Consumer preferences are constantly evolving, which keeps things interesting.

To help you prepare your strategies to meet audience needs, this post will dive deep into our State of Consumer Trends Report findings on consumer preferences, discuss how marketers currently measure up to those preferences and outline what you can do to better meet consumer needs.

What types of content are memorable to consumers?

According to our Consumer Trends Survey, the most interesting and memorable content brands can share is funny content, relatable content, and content that reflects brand values.

1. Funny content

49% of consumers say that funny content is the most interesting and memorable.

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How Marketers Measure Up

According to our 2023 Social Media Marketing Report, 36% of marketers already share funny content on social media. Half of those already leveraging it plan to increase their investments in it in 2023 (speaking directly to consumer interests), and it’ll be the second most invested in content type in 2023.

What can marketers do?

Funny content can be anything from sending emails with a witty subject line or using a trending meme format and relating it to your business.

For example, McDonald’s made a Tweet saying, “it’s easier to get these snack wraps than it is to get tickets,” during the rush of people trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour. The snack wrap is no longer available on the menu, so it was a lighthearted and funny contribution to a timely global conversation.

Another valuable opportunity is to create funny video content, which is actually the most likely to go viral.

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2. Relatable content

36% of consumers say relatable content is the second most interesting and memorable content brands can share on social media. Almost 70% of consumers also say that social media content being authentic and relatable is more important than polished, high-quality content.

How Marketers Measure Up:

42% of marketers already share relatable content, and they say it is the second most effective type of content to share on social media.

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What can marketers do?

Relatable content reminds your audiences of their lives, experiences, and needs. To be relatable to your audience, you need to understand them. Who are they? What are their pain points? What are their preferences?

Knowing the ins and outs of who they help you create content that relates to them as individuals. Consumers also want to build relationships with their favorite brands, so feeling like they can relate to your business and your business’ story can foster the connection they’re looking for.

A great way to build relatability is content that expresses your brand values.

3. Content that reflects brand values.

Content that reflects your brand values is the third most interesting and memorable content to consumers. This makes sense as consumers, now more than ever, care about doing business with brands that share the same value systems and support the same causes that they do.

How Marketers Measure Up

30% of marketers are creating content that reflects their brand values, so there is room for improvement.

45% of marketers share this kind of content on social media, and 16% plan to leverage it for the first time in 2023. Of marketers that do share it, 89% plan to maintain or increase their investments in it and say it has the 5th highest ROI of any trend.

What can marketers do?

48% of U.S. adults say brands need to do more about social advocacy, and the most important issues are racial justice, climate change, and LGBTQ+ rights.

With this in mind, share your brand’s values on social media — let them know what you care about and what you do to take a stand. Consumers will know what you care for, and you’ll draw in people who share similar interests and can turn curious browsers into paying customers if they find they truly relate to you.

It’s essential to be genuine in these efforts, as consumers aren’t shy to call out brands that they feel are making empty promises or untrue statements.

What types of content do consumers prefer for learning about products and services?

When learning about products and their features, consumers prefer searching the internet, retail stores and word-of-mouth tied for second place, and television ads in third place. Gen Z is the only generation with a different first preference, which is learning about a product and its features through social media.

With this in mind, marketers can do things like

• Creating an effective SEO keyword strategy to reach users browsing the internet.
• Using high-quality images and visuals for in-store advertisements to attract visitor attention.
• Ask for customer reviews and make it easy for customers to leave reviews so they can learn from others’ opinions about your business.

Under this same question, learning about a product and its features on social media came in fourth place. Among consumers with this preference, they like feed posts, ads or sponsored content, and short-form videos (like TikToks or Reels).

However, splitting these preferences up by generation paints a different picture.

• Gen Z’s top preference for learning is short-form video, story posts, or from an influencer they follow.
• Millennials prefer short-form video, ads or sponsored content, and feed posts.
• Gen Xers prefer feed posts, online communities, and short-form video.
• Baby Boomers prefer ads or sponsored content, feed posts, and online communities.

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How do marketers measure up?

