Social proof is essential to any marketing strategy. User-generated content (UGC) in the form of customer reviews and pictures addresses the ecommerce pain point of uncertainty that affects shoppers and store owners alike, while providing social proof. 

Shoppers sometimes hesitate to buy online because it can be difficult to gauge information about the fit and quality of items without seeing them in person. Conversely, ecommerce store owners are challenged to build trust with site visitors and communicate the sense and feeling of tangible products through the barrier of a digital screen.

Customer opinions and experiences give shoppers the information they want and the confidence they need to convert into buyers, while providing online brands with a gateway to build relationships with their audience.

This is where UGC comes in. Here are three of the top ways that you can leverage UGC to grow your business: 

1) Build Relationships With Your Customers

Customer reviews and pictures build a shopper’s confidence in a brand by providing relatable information and authentic answers to questions that may otherwise keep someone from buying.

Including user-generated content throughout ecommerce stores—such as on the homepage, checkout page and product pages—makes the online shopping experience more dynamic by addressing specific pain points with genuine customer experiences.

Enabling a conversation between interested shoppers and past buyers builds a community around a brand, providing social proof for the products and for the brand as a whole. Such communities break down barriers between individual online shoppers, which in turn creates an emotional connection with the brand and leads to conversions.

Asking customers for reviews is an effective way to engage with your audience and increase retention by making them feel appreciated and valued.

2) Increase Effectiveness of Social Ads

User-generated content is a powerful tool for building social proof and one of the most effective ways to build trust on social media.

Social ads are a way to broaden your reach and influence shoppers while they are not actively shopping. To people scrolling through social media, a often times a brand-sponsored ad sticks out like a sore thumb and is easily ignored.

Reviews increase social commerce by providing immediately visible social proof by including authentic customer reviews and photos in social ads allows you establish a relatable brand image and brings more shoppers to your site.

Yotpo data shows user-generated content increases click-through rates for Facebook ads by 300% and leads to a 50% drop in both cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition.

3) Boost Visibility in Search Engine Marketing

Customer reviews differentiate your company and products from all of the other search results that come up.

They not only attract shoppers’ attention, reviews lead to more sales and in turn to more reviews.

Using UGC in your paid and organic search engine marketing activities such as product listing ads and rich snippets enhances your search listing and makes it more enticing for shoppers to click through.

When shoppers see customer reviews in the research phase of the buyer journey, it gives your product an edge over other search results and encourages them to go to your site.

Takeaways

Happy customers are one of your most valuable marketing resources. Encourage them to provide user-generated content, which you can repurpose throughout the buyer journey, by making them feel valued, engaged and appreciated.

I’ve done a lot of dumb things as a writer. But that’s okay. Mistakes are the best way to learn, right? 

When we make a mistake once, we usually don’t make it again. And the less time we have to spend correcting our mistakes, the more time we have to actually get things done. 

I’ve outlined a list of eight common mistakes that professional content writers sometimes make below. The idea is that once you learn about these mistakes, you’ll be less likely to commit them yourself. Let’s walk through them …

8 Mistakes Even Professional Content Writers Make (And How to Avoid Them)

Mistake #1: Thinking that you can’t break through writer’s block.

Some people tend to think that writer’s block is an unbreakable force — nothing can be written until the block is broken.

The truth is, you can break writer’s block. Some people stand on their head, but there are other helpful tools you can use, too. 

Next time you experience writer’s block, try shifting your mindset. Don’t think, “Oh no! I can’t write.” Instead, think, “Okay, I’ve got this. I’m going to make it.”

Want more advice on how to beat writer’s block and actually enjoy writing again? Check out this post.

Mistake #2: Not editing your work.

You need time to edit your writing when it’s cold. In other words, let some time pass before you go back and work on that article again. You’ll view it with a new sense of curiosity, perspective, and insight.

Not everyone loves editing. I get that. Look at it this way, though: Editing turns something great into something even greater. That’s something to look forward to. For advice on how to approach a piece of content, check out these strategic editing tips from HubSpot’s Ginny Soskey.

Mistake #3: Not proofreading your work.

After you edit, you need to proofread, too. Editing is making those big changes to the content itself. Proofreading is making the tiny changes to the grammar and spelling.

I’ve made a habit of never releasing a word of content until it’s been edited or proofread at least four times. Proofread, and proofread again. You’ll be glad you did.

Before you publish your next piece of content, check out this helpful proofreading checklist.

Mistake #4: Not doing any research.

You may be the world’s most brilliant writer and master of your subject, but you should do a little bit of research on your subject matter. People aren’t as impressed by your opinion as they are by a breadth of studies, data, evidence, and other information that corroborate your opinion.

Get ready for hard work, though. Here’s how one researcher described the research process:

Research is not only a science but also an art and it is not easy. It requires honest and hard work with patience and perseverance. Not everyone is a born writer and authors can fall ill with headaches and backaches during the process of writing the research results.”

