “teaching an old dog some new tricks.”

Kaplowitz was paired with a director on the activation team and the reverse mentoring matchup has been beneficial for both partners involved. It shows there are opportunities for employees to engage with and share knowledge not just across teams or from the top of the corporate ladder.

While Kaplowitz’s involvement was purely voluntary, it is a good idea to get senior leadership involved in any type of formal program. It shows the team that this is a priority for the agency and that there should be no end to learning and professional development for employees.

Retaining the Best

Creating a mentorship program is an investment in the future of your team members. You’re giving them the opportunity to better understand what they want for their career, to see your company through the perspective of someone either more senior or junior, and the chance to improve their understanding of the industry and develop additional skills.

It’s about creating new personal connections that can go a long way when your top performers are considering what their next career step looks like and if it includes continuing to contribute to your agency’s success.

Here’s the truth: There’s no guarantee that anyone will actually read your writing online. You have to compel them to do that. And one way to do so is to create writing that’s effortless to consume.

Not sure where to start? That’s okay. This article will teach you the fundamentals. You’ll learn how to drive audiences to read every word you write. You’ll learn how digital copywriters — you know, marketers who use words to convert people online — get and keep the most valuable commodity on the internet: attention.

However, in order to command an online reader’s attention, you have to first understand how they read.

The answer, of course, is that they’re not reading at all. On the internet, the majority of people are actually skimming. In fact, according to research performed by Jakob Nielsen, of the Nielsen Norman Group, only 16% of people online read word-by-word. Just about everyone else is a scanner, picking text apart for the bits that are valuable to them.

Knowing that, there are several ways you can write to make the process easier for people, ensuring that your message is entirely received.

Ready to learn a valuable skill?

How to Create Effortlessly Readable Web Writing

Jakob Nielsen holds a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction, which means he’s a foremost expert in web usability, as well as web writing. In other words, he knows how to engage internet users.

Nielsen says there are three best practices web writers should know, understand, and embrace. Here they are:

• Be concise: say everything you need to say in as few words as possible.
• Write for scanners: most people scan anyway, so why not make it easy for them?
• Use objective language: online, readers trust facts, not hype.

Below, I’ll dive deeper into each of these best practices, breaking them down and explaining their value. I’ll also prove their impact using an experiment performed by Nielsen in which he used this paragraph as a control:

Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).

Let’s start.

1) Be concise.

Many people, for whatever reason, have a tendency to bloat when they write. This bloating is the product of bad habits, which could include:

• Providing too much detail. This often happens when writers underestimate their reader’s imagination, intelligence, or base subject knowledge. The best defense against this blunder is knowing (and respecting) your audience.
• Repeating similar information in different words: There’s being verbose, and then there’s being redundant. Both have no place in writing because they deliver little, if no, benefit. If you want to stave redundancy, try to keep your paragraphs to a single point or thought.
• Overusing the passive voice. Active voice (e.g., “Harry picked up the phone.”) is direct, confident, and to-the-point. Passive voice (e.g., “The phone was picked up by Harry.”), on the other hand, is weak and annoying to read. Avoid passive voice by ensuring that the subject of your sentence is doing the action, rather than being acted upon.
• Loading on the adverbs. Usually ending in –ly, adverbs modify verbs (e.g., “He spoke loudly.”). A light peppering of adverbs is fine. Overdoing it, however, could give writing the same anemic, feeble tone that passive voice conveys. Fight off adverbs by using stronger, more expressive verbs (e.g., “He clamored.”).

The issue with these actions is that they increase word count without necessarily upping the reader’s takeaway, or value. Not to mention it clutters the message, which makes text tedious and confusing to read.

Writing concisely means not using three words when two will do. It’s also as much about recognizing wordy writing in the revision stage as it is about having the ability to avoid it in the first place. Essentially, writing concisely takes editing willpower. Willpower to cut extraneous words or keep unnecessary ones out to begin with. It’s not a natural skillset by any means, but with practice and persistence it can be developed, honed, and mastered.

Here’s our control paragraph rewritten to be concise:

In 1996, six of the best-attended attractions in Nebraska were Fort Robinson State Park, Scotts Bluff National Monument, Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum, Carhenge, Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park.

The Result: This version of the paragraph performed 58% better with readers than the control.

2) Write for scanners.

Nielsen’s research found that 79% of people scan web pages. That begs the question: If the majority of readers already prefer skimming, why wouldn’t you want to make it an easy, enjoyable, and efficient process for them?

Ultimately, if you want people to read your writing, you have to adjust to your audience. You have to be empathetic and courteous. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Don’t forget that.