Here’s how marketers currently measure up to consumer preference:

• Marketers most often leverage short-form video as part of their social media strategies (58%) — third place in general overall, but especially important to Gen Z and Millennials.
• 1 in 4 marketers currently leverage influencer marketing, and 89% of marketers who currently use it will increase or maintain their investment — especially important to the second-place preference for ads and sponsored content and Gen Zs desire to learn from influencers.
• 20% of social media marketers post daily, 22% a few times a day, and 34% post several times a week, ensuring that their content is seen when people browse their feeds — feed posts are the top way consumers want to learn on social media.

What can marketers do?

Pay attention to the top three preferences for learning about products, and go from there.

• Consumers like to see feed posts, so create a consistent posting schedule to remain top of mind and increase the likelihood of your products being seen.
• Consumers want to see ads or sponsored content, so you can run ads on your social profiles like paid partnerships, influencer campaigns, or paid ads (like a Facebook News Feed ad).
• Consumers also want to see short-form videos, so create TikToks, YouTube Shorts, etc. — snackable content for any platform. (Wyzowl’s Video Marketing Report found that 93% of marketers say video increases user understanding, so it’ll pay off).

Also, be mindful of generational differences if your target audience is primarily part of a specific generation.

For example, if Gen Z and Millennials are your primary audiences, you could focus on short-form video and making a presence on platforms that cater to it. If your audience is Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you could create online communities in the channels they’re already in to speak to their needs.

Data-Driven Marketers Stay Ahead of the Curve

Data-driven marketers will win in 2023, so compare the consumer preferences in this post against what your own business is doing, identify areas of opportunity, and solve for your customer.

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

Once considered a social platform solely for networking, LinkedIn has proven itself invaluable for a wide range of other uses: marketing, recruiting, sales prospecting, hiring, and research, among others. There’s a lot you can do with LinkedIn, so getting up-to-speed on and nailing the basic functions is a worthwhile exercise in itself.

But little did you know the social media platform also contains a variety of secret capabilities that can make you that much more efficient and effective. I’ll give an example. Want to send a message to someone you’re not connected with, but you’re out of InMails? Here’s how:

Prospecting just got a whole lot easier — and that’s just the beginning.

In this SlideShare, we’ve collected 22 of the most useful — and hidden — hacks in LinkedIn, including:

• How to hide your connections from competitors
• How to get a tailored lead list delivered directly to your inbox weekly or daily
• How to find prospects you already have something in common with
• How to customize your connection request on a mobile device

Take a look to upgrade your LinkedIn status from pro to hacker. (And check out this post for the ultimate cheat sheet to mastering LinkedIn.)

Have any other LinkedIn hacks up your sleeve? Share them with us in the comments!

Do you take a good, hard look at your team’s marketing strategy every year?

You should. Without an annual marketing plan, things can get messy — and it’s nearly impossible to put a number on the budget you’ll need to secure for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing you’ll encounter over the course of a year if you don’t have a plan.

To make your plan’s creation easier, we’ve put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let’s dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

In this article, we’re going to discuss:

• What a High-Level Marketing Plan Includes
• How to Create a Marketing Plan
• Marketing Plan Templates You Can Use
• Simplified Marketing Plan Template
• Plus — Social Media Plan Templates

Marketing Plan Outline

Download This Marketing Plan Outline for Free

The below marketing plan outline will help you create an effective plan that easily generates buy-in from stakeholders and effectively guides your marketing efforts.

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you’re in, whether you’re selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are the elements every effective marketing plan includes:

1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your business summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. It’s essential to include this information so that all stakeholders, including your direct reports, learn about your company in detail before delving into the more strategic components of your plan. Even if you’re presenting this plan to people who’ve been in the company for a while, it doesn’t hurt to get everyone on the same page.

Most business summaries include:

• The company name

• Where it’s headquartered

• Its mission statement

Our marketing plan outline also includes information on marketing leadership, which is especially helpful for companies with large marketing teams.

2. SWOT Analysis

Your marketing plan’s business summary also includes a SWOT analysis, which stands for the business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s essential to include this information so you can create targeted strategies that help you capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

However, be patient with your business’ SWOT analysis; you’ll write most of it as you conduct your market research and create your strategy. Feel free to come back to this section periodically, adjusting it as you discover more information about your own business and your competition.