Research can be fun. When you realize that you’re providing your readers with insight and advanced knowledge, a simple writing project can take on a new level of excitement. Need help uncovering credible statistics to support your content, check out these nine reputable resources.

Mistake #5: Not defining your pronouns.

Huh? What does “not defining your pronouns” mean? Allow me to explain …

The following words are pronouns:

• It
• This
• These
• Those
• That

There are a lot of pronouns in the English language. Pronouns are helpful, useful, important parts of speech.

What is the problem? Not defining them:

• Those are bad. What are bad?
• That’s no good. What’s no good?
• It’s a problem. What’s a problem?
• Destroy these. Destroy what?

You should define all pronouns either within the context of your writing or within the sentence. Undefined pronouns lead to unclear writing.

Mistake #6: Writing too fast or too slow.

There’s no correct writing speed. Each writer should write at the pace that suits them and allows their creativity to flow. However, be aware that your speed of writing influences your quality of writing.

• If you write too fast, you could make sloppy mistakes.
• If you write too slowly, you could make clumsy mistakes.

When reading, the mind goes over information faster than while writing. Keep this in mind when you write. Your mind easily processes long sentences or big words when you’re writing them. But to the reader — whose eyes are skimming across your content at 300 words per minute — your writing is dull, ponderous, slow, and agonizing.

If you write fast, your brain is moving at a closer equivalent to the normal reading speed. Of course, you should still pay attention to your words, sentences, and structure. But at the same time, you’ll be able to get down those thoughts in a more fluid and natural way.

Here’s how the The Huffington Post reported on one writing speed researcher:

Typing can be too fluent or too fast, and can actually impair the writing process,” Srdan Medimorec, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Arts at Waterloo said in a statement. “It seems that what we write is a product of the interactions between our thoughts and the tools we use to express them.”

A 2016 study from the University of Waterloo discovered, “the quality of your writing will likely get better if you simply type slower.”

Does this mean that you should try to move your fingers slowly, type with one hand, or just trudge along at a lazy pace? Not necessarily.

Each person has their own right pace. And different types of content demand a slower or faster pace. You move at the pace that’s best for you.

In some situations, the ideas and words are coming at an incredibly fast rate. You have to type as fast as you can. In other cases, you might be doing careful research, searching for the precise word, or writing about a sensitive subject. Slowing down is a good idea.

Mistake #7: Not understanding who your readers are.

If you want to become a better writer, become a better student of your reader. It’s actually pretty simple.

Great writing is connecting with readers in a meaningful way. You won’t be able to perform that task unless you get in their heads. I challenge all writers, before putting a single word on a page, to do as much research and gain as much understanding of their potential readers as possible.

The process is as simple as going through the exercise of creating a persona, and reminding yourself of that person every time you write. (Check out this free tool to get started.)

Mistake #8: Not outlining an article before you write it.

Outlining might bring back memories of high school English class. Don’t worry. That’s not what I’m talking about here. 

The process of outlining is simply creating a structure for your article.

I do a lot of writing, and one of the things that helps me write with clarity and speed is outlining. First, I jot down a quick introduction and conclusion. This helps me to lead up to my subject matter, and then sum it up. Doing so also makes me fill the empty space between with something relevant and meaningful.

Generally, my outline simply looks like a few bullet points. My goal is to write down the main things I want to talk about. Usually, they aren’t even complete sentences. (No big deal. I’m not writing my article at this point. I’m just outlining it.)

The whole process takes me ten minutes or so, but it saves me hours of time. Plus, it gives my article more clarity.

Ready to Write?

Writing better is about blowing apart old habits and horrible mistakes. Even though I’ve been writing almost every day for ten years, I still make mistakes. Hopefully, my mistakes are becoming fewer and fewer, but I still catch myself making them sometimes.

At the same time, however, I feel like I’m improving. And that’s what becoming a better writer is all about.

What about you? What mistakes are you eliminating in order to improve your writing?

Native advertising is on the rise for publishers—and that’s a good thing. In recent years, media companies have been dealing with the perfect storm: industry-wide programmatic ad revenues are on the decline while ad blocking is on the rise. The bottom line for these trends is that consumers are extremely picky about their online experiences. Readers want and will always want great content, but they don’t ads to interrupt their browsing experiences.

That’s where native enters the picture. Rather than interrupting natural browsing patterns, media leaders can instead, connect advertisers with readers through engaging content. The end result will be a browsing experience that feels natural rather than forced or salesy. And believe it or not, the value proposition that native advertising brings to the table is about to become even better.

As native advertising strategies become more refined, so are publishers’ personalization and targeting capabilities. If you’re part of a marketing team at a media company, you’re likely collecting data around your audience’s browsing patterns and preferences. Why not reinvest this information into the native ad packages that you’re offering your advertisers?

Stay ahead of the publishing industry curve by using the data that you’re already collecting. Here’s how you can use audience data to power your native ads:

Define a More Granular Audience

In today’s marketing context, 1:1 is the name of the game.