Scannable web pages contain the following elements:

• Highlighting. Bold, italicized, colored, or hyperlinked text stands outs, which makes it more noticeable. Just don’t overdo it or the highlighting will lose its novelty and, in turn, its effect.
• Subheads. Clear, concise subheads will immediately tell scanners what they need to know — and they’ll appreciate that. Cute, clever subheads, on the other hand, will only slow readers down.
• Bullets. Nothing breaks up text (and information) as well as bullet points and numbered lists do. Perfect for scanners who love to pluck.
• Whitespace. Blocks of text look daunting and intimidating to readers. Whitespace, like bullet points, organizes your text, giving it a more scannable and manageable appearance.
• Single-point paragraphs. Online readers — especially if they’re researching a product or service — are looking for takeaways. Focused, single-point paragraphs will make it easy to pick out those takeaways (while also giving you the opportunity to incorporate whitespace).
• Inverted Pyramid presentation. In academic writing, for example, students generally start with the foundation of their argument and gradually build on it until they reach the conclusion. Of course, in academia, professors are getting paid to read that stuff. No such luck with Internet audiences. That’s why web writers who start with their conclusion, and work backwards, usually have an easier time engaging impatient readers who just want to get to the point (i.e., benefits) already.

Each of these on-page elements give people something to hang their attention on, something to notice and gravitate to as they consume your content. Without them, your writing could appear too overwhelming to even begin, like the last pages of Ulysses.

Here’s our control paragraph rewritten to be scannable:

Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were:

• Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors)

• Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166)

• Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000)

• Carhenge (86,598)

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002)

• Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).

The Result: This version of the paragraph performed 47% better with readers than the control.

3) Use objective language.

Online consumers hate promotional writing, or “marketese,” as Nielsen calls it. Verbiage like “makes the perfect gift …” or “best in the universe …” is almost universally regarded as empty. So if you want to avoid sounding like a snake oil salesman and actually earn some credibility online:

• Don’t be subjective. When relaying information about a product or service, for example, be fair and balanced. Nothing is perfect. There’s always a drawback. Don’t be afraid to share it with your prospects. They’ll trust you for it.
• Don’t boast without proof. It’s okay to brag … as long as you support your claims using facts. Hyperlinking to reputable, third-party information, for example, is a solid way to earn online clout.
• Don’t exaggerate. Your farm does not produce “The World’s Most Delicious” watermelons (and even if it did, you wouldn’t be able to prove it). It does, however, produce seedless, uber-juicy, ultra-sweet watermelons that won the Blue Ribbon at last year’s State Fair. As Farmer Hoggett once said, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

As a web writer, you don’t want the audience to feel like your copy is clearly selling them. You want the effect to be much more subtle. Ideally, you want them to feel educated and excited after they finish reading. Give them a chance to sell themselves.

Staying objective will help you achieve that scenario.

Here’s our control paragraph rewritten to be objective:

Nebraska has several attractions. In 1996, some of the most-visited places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).

The Result: This version of the paragraph performed 27% better with readers than the control.

All together now …

Yes, using these best practices individually can improve the performance of your web copy. But you won’t see spectacular results until you use all three at once.

Here’s our control paragraph rewritten to be concise and scannable and objective:

In 1996, six of the most-visited places in Nebraska were:

• Fort Robinson State Park

• Scotts Bluff National Monument

• Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum

• Carhenge

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer

• Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park

The Result: According to Nielsen’s study, this version of the paragraph performed a whopping 124% better with readers than the control.

Those results translate to more attention, more engagement and, of course, many more conversions. And it’s all thanks to writing that doesn’t quite feel like work when you read it.

What are your best tips for writing readable web copy? Share them in the comments below.

There are a lot of reasons to avoid display ads. In recent years search, social, and video ads have cruised past display as the go-to ad format for digital marketers looking to give their campaigns a boost — and for good reason. There’s not much to love when you look at display ad performance in aggregate. People don’t generally click on them or trust them, and many are actively blocking them.

However, good marketers know better than to trust data in the aggregate. There’s evidence that display is undergoing a bit of a renaissance. Display networks have been infusing data and machine learning into display to create more effective targeting such as Google’s Dynamic Remarketing, and smarter automated bidding strategies. These changes are making it possible for some marketers to effectively use display campaigns to build awareness and drive leads.

So should you use display ads? The short answer is probably not, but the flowchart below is a quick way to find out for sure.

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Now that you have a foundation to decide whether or not you should use display ads, let’s break down the questions marketers should ask themselves before diving in.

7 Questions to Ask Before Launching Display Ads

1) Have you used ads before?

If you are new to ads, don’t start with display — even though they’re generally the type of ad that most readily comes to mind. Banner ads were one of the very first ways the internet monetized traffic, but there are now many, many more ad options. While display ads are evolving into a more effective awareness and acquisition tool, I wouldn’t recommend any first-time online advertiser start with them considering they’re often more complicated to set up and measure than other ad types.

2) Do you have time to educate yourself on display targeting?