3. Business Initiatives

The business initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you’d normally find in a business plan. This section of your marketing plan should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You’ll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

Every initiative should follow the SMART method for goal-making. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

4. Customer Analysis

In this part of the marketing plan outline, you get plenty of space to share all the data you collected during your market research. If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier to put together. Either way, try to do your research before synthesizing it in a shareable document like this one.

Ultimately, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe the industry you’re selling to and your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer, focusing on traits like:

• Age

• Location

• Title

• Goals

• Personal challenges

• Pains

• Triggering event

5. Competitor Analysis

Including a competitive analysis is essential when creating a marketing plan. Your buyer persona has choices when it comes to solving their problems, choices in both the types of solutions they consider and the providers that can administer those solutions. In your market research, you should consider your competition, what they do well, and where the gaps are that you can potentially fill. This can include:

• Positioning

• Market share

• Offerings

• Pricing

Our marketing plan template includes space to list out the specific products you compete with, as well as other facets of the other company’s strategy, such as their blogging efforts or customer service reputation. Keep this part of your plan simple — your full competitive analysis should be done separately. Here are a few competitive analysis templates to get started.

6. Market Strategy

Your market strategy uses the information included in the above sections to describe how your company should approach the market. What will your business offer your buyer

personas that your competitors aren’t already offering them?

As you fill out the section, use the insights from your SWOT analysis, your competitive analysis, and your market research to create targeted, effective descriptions that will help you secure buy-in for your later tactics and strategies. For instance, if you found that one of your competitors employs stronger social media marketing strategies, you might add “We’ll post 3 times per week on our social media profiles” under “Promotion.”

In our full-length marketing plan outline, the market strategy section contains the “seven Ps of marketing” (or the “extended marketing mix”):

• Product

• Price

• Place

• Promotion

• People

• Process

• Physical Evidence

(You’ll learn more about these seven sub-components inside our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)

7. Budget

Don’t mistake the marketing budget element of your plan with your product’s price or other company financials. Your budget describes how much money the business has allotted the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals outlined in the elements above.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should consider itemizing this budget by what specifically you’ll spend your budget on. Example marketing expenses include:

• Outsourcing costs to a marketing agency and/or other providers

• Marketing software

• Paid promotions

• Events (those you’ll host and/or attend)

Knowing the budget and doing analysis on the marketing channels you want to invest in, you should be able to come up with a plan for how much budget to invest in which tactics based on expected ROI. From there, you’ll be able to come up with financial projections for the year. These won’t be 100% accurate but can help with executive planning.

Remember: Your marketing plan only includes a summary of the costs. We recommend keeping a separate document or Excel sheet to help you calculate your budget much more effectively. Here’s a marketing budget template to get started.

8. Marketing Channels

Your marketing plan should also include a list of your marketing channels. While your company might promote the product itself using certain ad space, your marketing channels are where you’ll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads, and spreads awareness of your brand.

If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to map out which social networks you want to launch a business page on, what you’ll use this social network for, and how you’ll measure your success on this network. Part of this section’s purpose is to prove to your superiors, both inside and outside the marketing department, that these channels will serve to grow the business.

Businesses with extensive social media presences might even consider elaborating on their social strategy in a separate social media plan template.

9. Marketing Technology

Last, but certainly not least, your marketing plan should include an overview of the tools you’ll include in your marketing technology (MarTech) stack. These are the tools that will help you achieve the goals you outlined in the previous sections. Since all types of marketing software usually need a generous investment from your company’s leadership, it’s essential to connect them to a potential ROI for your business.

For each tool, describe what exactly you’ll use it for, and be sure that it’s a strategy that you’ve mentioned elsewhere. For instance, we wouldn’t recommend listing an advertising management tool if you didn’t list “PPC Advertising” under “Marketing Channels.”

1. Conduct a situation analysis.

Before you can get started with your marketing plan, you have to know your current situation.

What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Conducting a basic SWOT analysis is the first step to creating a marketing plan.