Instead of helping your advertisers cast their nets wide, why not help them build a deeper, stronger rapport with a specific audience subset? For instance, you may be a consumer-facing publication with an equal distribution of male and female readers. A beauty company may come to your media company looking to provide education around makeup products.

With this example campaign, you may think that the right approach is to target all women. But you may be ignoring the individuals who self-identify as women, even though their birth gender is male. You might also be casting your net too wide in targeting women who don’t wear makeup.

Why not personalize your native ad campaign to audiences who have read make-up related content in the past, regardless of where they fall on the demographic spectrum?

For more on audience segmentation, download our free ebook: Personalize or Perish >> 

Choose Topics that Resonate 

One of the biggest challenges that marketers face when designing a native ad campaign is ideation: choose the wrong topic, and your entire strategy will flop. Instead of relying on guesswork, use the data that you’re already collecting to better align your advertisers with their target audiences. 

Start by defining the group of readers who you’re aiming to reach, and then do some research around their browsing habits. What types of headlines do they find engaging? Which stories generate the most engagement? What types of content are they likely to share?

Align these natural sharing patterns with your advertisers’ marketing goals. Use data to choose the right topic.

Examine Likelihoods of a Conversion Event

Let’s say that you’re working with an advertiser who is looking to drive sign-ups to a free trial from a sponsored article. Instead of casting your net wide and targeting everyone, why not serve your ad to audiences who’ve demonstrated signs of engagement in the past? 

Don’t target your native ads to audiences who never read sponsored articles. Instead, focus on the readers who: 

• Have engaged with or shared sponsored content in the past
• Regularly sign up for offers and freebies
• Show the same patterns of engagement that your advertisers are looking to optimize
• Are self-volunteering information about themselves
• Enjoy engaging with your media company’s email lists

Using this data, you can connect your advertisers to audiences who are likely to convert rather than passerbyers who aren’t interested. With this level of precision, everyone wins: advertisers reach their highest value audiences, and readers only see relevant native ads.

Get Precise Around Actions

In addition to reaching your target audiences, you can optimize your reading experiences around the specific actions that you want your readers to take. For instance, you may notice that in one of your audience segments, group A is more likely to redeem an offer than group B but that group B is more likely to spend time engaging with and sharing sponsored content than group A.

Why not use these user behavior nuances to create more advertiser value? Instead of creating one-size-fits-all native ad campaigns, use your on-site marketing data to provide different types of offerings for the following types of marketing goals:

• Top of funnel brand building
• Lead generation
• Engagement 

You can also use your native ad units as data collection opportunities for your advertisers. Package the information you’re generating into follow-up or off-platform marketing audiences. Position your media brand as a company that supports the full marketing lifecycle in building a long-term relationship with readers.

Keep Learning and Iterating

The advertising landscape moves quickly. Maximize the value of your campaigns by learning from and building upon the data that you’re gathering. Follow the progress of your campaigns, long after they’ve launched, so you understand the results that your native ads are delivering across the conversion funnel. Improve upon your efforts over time.

As an inbound marketer with only so much budget to spend on pay-per-click advertising, you want to get the most bang for your buck. That’s why many marketers are choosing to spend a portion of that budget on Google AdWords.

With over 2 billion searches every single day, Google is by far the most used search engine on the web — and your customers and prospects are likely using it to search for content related to your business.

How can Google AdWords improve your marketing ROI? Check out the infographic below from SMBclix to learn how Google AdWords can help you get more out of your marketing dollars. (Download this beginner’s guide to using Google AdWords to get started.)

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.

Ideas don’t sell themselves — no matter how good they are.

If you want to create the kinds of creative and marketing campaigns you’re always talking about with your colleagues — you know, the ones that push the limits of your team, show off your skills, and provide those impressive results your clients want — then you need to get better at convincing others of the value of your ideas. It’s time to embrace the persuasive skills of a salesperson.

To get your clients to say “yes” more often, follow these tips to increase your persuasive powers.

How to Sell Your Ideas

1) Make the other person comfortable.

According to Oren Klaff, author of Pitch Anything, the person you’re trying to convince has to feel at ease before you begin presenting your idea. Otherwise, you’ll never stand a chance.

“In the vast majority of cases, they don’t [feel at ease] because they don’t know how long they’re going to be stuck listening to you, and you’re a stranger,” wrote Klaff in the book. “Most people just don’t want to sit through an hour-long pitch. To put them at ease, I have a simple solution: It’s called the time-constraint pattern.”

In other words, he tells the persone exactly how long his pitch is going to be before he gives it. Here’s an example from Klaff: “‘Guys, let’s get started. I’ve only got about 20 minutes to give you the big idea, which will leave us some time to talk it over before I have to get out of here.'”

Presenters need to master attention and time, not the details, by respecting an audience’s limits, he says. This approach also plays into anticipation, which will drive your clients to remain focused because they know how long they have to wait for the big idea and the conclusion of the meeting.