If you are short on time, avoid display. While it’s easy to launch a shoddy display campaign in a pinch, if you want your ad to be maximally effective, you need to take the time to understand all the different alternatives display offers — which include a myriad targeting and creative options. If you’re pressed for time, try-self service social ads like Sponsored Updates or Facebook Lead ads instead.

3) Is your company bought into ads?

If your boss doesn’t like ads, she’ll hate display. Make sure management is bought into the idea of using ads as a way to grow business in the first place before exploring display ads. Display ads can drive relevant traffic to your site, but more often than not, they represent one touchpoint in a long customer journey. Unless you’ve got a sophisticated attribution model built out, it will be hard to calculate accurate ROI from display ad spend. If you need to demonstrate immediate value to your boss, start with a bottom-of-the-funnel ad campaign, which will more directly drive leads.

4) What display network are you considering?

Do you plan to use a third-party ad network that hasn’t established itself yet? Proceed with caution. Some of these companies promise lots of impressions, but bear in mind that impressions don’t grow your business. To move the needle, you need qualified leads, and those only come from a relevant audience. To ensure your ads drive relevant traffic, go with proven partners with great ad technology, such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

5) Are you in ecommerce or have a long sales cycle?

Display ad technology is more valuable for some industries than others, most notably ecommerce and B2B companies with long, complicated sales cycles. Here’s why:

• Ecommerce: Remarketing is a type of display targeting that advertises a specific product or message to a user who has already expressed interest in that product. If you’ve ever put a pair of sneakers in an online shopping cart but ultimately didn’t buy, you may have seen ads like these. Display ads that use remarketing targeting give ecommerce marketers a second chance with a customer they know is interested, and have a much higher CTR than display ads that use more generic targeting. Get an in-depth introduction to remarketing here.
• B2B companies with long sales cycles: With more product information online than ever before, your prospects are doing copious amounts of research before they ever talk to your sales team. Use display and social ads to target prospects who you think are in the market to buy your product. Although it can be hard to measure the impact of these ads, they will ensure your company stays top of mind throughout the buyer’s journey.

6) What’s your goal?

Display ads may or may not be the right choice for your campaign depending on your goal. Are you aiming for awareness, nurturing, or lead generation?

• Awareness: Display ads can be a wonderful way to grow awareness and create demand for your product. While it’s always a best practice to get as specific as possible with targeting, display can provide massive reach. Consumer brands or companies that want to drum up awareness fast can benefit from display ads.
• Nurturing: As long as you are using smart targeting, display can also help nurture leads and prospects down your funnel. Use strategic targeting like retargeting, similar audiences, custom audiences, or topic targeting if nurturing is your goal, and make sure your display ads support a larger marketing campaign.
• Lead generation: Generally, display is a bad way to capture leads or drive a specific action from a customer, like filling out a form. If lead generation is your goal, target only the most relevant audience, and use CPC bidding instead of CPM.

7) Are you running Google search campaigns?

If you’re already running Google search campaigns, bottom-of-the-funnel display ads can be a good complement. First, ensure you feel comfortable with the performance and profitability of your existing search campaigns, and then add bottom of the funnel display solutions like Remarketing Lists for Search Ads.

Display ads aren’t right for every B2B advertiser, but they can add significant value in the right situations. Still not sure if display ads are a smart idea for your business? A test never hurts.

Marketing tactics create different results for different companies, so just because something does (or doesn’t) work for one organization doesn’t mean it will (or won’t) for you. When it comes to ads, always trust your own data.

When you’ve got an important email to write, it can seemingly take hours. You write, revise, delete, and agonize over every word, link, and even your email signature. 

And if you are selling your staff’s time in the form of the billable hour, this can be a huge waste of resources. 

While we’re talking about one-on-one communication, it’s a worthwhile pursuit to create a library of canned email responses or templates that your team can use for specific activities or in response to clients. It ensures that the communication from your team is clear and consistent, makes it easier to respond to requests more quickly, and removes the uncertainty that junior staffers feel when dealing with a difficult situation.

Below you’ll find a starting point for building out your library of email templates that can be customized. Use these to make your client communication more efficient.

6 Email Templates for Communicating With Clients

1) When a Prospect Requests a Proposal

2) When a Client Requests Out-of-Scope Work

3) To Send Over a Project for Approval

4) To Follow Up With a Client

5) When You Need to Push a Deadline

6) To Ask for a Testimonial

Do you have what it takes to succeed in today’s modern marketing world?

As the marketing landscape continues to shift, the requirements and expectations surrounding content marketing roles are evolving. Even if you’ve got the strongest writing chops in the game, you’ll need to find other ways to expand your skills if you want to differentiate yourself.

While more and more businesses are seeking talent to fill communication and marketing roles that require constant adaptation to the latest trends, they often struggle to recruit and retain qualified professionals.

Thanks to outdated university programs, there’s a talent gap, and the next generation of modern marketers’ skills and knowledge must go beyond traditional curricula to remain competitive. So in this high-demand, low-supply content marketing economy, where are the jobs and what are recruiters searching for in the ideal applicant?