Additionally, you should also have an understanding of the current market. How do you compare to your competitors? Doing a competitor analysis should help you with this step.

Think about how other products are better than yours. Plus, consider the gaps in a competitor’s approach. What are they missing? What can you offer that’ll give you a competitive advantage? Think about what sets you apart.

Answering questions like this should help you figure out what your customer wants, which brings us to step number two.

2. Define your target audience.

Once you better understand the market and your company’s situation, make sure you know who your target audience is.

If your company already has buyer personas, this step might just mean you have to refine your current personas.

If you don’t have a buyer persona, you should create one. To do this, you might have to conduct market research.

Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychographic information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can fix?

Once you have this information written out, it’ll help you define your goals, which brings us to step number three.

3. Write SMART goals.

My mother always used to tell me, “You can’t go somewhere unless you have a road map.” Now, for me, someone who’s geographically challenged, that was literal advice.

However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. You can’t improve your ROI unless you know what your goals are.

After you’ve figured out your current situation and know your audience, you can begin to define your SMART goals.

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be specific and include a time frame for which you want to complete them.

For example, your goal could be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Depending on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and attainable. Additionally, this goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound.

Before you start any tactic, you should write out your goals. Then, you can begin to analyze which tactics will help you achieve that goal. That brings us to step number four.

4. Analyze your tactics.

At this point, you’ve written down your goals based on your target audience and current situation.

Now, you have to figure out what tactics will help you achieve your goals. Plus, what are the right channels and action items to focus on?

For example, if your goal is to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months, your tactics might include hosting a giveaway, responding to every comment, and posting three times on Instagram per week.

Once you know your goals, brainstorming several tactics to achieve those goals should be easy.

However, while writing your tactics, you have to keep your budget in mind, which brings us to step number five.

5. Set your budget.

Before you can begin implementing any of the ideas that you’ve come up with in the steps above, you have to know your budget.

For example, your tactics might include social media advertising. However, if you don’t have the budget for that, then you might not be able to achieve your goals.

While you’re writing out your tactics, be sure to note an estimated budget. You can include the time it’ll take to complete each tactic in addition to the assets you might need to purchase, such as ad space.

Now that you know how to create your marketing plan, let’s dive into creating a marketing campaign outline that will help you reach the goals outlined plan.

Marketing Plan Timeline

Rolling out a new marketing plan is a big lift. To make sure things are running smoothly with all of your projects, you’ll want to create a timeline that maps out when each project is happening.

A marketing plan timeline allows your team to view all projects, campaigns, events, and other related tasks in one place — along with their deadlines. This ensures everyone on your team knows what’s due, when it’s due, and what’s up next in the pipeline. Typically these plans cover marketing efforts for the entire year, but some companies may operate on a bi-annual or quarterly basis.

Once you’ve completed your analysis, research, and set goals, it’s time to set deadlines for your assignments. From new blog posts and content initiatives to product launches, everything will need a deadline. Take into account any holidays or events taking place over the course of the year.

While setting deadlines for the entire year may seem daunting, start by estimating how long you think each task will take and set a deadline accordingly. Track the time it actually takes for you to complete similar types of projects. Once you’ve completed a few of them, you’ll have a better idea of how long each takes and will be able to set more accurate deadlines.

For each project, you’ll want to build in time for:

• Brainstorming: This is the first phase where your idea comes to life in a project outline. Decide what you want to achieve and which stakeholders need to be involved to meet your goal. Set a due date and set up any necessary meetings.
• Planning: This can include determining the project’s scope, figuring out how much budget will be allocated for it, finalizing deadlines and who is working on each task. Map out any campaigns needed for each project (social media, PR, sales promotions, landing pages, events, etc.).
• Execution: This third phase is all about your project launch. Decide on a date to launch and monitor the progress of the project. Set up a system for tracking metrics and KPIs.
• Analysis: In this final phase you will analyze all of your performance data to see whether or not your marketing efforts paid off. Did you meet your goals? Did you complete your projects on time and within budget?

All projects and their deadlines should be in a central location where your team can access them whether that’s a calendar like HubSpot’s tool, shared document, or project management tool.