2) Use data to back it up.

The person you’re talking to may want be in a great position to invest, but they don’t want to spend their resources on just anything — and especially not the wrong idea. It’s your job to convince them that your idea is the right and best idea for getting the results they want.

Data is one of the best ways to make it easy for the client to say “yes.” With data from either previous tests you ran on the client’s behalf, another brand’s successful marketing experiment, or your previous clients’ results, you can easily prove the value and the potential ROI from the investment in the idea.

By providing data, you are also increasing the trust between you and the client, and it gives her the information she needs to convince her bosses this is the right decision. (To get you started, here are some of the best tools for gathering accurate and compelling data.)

3) Provide case studies.

If you pair data with highlights from a case study, you’ll be an even more powerful persuader and a more credible presenter.

According to Agency Management Institute, one of the biggest influencers in the agency selection process is industry expertise, and case studies are the perfect vehicle for showcasing past successes and your in-depth knowledge of the client’s industry or business.

Case studies are influential throughout the entire buying process because they show that you can do what you say you can do. They help someone better understand what it might be like to work with your team, the quality of the work you create, the results previous clients have experienced, and your processes.

By providing folks with access to case studies — either in the proposal or during a pitch — you can increase your credibility and help the client to imagine what it would be like to work with your firm.

4) Pitch it like you’re telling a story.

No one really wants to sit through a pitch. They want ideas, they want to be convinced, and they want to know that you understand their business and what it needs. But being subjected to a 100-slide PowerPoint presentation is not anyone’s definition of exciting.

Instead of relying on densely packed slides full of steps, ideas, data points, forget the slides — or include only the most essential ones — and pitch the idea by telling a narrative. Captivate their attention through a story.

This most likely means you need an experience with their brand. It could be as simple as describing your visit to the retail location or retelling a story you uncovered by interviewing the brand’s customer service rep. Put them in a frame of mind that readies them for the solution. Build tension, describe interesting characters, and highlight the challenge. Then provide the answer and all the supporting research, information, or creative.

5) Focus on them.

There are too many late nights to count. You spent hours and hours coming up with idea after idea. There were discussions that bordered on arguments. People gave up time with their families and friends to make this person a priority.

But they don’t care. They’re only really concerned with them and their company’s needs, their job, how they’re going to look to their manager or CEO, and so on. You are there to bring them an idea that will make them look good. Your job is to convince them that you or your team can help them achieve their goals within a certain budget and timeframe.

While you might think detailing all the hours and effort you put into the idea/concept/pitch shows your dedication and commitment, it’s irrelevant and distracting. No one cares how long it took you to come to a solution — as long as there is a solution, and it’s the right one.

6) Make it simple.

In one study, researchers replaced shorter words with longer words in college essays. Participants then rated the essays based on how intelligent they thought the authors were. They found that those who used shorter words — more simple language — were perceived as being more intelligent.

Using shorter words, more straightforward language, and explaining things simply and clearly makes people seem more likeable and smart.

Don’t assume that using complex, jargon-filled language is going to either impress the client or confuse them into buying something they don’t understand.

As David Ogilvy said, “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.”

7) Lead them to the answer.

Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion gives hundreds of inbound marketing workshops and speeches each year. And he believes that presenters need a better understanding of how people process information and come to a decision.

An approach he uses in workshops is called the Columbus Principle, which is the idea that “everyone wants to feel like they are the one that discovered America.”

You ask people question after question after question that slowly leads the person to the right answer. People want to make their own decisions — but by employing this strategy, you can help to guide their thought process and instead of telling, you lead them to understanding that your solution is the right solution.

Remember: When you try to make a hard sale, people naturally try to come up with reasons why something wouldn’t work or why this isn’t a good idea. With this approach, people are more likely to embrace the idea because they think they discovered it (albeit through your guidance, of course).

Whenever you watch an episode of Shark Tank, there always seems to be at least one product an entrepreneur pitches that makes you go: “Whaaa?”

That’s a big part of Shark Tank‘s appeal. If every product (or service) that got pitched on the show was perfectly reasonable, and perfectly matched to some target market, the show’s ratings would likely plummet. I mean, just imagine the tagline for a show like that: “Shark Tank: The show where entrepreneurs with realistic expectations pitch sensible products based on extensive market research.”

To keep things interesting, the show’s producers will sprinkle in the odd product … like Pet Paint, for example, which is “colored hairspray for your dog.” (Although to be fair, Barbara Corcoran did make an offer.) Or, Squirrel Boss, which is a bird feeder that has the added functionality of being able to electrocute squirrels at the push of a button. (No, seriously.)

Every once in a while, however, one of these seemingly strange Shark Tank products will land an investment. Don’t believe it? Check out eight of the weirdest products that actually got investments below. 