By examining over 3,300 job listings specific to content marketing on Indeed.com, Fractl’s latest research reveals the state of our industry’s job market and supports the notion that today’s competitive candidate must be a hybrid marketer — part technician, part artist.

3 Key Takeaways From Today’s Content Marketing Landscape

1) Experience is often valued over academic credentials.

There’s been a long-standing debate on whether experience or education is more important — some argue experience is more valuable than a degree, while others say a formal education is the foundation for a successful career.

By looking at the minimum level of experience required, as well as the highest level of education preferred, the data show degrees beyond a bachelor’s aren’t usually needed, even for senior-level positions. The findings support a Chronicle of Higher Education survey, which reveals the media and communication industry values experience over academic credentials.

2) Location makes all the difference.

Not surprisingly, states well known for their plethora of media giants and tech startups like New York and California had the highest number of content marketing jobs posted per capita, with Massachusetts being the highest at 37 jobs per 1,000 residents.

At the same time, states with growing creative economies like Washington and North Carolina also ranked high (18 and 12 respectively). Meanwhile, 12 states throughout the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley are essentially dead zones with zero postings for content marketers.

3) Hybrid skill sets are becoming more important.

Most importantly, the data found a recurring set of key skills recruiters are searching for in the ideal content marketing applicant. Individually, these skills are widespread in various marketing roles but together, these skills create the ideal hybrid content marketer that drives innovation and engagement.

9 Technical & Creative Skills Every Content Marketer Should Master

Technical Skills

As marketing becomes increasingly more dependent on online platforms and digital tools, technical skills are essential. Familiarity and proficiency of these skills and tools help once-siloed departments collaborate more efficiently, and courses and certifications allow marketers to easily demonstrate their commitment and competence.

1) SEO

At the very least, content marketers must have a basic understanding of SEO tactics like keyword analysis, link building, and on-site and off-site optimization in order to create and execute successful campaigns and strategies.

The complex world of technical SEO can seem intimidating, but Moz offers an in-depth Beginner’s Guide to SEO outlining everything from how search engines operate to common myths and misconceptions. For professionals looking to gain practical experience in technical optimization strategies, Coursera partnered with UC Davis to design a six-course specialization.

2) Google Analytics

Given that the final phase of a content marketing campaign is measuring and reporting performance, proficiency with one of the best and most commonly used data analysis tools is a necessity. Google provides free training, support, and even certification for their analytics tools, including online courses ranging from platform principles to mobile app fundamentals.

3) HTML & CSS

While most content marketers won’t need to build an entire website from scratch, knowing just a bit of the most common and basic coding languages — HTML and CSS — can help immensely, particularly when working with content management systems for everyday tasks like blog posts and landing pages. For quick reference guides, HubSpot offers a free guide to HTML hacks plus a FAQ on CSS.

4) Programming

Not understanding programming basics puts marketers at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating fair budgets, setting realistic timeframes, and knowing the possibilities and limitations of potential projects when collaborating.

Codecademy has been a go-to authority for learning to code due to its interactive and, more importantly, free tutorials. Udemy also offers low-cost courses in programming languages. And both offer lessons for the basics, as well as more advanced languages like Ruby and Python.

Creative Skills

While most technical skills reflect specific, concrete, and practical expertise, creative skills are more conceptual. Though usually learned best through firsthand experience, seeking out advice from industry leaders is another useful way to build these in-demand talents.

5) Writing

Content marketers must consistently produce quality content in order to tell their brand’s story while engaging a target audience and influencing the customer experience. Regardless of the format, channel, or vehicle, writing will always be the core of content marketing.

The industry raves about Ann Handley’s bestseller Everybody Writes, an exemplary writing guide and content marketing handbook. HubSpot also put together a list of resources and tools to help improve writing … because sometimes words are hard.

6) Marketing Strategy

Depending on your organization’s goals, there are a lot of different ways to approach your marketing strategy. However, generally speaking, all marketing strategies aim to unite various marketing and sales efforts to achieve a competitive advantage. Content marketers must understand not only how their role impacts the overall marketing strategy, but also the bigger picture — the strategy itself.

Want to sharpen your skills? Harvard Business Review complied their top 10 reads on strategic marketing, and HubSpot created a strategy guide specific to content marketers.

7) Content Strategy

While content marketing and content strategy are often used interchangeably, both are very different practices. Ultimately, content strategy is the planning and management of content, while content marketing is a marketing approach that uses content to establish customer relationships and position the brand as a credible expert. Still, one can’t exist without the other, so content marketers should be well versed in strategy to avoid creating content with no long-term vision or plan.

To improve your content strategy approach, check out Erin Kissane’s The Elements of Content Strategy for insight on its roots and basic principles.

8) Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is commonly referred to as the end goal while content marketing is the means. Establishing yourself or your brand as an industry expert or authority leader through demonstration is an essential skill in a competitive landscape.

Recognizing the term’s various definitions, LinkedIn’s detailed three-part e-book specific to marketers helps demystify thought leadership and its applications throughout each stage of the buying cycle.

Dorie Clark’s Stand Out interviews industry thought leaders to teach readers how to develop ideas that go beyond self-promotion and perspectives that will inspire others to create an organic following.

9) Brand Development

Brand development entails everything from defining and positioning the brand to distinguishing its value. Taking into consideration the overall business strategy, brand development maintains an organization’s image to build brand equity and ensure brand integrity.

HubSpot offers two great resources for content marketers in regards to branding, an essential guide as well as a free ebook explaining online branding’s role in inbound marketing.

Ready to Improve Your Content Marketing Skills?

Regardless of years of experience or level of education, the most vital takeaway for any content marketer is the importance of continuing education and staying up to date on the latest industry news and trends.

Beyond the specific books, digital guides, and courses mentioned above, there are a whole host of podcasts, webinars, newsletters, and articles readily available. Sites like HubSpot, Moz, MarketingProfs, and Contently are just a handful of resources curated by industry leaders that you should reference regularly for continuous improvement and education.

We spend hours planning out every detail of each campaign, crafting the perfect copy and agonizing over fonts, colors, and spacing. We talk through our personas, target audiences, and messaging. We build emails from scratch or lovingly modify templates so that we’re putting our best foot forward with our email marketing campaigns.

With all the blood, sweat, and tears that go into our emails, there’s nothing more heartbreaking than finding out the message never made it to our subscribers. No matter how carefully we plan our campaign strategy, design, and development, if the email doesn’t reach the inbox, it doesn’t matter.

Making it into the inbox is one of the more ambiguous, misunderstood elements of sending great email. Marketers often mix up a key distinction: delivery vs. deliverability. Though the terms are often used interchangeably, they have very different meanings.

Email Deliverability vs. Email Delivery

Let’s start with the basics: What are we even talking about? Here are the simple definitions:

• Delivery refers to whether or not a receiver accepts your email. This comes before the inbox or spam folder distinction. Can the message physically be accepted in the first place?
• Deliverability or Inbox Placement refers to where that message ends up once it is accepted; in other words, the inbox, spam folder, or another folder.

When it comes to understanding the difference between delivery and deliverability, ask yourself these questions:

1. Can a receiver accept your message?
2. Does it get to the inbox?

Let’s dive into both.

Can a receiver accept your message?

At its core, delivery refers to whether or not a receiver accepts the message you’ve sent. This comes before the spam folder is ever considered. Does the domain or email address exist? Is your IP address blocked?

Imagine your email is a busy business traveler on her way to a conference. Successful delivery would mean that the traveler arrived at the correct airport. (If anyone from New York has accidentally gone to LaGuardia instead of JFK, you know how these types of mix-ups happen!) She then proved her identity with a ticket and passport, and airport security verified her as safe to pass through security to her departure gate.

Similarly, when an email is successfully delivered, that simply means it made it to the intended recipient’s mailbox — and that could be in the inbox or the spam folder.

Did your email get to the inbox?

Also known as inbox placement, deliverability refers to where that message ends up once it’s accepted. Did it get to the inbox?

Let’s return to our travel metaphor. Our traveler has made it through security to the correct gate and now needs to get to her destination.

Deliverability is akin to where the traveler’s flight ultimately arrives. While most travelers safely get to their departure gate (delivery), weather or other mishaps may reroute them, for example, from Dallas to Houston (deliverability).

Deliverability consists of three parts:

1. Identification: This is the set of protocols that prove you are who you say you are when you send an email, such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC). Each of these terms function like your passport, license, or background check. Are you Jane Doe, the hard-nosed lawyer from upstate New York? Or Jane Doe, the collegiate swim coach from southern California? Your ability to get on the correct flight to your intended destination hinges on your identity.
2. Reputation: Your sender reputation is essentially a score that signals how trustworthy you are. Each organization and internet service provider (ISP) might have different scores for you. Generating positive subscriber behavior, like engaging with your email or marking you as a trusted sender, is the best way to boost your sender reputation — which you can do by sending relevant, personal emails to your subscribers.
3. Content: Is your message appropriate for your audience? Is it relevant? Are you combining copy like “Make money fast!” and “Work from home” with poor sending practices like buying an email list (noooooo!) or preventing unsubscribes? Using excessive exclamation points, weird formatting, and URL shorteners can all impact your email’s deliverability based on your previous sending patterns. Think about it from your subscribers’ perspective. If you receive an email with the subject line, “MAKE MONEY TODAY!!!!”, are you really going to open it? Tailor your message to what your subscribers care about to make the most impact.