One-Page Marketing Plan Template

As demonstrated above, a marketing plan can be a long document. When you want to share information with stakeholders or simply want an overview of your plan for quick reference, having a shorter version on hand can be helpful. A one-page marketing plan can be the solution, and we’ll discuss its elements below.

1. Business Summary

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

Example

2. Business Initiatives

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

Example

3. Target Market

Outline your target audience(s) that your efforts will reach. You can include a brief overview of your industry and buyer personas.

Example

4. Budget

This is an overview of the money you’ll spend to help you meet your marketing goals. Create a good estimate of how much you’ll spend on each facet of your marketing program.

Example

5. Marketing Channels

List the channels you’ll use to achieve your marketing goals. Describe why you’re using each channel and what you want to accomplish so everyone is on the same page.

Example

Free Marketing Plan Template [Word]

Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, it’s time to grab your marketing plan template and see how best to organize the six elements explained above. The following marketing plan template opens directly in Microsoft Word, so you can edit each section as you see fit:

Download your marketing plan template here.

Marketing Campaign Template

Your marketing plan is a high-level view of the different marketing strategies you’ll use to meet your business objectives. A marketing campaign template is a focused plan that will help achieve those marketing goals.

A marketing campaign template should include the following key components:

• Goals and KPIs: Identify the end goal for each of the individual campaigns you’ll run and the metrics you will use to measure the results of your campaign when it ends. For example, conversion rates, sales, sign-ups, etc.
• Channels: Identify the different channels you’ll use to enact your marketing campaign to reach your audience. Maybe you run a social media campaign on Twitter to raise brand awareness or a direct mail campaign to notify your audience of upcoming sales.
• Budget: Identify the budget you’ll need to run your campaign and how it will be distributed, like the amount you’ll spend on creating content or ad placements in different areas. Having these numbers also helps you later on when you quantify the success of your campaign, like ROI.
• Content: Identify the type of content you’ll create and distribute during your campaigns—for example, blog posts, video ads, email newsletters, etc.
• Teams and DRIs: Identify the teams and people that will be part of enacting your marketing plan from start to finish, like those responsible for creating your marketing assets, budgets, or analyzing metrics once campaigns are complete.
• Design: Identify what your marketing campaigns will look like and how you’ll use design elements to attract your audience. It’s important to note that your design should directly relate to the purpose of your campaign.

Digital Marketing Plan Template

A digital marketing plan is similar to a marketing campaign plan, but, as the name suggests, it’s tailored to the campaigns that you run online. Let’s go over the key components of a digital marketing plan template to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

• Objectives: The goals for your digital marketing and what you’re hoping to accomplish, like driving more traffic to your website. Maybe you want to drive more traffic to your website, or
• Budget: Identify how much it will cost to run your digital marketing campaign and how the money will be distributed. For example, ad placement on different social media sites costs money, and so does creating your assets.
• Target audience: Which segments of your audience are you hoping to reach with this campaign? It’s essential to identify the audiences you want to reach with your digital marketing, as different channels house different audience segments.
• Channels: Identifies the channels that are central to your digital marketing campaign.
• Timeline: Explains the length of time your digital campaigns will run, from how long it should take to create your assets to the final day of the campaign.

Many people use social media in their digital campaigns, and below we’ll discuss some ideas you can use for inspiration.

Social Media Marketing Plan Templates

As marketing departments grow, so will their presence on social media. And as their social media presence grows, so will their need to measure, plan, and re-plan what types of content they want to publish across each network.

If you’re looking for a way to deepen your social media marketing strategy — even further than the marketing plan template above — the following collection of social media marketing plan templates is perfect for you:

Download 10 social media reporting templates here.

In the above collection of marketing plan templates, you’ll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

• Annual social media budget tracking
• Weekly social media themes
• Required social media image dimension key
• Pie chart on social media traffic sorted by platform
• Social media post calendar and publish time

Below, let’s review the social media reporting templates, and what you’ll find in each one.

1. Social Media Questions

This template lists out questions to help you decide which social media management platform you should use.