8 of the Weirdest Shark Tank Products That Got Investments

1) Custom cat drawings (I Want to Draw a Cat for You)

In season three of Shark Tank, billionaire Mark Cuban put up $25 thousand for a 33% stake in a company that sells custom drawings of cats.

This is a fact. This really happened. There is video evidence.

Entrepreneur/professional-stick-figure-cat-artist Steve Gadlin had a dream: To bring custom cat art to every home, using the power of the internet. Mark Cuban, no doubt, believed in that dream.

As the I Want to Draw a Cat for You website still reads (even though the company recently went out of business), Gadlin and his team would create — for $29.95– any cartoon cat configuration you desired:

Want two cats getting married on a beach? A ninja cat fighting a giant talking pickle? A cat on a unicorn leaping over a rainbow? You’re the boss!”

(Source: Groupon)

2) Light-up rave gloves (EmazingLights)

It was like something out of a science-fiction movie when entrepreneur Brian Lim — donning an oversized cartoon head — walked into the tank. The lights inside the studio went dim, and then a group of gloved dancers began moving their hands, their fingertips glowing and swirling in a brilliant display of colors.

Welcome to the world of “gloving”: A modern dance style that involves wearing gloves that have LED-illuminated fingertips. Lim’s company, EmazingLights, makes these futuristic gloves. And while you might think that the “sharks” would’ve scoffed at or dismissed the product as a novelty, they all ended up wanting a piece. (The fact that EmazingLights had $7 million in annual revenue at the time certainly helped Lim’s cause.)

The $650K deal ultimately went to Daymond John and Mark Cuban. The two “sharks” received 5% of the company, plus a 20% commission on any future licensing deals.

(Source: CNN)

3) A potty training system for cats (CitiKitty)

This is another one of those products where I feel obligated to state: Yes, this is a real product that exists in the world and is available for purchase.

Now that any remaining disbelief has hopefully been suspended, let’s dive into the concept a bit more. CitiKitty is basically a litter box that you put over your toilet seat. Once your cat becomes accustomed to doing its business there, you can remove the inner part of the litter box, section by section, over time. By the end of the training period, the litter box is completely gone and your cat can (ideally) use the toilet like a human.

And while it might seem a little strange to some, former “shark” Kevin Harrington pounced on the idea, making a deal with CitiKitty founder Rebecca Rescate worth $100 thousand. Harrington received a 20% equity stake in the company.

(Source: citikitty.com)

4) A sports bra with built-in waterproof pockets (Boobypack)

Marketed as the “fanny pack for your rack,” Boobypack isn’t necessarily a weird product, but it’s definitely a product that the “sharks” were intrigued by.

At one point during the episode, Boobypack founder and CEO Christina Conrad had an offer on the table form “shark” Robert Herjavec: $80 thousand for 30%. Conrad countered with $80 thousand for 25%. Herjavec wouldn’t budge from 30% and then bam! Barbara Corcoran took the deal for 25%.

I could tell you more about the Boobypack story, but my colleague actually had the opportunity to interview Conrad and wrote a great post about her experience on the show. You can check it out here.

(Source: The Surge)

5) Lip balm that creates a reaction when you kiss (Kisstixx)

Here’s the concept: you apply one flavor of Kisstixx lip balm (e.g., raspberry), and someone else applies a different flavor of Kisstixx lip balm (e.g., lemonade), and when the two of you kiss … well, I mean, the two different lip balms obviously smudge together. Oh, right, and then there’s a “chemical reaction of flavor and scent.”

The idea was intriguing enough that Mark Cuban ended up making an offer, which college pals Dallas Robinson and Mike Buonomo accepted: $200 thousand for a 40% share in Kisstixx.

According to the Huffington Post, Kisstixx saw a 3,000% increase in website traffic and sold more than 5,000 units following their appearance on the show.

(Source: kisstixx.com)

6) Bagged wine cocktails sold in a box that looks like a stereo (BeatBox Beverages) 

While we’re on the topic of funky flavor combinations, let’s take a look at BeatBox Beverages. Co-founders Brad Schultz, Aimy Steadman, and Justin Fenchel created the company based on the belief that “boxed wine doesn’t have to be boring.”

BeatBox Beverages’ products all come in neon-colored boxes that resemble stereos. Flavors of the “bag-in-a-box party drink” include blue razzberry, cranberry limeade, and box a’rita.

When it was all said and done, Mark Cuban apparently liked what he tasted. He invested $1 million in BeatBox Beverages in exchange for a third of the company.

(Source: justelementary.com)

7) Live horror entertainment (Ten Thirty One Productions)

I think it’s safe to say that most investors don’t have a company in their portfolio that specializes in producing haunted hayrides and other live horror events.

Mark Cuban, however, isn’t like most investors.

When entrepreneur Melissa Carbone walked into the Shark Tank with her team of ghastly ghouls, it seemed likely that all of the “sharks” would be scared away from making deal. Cuban, however, ended up putting down $2 million for a 20% stake in Carbone’s company. It was one of the biggest deals in the show’s history.