Identification and reputation account for most of the reason an email lands in the inbox or the spam folder. Think about waiting in line for an airport security screening. If you don’t have a ticket, you won’t make it past the first desk. And if you’re on the no-fly list, you’re not going anywhere.

Delivery issues mean that something may be wrong with your infrastructure, you’ve got faulty email addresses on your list, or you’ve received enough negative user interaction to warrant a block. Deliverability issues indicate that your sending and permission practices might be out of whack, or your email list is generally disinterested in your content.

How to Make It to the Inbox

Now that you know the difference between email delivery and deliverability, what does this mean for your marketing strategy? Here are three best practices to ensure your messages make it to subscribers’ inboxes.

1) Make your list squeaky clean.

Even though we love permission-based marketing, when it comes to emails, permission can expire. A large number of inactive subscribers can dramatically impact your deliverability because they offset your engagement metrics. Consider removing or suppressing inactive customers after a set time or automating a re-confirmation campaign.

If you’re having deliverability issues, it’s possible your list includes spam traps, which look like real email addresses, but are used to identify spammers. Sending to one can indicate poor list hygiene or spammy acquisition practices, like buying and renting lists or scraping email addresses off the internet.

Removing invalid emails on a regular basis and re-confirming your inactive subscribers can help declutter your list.

2) Make it easy to unsubscribe.

It’s a common myth that unsubscribes are bad, but there’s no evidence that unsubscribes and unsubscribe rates via the direct unsubscribe link in your email affect your deliverability. In fact, it can actually help by boosting your subscriber engagement and cleaning up your email list. If you’re sending targeted campaigns to people who want to receive your emails, then you’re bound to increase opens and clicks, and decrease your bounces.

Don’t hide your unsubscribe button. Make it clear and easy to find in your email, whether that be in the footer or at the top. Streamline the unsubscribe process so that it’s one step — otherwise, you’re fighting a losing battle against the dreaded “report as spam” flag.

3) Make your emails personal and relevant.

Marketers and subscribers often define spam differently. Subscribers don’t think in terms of spam filter testing or algorithms, but in terms of relevance. Are you sending content that matters to them? This is ultimately the most important question to ask yourself before hitting “send” on any email.

Email is one of the most personal channels in a marketer’s arsenal. Sending emails that resonate with your audience and leverage the 1:1 nature of the medium won’t just positively impact your deliverability; it will also boost reader engagement and build better relationships with your audience as well.

The landscape of content is evolving. In an age where most advertisements fall victim to the “skip” button, it takes something truly creative to make people pay attention.

It’s no longer enough to simply create a straightforward ad — to shine, content must make us laugh, cry, think, and believe.

There is no bigger stage for celebrating advertising that moves us than the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

This year’s recipients blur the line between marketing and art, delivering pieces of content that push the boundaries of media.

Get inspired by 21 of the best below.

Grand Prix Winners of the 2016 Cannes Lions International Festivity of Creativity

Film

Shoplifters

London-based communications agency adam&eveDDB mashed-up real security cam footage of shoplifters at Harvey Nichols stores with delightfully devious cartoon characters to create this extended spot for the retailer’s freebie rewards app. (Spoiler alert: All the thieves get caught.)

Film Craft

Phelps

This gritty piece from Under Armour offers a peek into Michael Phelp’s demanding training regimen as the champion swimmer prepares for his final Olympic Games this summer. Aptly set to The Last Goodbye by The Kills, the ad was produced by New York-based agency Droga5 and directed by Epoch’s Martin de Thurah.

Titanium

#OptOutside

Venables Bell & Partners created this rebellious campaign for outdoor lifestyle brand REI, urging consumers to skip the mall and instead spend time outdoors on Black Friday. The call to ignore retail’s biggest holiday was whole-heartedly answered by the hundreds of National Parks that opened for free on Black Friday in direct response to the campaign.

Integrated

FU 2016

With the 2016 presidential election rapidly approaching, advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty saw an opportunity to insert Netflix’s political drama House of Cards into the conversation. This ad took the show’s main antihero, Frank Underwood, and cast him as a presidential candidate. 

PR

The Organic Effect

To highlight the positive impact that eating organic food can have on overall health, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute IVL and its client, supermarket chain Coop, documented a family as they switched to a fully organic diet.

Creative Data

The Next Rembrandt

After analyzing more than 160,000 fragments from Rembrandt’s paintings, ING and JWT Amsterdam 3D-printed a completely new piece of work in the revered Dutch artist’s distinct style.

Cyber

Justino

Get your tissues out for this one — Spanish agency Leo Burnett Madrid gives us the touching story of a night watchman in a mannequin factory who forms a connection with the day-time staff by arranging the mannequins in charming displays. When his colleagues win the lottery jackpot without him, something truly touching takes place. The Pixar-style tale was an ad for Anuncio Loteria de Navidad, the annual Christmas lottery in Spain.