Once you know what social media tactics you’re going to implement in your marketing plan, it’s time to figure out what channels are right for you. This template will help you do that.

2. Facebook Live Schedule

If Facebook Live is one of the marketing tactics in your plan, this template will help you design an editorial calendar. With this template, you can organize what Facebook live’s you want to do and when.

Once you’ve decided on dates, you can color code your FB calendar and coordinate with your editorial calendar so everyone can see what lives are running in relation to other campaigns.

3. Instagram Post Log

Are you going to begin using Instagram regularly? Do you want to increase your following? With this template, you can organize your Instagram posts, so everyone on your team knows what posts are going live and when.

Additionally, you can organize your assets and campaigns on this doc. Use this doc to collaborate with your team on messaging, landing pages linked in your bio, and campaign rollout.

4. Paid Social Media Template

With this template, you can organize your annual and monthly budget for your paid social media calendar.

You’ll want to use this in conjunction with your marketing plan budget to make sure you are not overspending and funds are allocated appropriately.

5. Social Media Audit

Conducting a social media audit? You can use this template to help you gather the right analytics. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is key to determining ROI.

Use this template to track each of your campaigns to determine what worked and what didn’t. From there, you can allocate funds for the strategies that deliver the results you want.

6. Social Media Editorial Calendar

With this template, you can organize your social media editorial calendar. For example, you can include social media posts for each platform, so your team knows what’s going live on any given day.

7. Social Media Image Sizes

With this template, your team can have the latest social media image sizes handy. This template includes image sizes for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Having a resource like this readily available for your team ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding image sizes and prevents delays.

8. Social Media Marketing Proposal

With this template, you can create an entire social media marketing proposal. This will outline the social media goals, the scope of the work, and the tactics that you plan to implement.

Think of this proposal as more of a deep dive into the marketing channel section of your marketing plan.

9. Social Media Reporting Template

With this template, you’ll gain access to a slide deck that includes templates for social media reporting. If you plan to implement social media in your marketing plan, these reporting templates can help you track your progress.

If using the social media audit above, you can add all of your data here once it’s been collected.

10. Hashtag Holidays

If you’re going to lean into social media in your marketing plan, you can use hashtag holidays to generate ideas.

These holidays are a great way to fill out your social media publishing schedule. With this template, you’ll get a list of all the hashtag holidays for the year.

Once you’ve come up with content ideas, you can add them to your social media calendar.

Simple Marketing Plan Template

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you’re strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try.

This tool simplifies yearly planning by asking prompted questions to help guide your process. You’ll be asked to input information about:

Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here.

• Your annual marketing mission statement, which is what your marketing is focused on for the year.
• The strategy that you’ll take with your marketing throughout the year to accomplish your marketing goals.
• Three main marketing initiatives that you’ll focus on during the year (i.e., brand awareness or building a high-quality pipeline) metrics you’ll use to measure your success.
• Your target goals for those marketing initiatives like generating 100 leads per week.
• Marketing initiatives that are not aligned with your current strategy to stay focused on your goals and activities that will help you be successful.

Once you input all information, the tool will spit out a table (as shown in the image below) that you can use to guide your processes.

Pro Tip: If the tool doesn’t work, clear your browser’s cache or access it in incognito mode.

Start the Marketing Planning Process Today

The best way to set up your marketing plan for the year is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

We’ve all been there. You click on a listicle that touts amazing insights and simple tips, only to be presented with worthless clickbait. Listicles often have a bad reputation for being low-quality and providing little value to their readers.

However, when done right, a listicle can get both clicks and share helpful insights. These well-written listicles can play an important role in your content strategy.

In fact, this post about listicles is primarily a list post itself. Here, we’re going to dive into what a listicle is, how to write a high-quality article, and listicle ideas to help you generate engaging content for your readers.

What is a listicle?

Simply put, a listicle is an article written in list format. Each list item will typically include a few sentences or multiple paragraphs to educate or delight readers. For example, you might read a fun listicle, like “The Top 10 Movies of 2020,” or a more informational one, like “7 Steps to Build a Website.”

1. Make sure your content makes sense in list format.

Before you begin writing your listicle, research to ensure your topic fits into a list format.