(Source: Business Insider)

8) Energy bars made from crickets (Chapul)

While eating insects is a common practice in many parts of the world, in the U.S. the idea of munching on bugs as a snack still leaves many people squeamish.

Entrepreneur Pat Crowley, however, believes that his Chapul bars, which are made from cricket flour, can help people “leap over this psychological hurdle” of eating insects. For Crowley, this is important because insects are a much more sustainable source of protein compared to traditional sources, like beef.

When Crowley pitched his cricket bar company Chapul on Shark Tank, both Robert Herjavec and Mark Cuban made offers. Cuban ended up hopping away with the deal: $50 thousand for a 10% stake in the company.

(Source: J. Walter Thompson Intelligence)

Can you think of any other products that should be on this list? Let us know in the comments section below.

Facebook is constantly making changes to the design of the profiles — for businesses and individuals alike. They’ve made a few cool changes in the past few years, including adding call-to-action buttons to business Pages and letting you record company milestones, like product launches and events.

There are a lot of ways Facebook is helping brands build a follower base, increase visibility, improve branding, communicate with and engage fans, and even drive traffic and leads.

To learn more about how to use Facebook for business, download our free guide here. 

So, what can you do to optimize your brand’s presence on Facebook? Check out the infographic below from Cafe Quill for helpful tips on getting the most from your Facebook business Page.

When you think of lead nurturing, do you think of a series of well-timed, relevant emails to a perfectly segmented audience?

Of course you do. And you would be right. In practice, email is the primary channel for lead nurturing. However, supplementary channels such as paid retargeting also serve as an effective way to gently help an engaged prospect along the buyer’s journey.

At HubSpot, we started experimenting with Twitter Ads as a method of lead nurturing … but it didn’t exactly go as planned. In fact, our results actually sucked.

How come? Well, my team’s job is to drive product interest through trials, demos, and inbound marketing assessments. For someone to covert on one of these offerings, they need to complete a 13-field form on a landing page. And given Twitter’s mobile-first nature, it was easy to see why we weren’t successful.

But instead of throwing in the towel and deciding not to use Twitter Ads for the middle of the funnel, we decided to take a different approach. Rather than asking people to fill out a form, we decided to try showing product-related and bottom funnel content to see if we could influence leads down the funnel to become opportunities and eventually, customers.

So we asked ourselves: Can Twitter be an effective channel for influencing the lead-to-customer conversion rate?

The Experiment

In order to answer the question we were asking ourselves, we had to run a lengthy split-group test to determine if Twitter was effective at influencing leads down the funnel. Here is a breakdown of the experiment:

• The Problem: Our retargeting efforts on Twitter were underperforming. (Not familiar with how retargetting works? Brush up on the basics here.)
• The Objective: Figure out if Twitter retargeting influences long-term metrics, such as number of customers.
• The Hypothesis: By targeting existing leads with product awareness and bottom funnel content, we can influence long-term metrics such as the lead to customer rate.
• The Methodology: Create a large list of leads and split them into an experiment group and a control group. Retarget the experiment group with Twitter Ads in conjunction with our regular nurturing channels. The control group is not retargeted on Twitter, but still receive nurturing via our regular channels.

Aware that there are several ways to interpret and measure “influence,” I knew it was important to note what this experiment is and what it isn’t:

• What it is: This experiment is meant to be a macro-level assessment of the effectiveness of a channel by analyzing lead to customer rate between two groups.
• What it isn’t: This experiment isn’t an analysis of exactly which ad, content, or landing page contributed to an opportunity or customer conversion.

Our approach prior to the experiment:

Prior to this experiment, we promoted direct response ads that asked for a free trial, a demo, or an inbound marketing assessment. Here’s an example:

As you can see, we are directly asking for a free trial of our SEO tool and then directing the lead to a landing page with a very long form. Not so great on a mobile-first platform.

Our approach during the experiment:

During the experiment our leads saw both product awareness and bottom funnel content. We’ll define these types of content in detail later, but here are some examples of the content we employed:

Bottom Funnel Content: ROI Calculator

Product Awareness Content: Product Video

The Results

At the end of the experiment we determined that the retargeted group converted into customers 64% better than the control group.

What conclusion did we actually draw from this? It’s not all about form fills. Retargeting leads with bottom funnel and product-related content is an effective way to influence people along the buyer’s journey, especially on a mobile-first platform.

Want to Try It Yourself?

Do you want to see if this works for your business? Here are the steps to set up this experiment for yourself. (Note: Everyone has their own software and systems, so if you begin to feel overwhelmed by these steps due to any technical limitations, just take the overall principles and do the best you can.)

1) Set up your audiences and reporting.

Here’s one of the hard truths about retargeting: list size matters. Since this is list-based retargeting, match-rate is absolutely crucial. Why? Because according to MediaMath, match rates can vary from 70-80% down to as low as 20-30% for some platforms. In other words, in order for list-based retargeting to be effective, you’ll need a fairly large list.