Product Design

Jacquard Wearable Fabric

In a big step for the internet of things, the Google-owned Advanced Technology and Product Group (ATAP) developed a fabric that could reasonably be described as nothing short of magical. Comprised of a special, conductive yarn, Jacquard fabric has the ability to turn everyday items of clothing into touchscreen surfaces.

Media and Print & Publishing

McWhopper

This campaign from Burger King ended up bringing home the top prize in two categories after the original print ad launched an ongoing conversation in the media. Styled as an open letter to fast food rival McDonald’s, Burger King invited the golden arches to “end the beef … with beef” at at proposed pop-up restaurant in Atlanta. Even though McDonald’s turned its fellow burger chain down, the Cannes judges thought that the campaign by Y&R New Zealand delivered.

Design

Life is Electric

Dentsu Inc. Tokyo’s campaign for Panasonic poses the question: Can you see electricity? In a series of short films, they present simple but visually stunning metaphors which attempt to address the question.

Pharma

Breathless Choir

How do you maintain a love for singing when every breath is a battle? To promote Phillip’s SimplyGo Mini, an oxygen device, Ogilvy & Mather London took 18 people with breathing problems and helped them learn to sing without wasting breath.

Outdoor

Brewtroleum

Drink more beer, save the planet. This is premise of DB Export’s initiative to make biofuel from brewery byproducts. The ad, produced by Auckland-based Colenso BBDO, is actually a real project — the yeast slurry-recycled fuel is apparently sold at every Gull gas station in New Zealand, giving consumers an eco-friendly excuse to pick up a DB six pack.

Glass

6 Pack Band

To combat discrimination against transgender people in India, Unilever tea brand Brooke Bond Red Label decided the best tool at its disposal was song and dance. And so the first transgender pop group, 6 Pack Band, was born. The group’s creative covers of popular songs such as Happy blew up on social media in India and around the world.

Mobile

New York Times T Brand Studio

In an effort to bring news stories to life in vivid virtual reality, the New York Times took full advantage of Google Cardboard, a low cost VR viewing device. The news giant delivered Google Cardboard to the doorsteps of more than 1 million newspaper subscribers, inviting them to view stories live in 360-degree VR. Check out Displaced, a VR story about child displacement below.

Innovation

Google DeepMind AlphaGo

AlphaGo is Google’s latest and greatest foray into artificial intelligence. The gaming bot, designed by experts at the Google-owned DeepMind in the U.K., managed to best the European grandmaster champion of Go in five out of five games. This is no small feat for AI — Go is considered the world’s most complex and strategic board game, with more game play options than there are atoms in the universe.

Creative Effectiveness

Monty’s Christmas

We dare you not to shed a happy tear at the heartwarming Christmas ad that adam&eveDDB spun up for U.K. department store John Lewis. This commercial hits all the right notes for optimal holiday cheer — childhood magic, true love, and an adorably plump penguin.

Digital Craft

Recollection

For their tenth anniversary, French music company Because Music enlisted the help of 84.Paris to build an interactive, multi-media experience celebrating its artists. The project invites users to click, drag, and tap to change the music on this creative retrospective tour.

Radio

KFC’s The Everyman Meal

This radio ad from Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg presents a series of hesitant men confessing their un-manly traits (“I like cherry chapstick” and “I like Pinterest”) while a deep-voiced narrator reassures them that they’re still men.

Direct

The Swedish Number

If you ever find yourself pondering a trip to Sweden and in desperate need of a tip about night clubs, ice fishing, or meatballs, the Swedish Tourism Association has you covered. Launched to celebrate 250 years since the abolition of censorship in Sweden, The Swedish Number is a simple phone number anyone can call to be connected with a random “Telephone Ambassador” in Sweden.

Health and Wellness

Project Literacy

In an effort to put global illiteracy on millennials’ radar, FCB Inferno produced an alternative version of the alphabet song for Pearson. The video pulls the curtain back on 26 shocking consequences of illiteracy — one world evil for each letter of the alphabet.

For Good

Unfairy Tales

This series of animated shorts from 180LA and UNICEF start out like fairy tales, but reality slowly creeps in; each tale is a real story from a Syrian refugee child, prompting the conclusion that, “some stories were never meant for children.”

Over the past three years, Snapchat has been slowly moving away from its original concept: a place for creating and sharing ephemeral content that disappears immediately after being shared. With the introduction of Stories in 2013, a feature that allows photos and videos to be visible for 24 hours, the app started inching away from that mission.

This week, Snapchat took a giant leap away from its initial premise by introducing Memories. The new feature enables users to share content after the initial photo has been taken, allowing for a more curated (and less instantaneous) experience.

But is this too far away from the Snapchat its core user base loves? Will Snapchat shoot itself in the foot by trying to capture a broader audience?

Here’s everything you need to know about Memories, and what it might mean for the future of the social app.