Create your list in whatever CRM or marketing automation platform you use. (HubSpot Marketing customers: You’ll want to start by creating a smartlist and setting whatever criteria you want to target. Learn more about creating lists here.)

2) Create your control and experiment groups.

With any good experiment, you’ll need to have an experiment group to test against your control group for the most accurate results. In this test, the experiment group was retargeted with Twitter Ads and the control group was not.

To get our audience into Twitter, we used list-syncing service called GoChime. GoChime automatically syncs HubSpot lists to Twitter and Facebook to make retargeting your database simple. If you have a list-syncing service like GoChime, then simply sync your experiment group over to Twitter to use as a Twitter Tailored Audience. (GoChime also recently announced increased match rates, so your retargeting will be that much more effective.)

If you do not have this syncing capability, you’ll want to follow the instructions below:

1. Export your list. Export the list you created into Excel. Make sure you have at least one of the properties you need for list-based retargeting on Twitter — email address, phone number, or Twitter handle.
2. Randomize your list. Randomization will ensure that you get the most accurate results possible, while also ensuring that other variables that the list may have automatically sorted by — company size, location, etc. — won’t influence the results of your test. (Check out this article on how to randomize a list in Excel.)
3. Slash your list in half. Open a new Excel sheet. Go back to your original, highlight your data to the halfway point, copy and paste that data into the new Excel sheet. Go back to your original sheet, then delete the portion you copied. You now have you experiment group and control group!
4. Re-upload your two lists. After your groups are created, re-upload them back into HubSpot or whatever software you are using to track success. Be sure to give them clearly defined names in order to differentiate between the experiment group and the control group.

3) Upload your lists into Twitter Tailored Audiences.

In order to do list-based retargeting on Twitter, you need to at least have your audience’s email addresses. You can also upload a list containing phone numbers or Twitter handles, but email is likely to provide a better match-rate.

4) Set up your reporting.

Next, you’ll want to set up your reporting so you can measure the impact of your test. This process will differ depending on which system you’re using, but these are the metrics you should be looking at for your experiment:

• Lead-to-Customer Rate: This is your primary metric and will allow you to see how many leads converted into customers.
• Lead-to-Opportunity Rate: For B2B marketers, this will help you see how many opportunities were influenced from your campaign.

These are the primary metrics for success in the experiment, but do make sure you’re also looking at your Twitter metrics — engagement rate, cost per engagement, etc. — so you can optimize within the platform.

To record your results, check out the simple tables below. (Note: These are example results — not results from our experiment.)

Experiment Group

Control Group

If the sample size (number of leads) of your groups differ, make sure to calculate statistical significance between the two groups. (KISSmetrics has a great A/B significance calculator that will work well for this purpose.)

5) Selecting your content.

Now that we’ve been through the steps on how to set up this experiment, let’s talk about content selection. The type of content we used can be broken down into two categories: product awareness and bottom funnel content.

Product Awareness Content

Product awareness content simply means any type of content that tells the story of your product. The most important thing to remember about product awareness content is that it must be helpful and tell the prospect how your product can help solve their problem.

Product awareness should not be confused with the “awareness” stage content of the buyer’s journey, which is typically more top funnel content like ebooks, templates, checklists, and so on. Instead, product awareness and bottom funnel content actually fall into both the “consideration” and “decision” stages of the buyer’s journey.

Examples of product awareness content:

1. Product Videos. Product videos are an excellent way of getting eyeballs on your product or brand, especially on Twitter. Since Twitter is a mobile-first platform, videos produce strong engagement with their auto-play functionality.
2. Product Blog Posts. Say you work for a company that sells budgeting software to finance departments. You can write a post on tips for preparing for next year’s budget, with the end call-to-action asking for a trial or demo. The aim of the post is to directly shine a light on the problem your product solves and give your prospects answers to the questions they haven’t asked you yet.
3. SlideShares. SlideShares are always a good way to deliver content about your product that’s digestible, valuable, and even a little fun.

Bottom Funnel Content

After you’ve been retargeting your experiment group with product awareness content, you’ll want to move toward “bottom funnel” content. Bottom funnel content is basically anything that you would show in the late stages of the buyer’s journey.

Examples of bottom funnel content:

1. Case Studies. Case studies help the prospect see what their day-to-day life would look like should they decide to adopt your product.
2. ROI Reports/Calculators. If you’re a B2B business, then proving the potential ROI of your product is essential. Helping your prospects calculate the potential ROI of your product is not only helpful, but it makes you look confident in your product, which builds trust with the prospect.
3. Third-Party Reviews. If you have a great product with glowing customer reviews, then why not show that off? Nothing builds trust like social proof, so make sure you leverage third-party reviews if you are able.

After all that information, I will end with this: Measuring influence is hard. As I stated in the beginning, this experiment isn’t meant to help you figure out exactly which ad made prospects turn into sales opportunities and customers. Instead, this experiment is meant to help you take a step back and make an educated assumption of whether or not Twitter Ads (or any other social ad platform, like Facebook) can be used to influence your overall lead-to-customer rate.

Happy experimenting! Let us know what questions you have in the comments section below.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.

In 1977, Gary Gilmore faced a firing squad — the punishment he chose after he was convicted of killing two men in Utah. His last words were: “Let’s do it.”

This phrase would end up becoming the basis for arguably the most famous brand slogan of all time.

Wieden+Kennedy’s co-founder Dan Wieden resurrected and transformed the final words of Gilmore, who was also a native of Portland, Oregon, for a pitch for Nike ten years later. The young shop won the account and the slogan “Just do it” went on to inspire generations of aspiring athletes to get up and get motivated. 

The source of inspiration for Nike’s famous slogan is surprising, but it’s not the only interesting backstory to how brand slogans have come about. Learn more about the history behind the most famous brand slogans in this infographic from Stratx.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

Voicemail is an essential tool for salespeople. Reaching a prospect on your first call attempt is never a guarantee, so salespeople spend hours practicing and perfecting a compelling voicemail template that will hook buyers’ attention and get them to call back.

But what happens when leaving voicemails just … isn’t an option anymore?

We’re probably years away from a voicemail-less world, but the trendlines are already starting to point away from voicemail.

• Coca-Cola got rid of voicemail for 94% of its employees last year.
• JPMorgan Chase has removed voicemail for a portion of its employees (with Citigroup and Bank of America considering following suit).
• Two-thirds of Americans no longer check voicemail.
• HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan doesn’t even have a phone at his desk.

These findings suggest that, even if voicemails still exist in a number of years, they might no longer be the best or easiest way to reach buyers. While salespeople probably won’t stop leaving voicemails any time soon, it’s not a bad thing to start investing more time in getting really good at other sales techniques.

What do those strategies look like? Here are four skills salespeople should make sure to perfect so that if voicemail does ever become obsolete, they’ll be ready.

What to Do in a World Without Voicemail

1) Write really good emails.

This one’s no surprise. Email is a less interruptive method of reaching a prospect than a voicemail, since they get to decide when and if they respond. But it’s also hard to stand out — prospects get dozens, if not hundreds of emails every day, and there’s no guarantee that yours will get read.

Good sales emails include a catchy subject line, compelling value proposition (i.e. a reason your prospect should respond to your email, not buy your product), and something that provides value to your prospect. And even if you think you’re better in person than through a screen, reflect on what exactly makes your voicemails so compelling — then put it in your emails!

Still, writing a good email isn’t easy. You have to invest time into really researching prospects so they’re hooked by highly relevant content from the first sentence. Writing also may not come naturally to some salespeople. For more tips, check out these resources:

• How to Write a Sales Email: The Definitive Guide
• The 14 Worst Sales Email Writing Mistakes
• 16 Creative Email Subject Lines That Restart Stalled Conversations
• 26 Sales Email Subject Lines That Get Prospects to Open, Read, and Respond
• The LinkedIn Skim Guide: How to Research Any Buyer in 15 Minutes or Less

2) Do social selling the right way.

Social selling is much-hyped but also oft-criticized. It’s easy to dismiss the tecnique as so much social noise if salespeople are overly promotional and post irrelevant content. But done right, it’s an incredibly powerful way to meet buyers on their own turf and talk about the issues they care about.

Research the social platforms and online forums your buyers are most likely to be active in, then join them and start participating. The key to successful social selling is to shed your salesperson identity. Instead, act as an advisor and industry expert. Provide helpful advice and link to relevant content. Only talk about your product if you are explicitly asked about it.

If this seems like a foreboding amount of work to you, try starting out by just sourcing your target accounts on social media. Monitor their activity and jump in with advice where you can. Eventually, you’ll be comfortable enough with social selling to make it part of your regular routine.

3) Provide value before a sale.

You might traditionally think of all pre-sale activity as Marketing’s responsibility. And while marketers certainly have a huge role to play in nurturing and educating leads, salespeople have a great opportunity here as well.

Whether it’s social selling (see above), creating original content, speaking at conferences, or running educational webinars, the more valuable you can make yourself to a prospect before they even think about purchasing a product, the more likely they’ll think of you and be willing to take your call when the time comes to make a decision.

4) Leverage your existing network.

Referrals are powerful. Salespeople who can leverage their existing networks for referrals are at an advantage. After all, you have an objective third party backing up their value proposition who your prospect presumably already knows and trusts.

Salespeople leave voicemails and send prospecting emails to get an introduction. But plumbing your networks for referrals completely skips over needing to make that initial connection yourself. For more tips on setting up a referral program, check out Joanne Black’s blog post on the subject.

What do you think will happen to sales if voicemail ever becomes obsolete? Let us know in the comments below.