What’s New in Snapchat Memories

Memories contains four sections: Snaps you’ve taken, Stories you’ve posted, Camera Roll (photos from your phone’s camera), and “My Eyes Only” — a passcode-protected folder for “personal” Snaps. You can access Memories by swiping up from your Camera screen.

Save a Snap you’ve taken within the Snapchat interface by tapping the icon in the lower left of the screen. The saved photo will now be available in the “Snaps” section of Memories. Any filters, doodles, or stickers you’ve added will still be available to edit later.

Memories cuts out the middle man: your phone’s built-in photo library. As part of the Chat 2.0 rollout back in March, Snapchat introduced the ability for users to upload photos from their phone’s photo library to a private message. Memories’ Camera Roll took things a significant step further by building a replacement to your photo library — and Snapchat’s Camera Roll is far better (at least in this social media manager’s opinion).

The search feature rivals Google’s Photos app, allowing you to search by location, date, stickers, emoji, or even objects (for example “sunset” or “surfing”). The “Taken Nearby” section allows you to browse all photos taken within the same physical area, like your home or favorite neighborhood spots.

TBT fans will love “Flashbacks” — a feature similar to Timehop or Facebook’s “On This Day” — which surfaces Snaps taken on this date in the past.

The album within Memories might also be useful to replace and/or supplement a traditional phone backup for your photos. Lost your phone but forgot to backup to the cloud? All your Snaps will still be intact, safely tied to your account. Though photos from your camera roll won’t be automatically backed up using Memories, you can manually move them over. The camera roll is directly accessible without leaving Snapchat.

Snapchat Memories does extend an olive branch to real-time purists if you look closely: Any Snaps that are more than 24 hours old are displayed with a round white frame, signaling to followers that it’s from the past (see the sushi Snap below.)

Finally, the last feature of Memories — “My Eyes Only” — allows users to lock photos more personal in nature behind a passcode. Any Snaps you don’t want others to see can be stored here. (Some things never change.)

Memories will be rolling out to iOS and Android users over the next month.

Why Memories Changes Everything for Snapchat

Uploading photos seems like a relatively small change, but it is indicative of a larger shift in how users will interact with the platform.

Uploads will allow sharing content from other sites, or sharing of highly polished content. Previously, it could be tricky to assemble a coherent and compelling story on the fly. Memories solves for this problem by allowing users to go back and retroactively curate and share their story, moment by moment.

This is a significant shift away from the Snapchat of the past. Snapchat’s distinguishing value proposition has always been a place to share unpolished, unedited moments of your life. Unlike Instagram or Facebook, there’s no emphasis on perfection. Through drawings and stickers, Snapchat encourages users to be silly and light-hearted. The implementation of Memories could fundamentally change this behavior, as users are no longer limited to the Snapchat editorial functionality.

Memories also has crucial implications for Snapchat’s user base. By abandoning their original mission to cater to the masses, Snapchat is cementing its position as a top messaging app and real competitor to the bigger social networks.

Moments will be most appealing to those outside the traditional 18-24 Snapchat demographic. Snapchat knows that in order to capture the “early majority,” they need to win this audience.

People who are more “unplugged” than the typical Snapchat user will also appreciate the ability to snap a photo and deal with the sharing later. In addition, creating a more permanent record of photos makes the app more user-friendly and the functionality easier to understand for the less digitally-native population.

More than 50% of new Snapchat users are over the age of 25, and that audience is growing 2x faster than users under 25. By watering down their previously laser-focused mission, the app will appeal to a wider audience, albeit at the risk of alienating their current audience. Time will tell whether it was a risk worth taking.

Will Memories Kill Snapchat’s Spark?

As many other social networks have done before, Snapchat is attempting to cement its status by widening its net. In this case, they’re trying to become the all-in-one destination for conversation.

This move is the latest of several to pull the platform away from the one thing that separates them from other social networks. In a crusade to take on messaging apps like Facebook and Whatsapp, Snapchat could lose their spark — the “it factor” that helped them rise to popularity so quickly.

In six months, we could be struggling to find any major differentiators between social networks, and this is likely what Snapchat is aiming for. By incorporating Facebook-like features into their platform, they’re betting on users making Snapchat a larger and larger part of their online presence and communication habits. They’re banking on becoming the first widely-adopted social platform for voice, video, photo, and text communication.

However, in turning their attention away from their core audience and broadening their vision, it wouldn’t be a surprise if young users quickly move on to the next big platform that isn’t infiltrated by advertisers.

The Ephemeral Era of Snapchat Is Over

When Snapchat released Stories back in October of 2013, they described the feature as “fun and ephemeral, just like Snapchat.”

The word “ephemeral” was noticeably absent from Wednesday’s blog post announcing Memories. While fun may still be central to Snapchat’s mission, it’s clear they’re moving on from their transient roots.

What do you think of Memories? Do you think Memories will help or hurt Snapchat in the long run? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.