If you search for your intended keyword and find most marketers are creating “Ultimate Guides” on the topic, it’s better to avoid a listicle format.

For instance, perhaps you need to write about “Instagram Marketing.”

While you’d initially planned on titling the piece “10 Best Instagram Marketing Tips,” your research has uncovered plenty of other angles you’d like to include, such as “why Instagram marketing is important” and “how to create compelling content on Instagram.”

These sections might fit better in an “Ultimate Guide to Instagram Marketing” instead of a listicle.

If you choose to create a listicle, each list item must match the topic. To create a high-quality listicle, your content must be consistent and parallel.

If you’re writing a list of best practices, you should only have best practices in your list — sneaking examples will confuse your audience.

Remember: You can always create another listicle for examples later on.

2. Include valuable takeaways — no fluff!

The most significant indicator of a lousy list post is one that contains a ton of fluff and no tangible, valuable takeaways for the reader. Here’s an example of what we mean:

3 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

1. Be unique! Do something to stand out from your competitors.
2. Take risks. Try out-of-the-box ideas.
3. Measure results! Use your analytics to tell you what’s working.

What a fantastic list post! I’ve learned absolutely nothing. Of course, you should do all these things in your social media marketing. But it needs to tell you how to do them.

Your listicle should give readers more than just a list of things to do and expect them to figure out how to do them themselves. It should also include valuable content that tells readers how to do each step.

An excellent list post nixes the fluff and concretely explains each item in detail. Not every tip will be new to your reader.

However, if they walk away thinking, “Well, I already put numbers 3, 4, and 6 into practice, but I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on numbers 1, 2, and 5!” — then you’ve probably got yourself a high-quality list.

Some listicles are meant to be more fun, but you can still include valuable takeaways. For example, the “Top Ten Best Ads of 2020” can be primarily visual, but it’s still essential you include advice your readers can use to create better ads for themselves.

Featured Resource: Listicle Blog Post Template

3. Link to more in-depth information when necessary.

One of the ways you can add value is to direct readers to other resources when necessary.

Great list posts are comprehensive, so they can get long and unwieldy. If this is the case, consider pointing your readers to another place for more in-depth information.

For example, we recently wrote a list post entitled “Email Deliverability: 5 Quick & Effective Ways to Increase It.” The last tip in the list was “Check to see your emails’ legality” and mentioned GDPR, which could be a blog post in itself. In fact, it already is.

Giving our readers enough information for that section to be truly helpful would have involved copying and pasting the entirety of our GDPR post into our listicle. That wouldn’t have been the most beneficial choice (and also might’ve hurt our SEO).

Instead, we explained the tip in a moderate amount of detail and then directed readers to the other post where they could find more in-depth information if they needed it.

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Feel free to do this in your own listicles. If you have to link to an external resource because you haven’t written the post yourself — excellent.

You’ve just passed off some link love, and you also now have another article idea for your blogging backlog.

4. Explain list items using relatable examples.

Sometimes one of the best ways to adequately explain a point on your list is to use an example to support it. Of course, real examples are ideal, but sometimes even a hypothetical one works just as great.

When selecting or creating an example, keep it as relatable as possible to your readers. This can be tricky if your blog’s audience comprises a variety of readers from different industries or businesses (like ours). The key here is to keep your examples general so everyone can relate.

For instance, in HubSpot’s listicle “17 Fun (Not Cheesy) Ice Breaker Games Your Employees Will Enjoy,” item 24 (Two Truths and a Lie) needed clarification for readers who haven’t played the game before.

To illustrate the game, I provided a personal example using a hypothetical example:

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Ideally, most readers will find this example helpful for understanding the game’s premise and how it works. Plus, it makes the content more interesting to read.

5. Number your items.

This is an easy one. If you’re writing a listicle — especially when you use a number in the title of your list post — number your list items.

This is particularly important when you have a long list because readers want to gauge their progress as they’re reading through the list (i.e., “only halfway to go” or “I’m almost done!”).

Readers may also like to reference particular points on a list later or share them with others.

Being able to refer to a specific number rather than saying, “I think it’s near the bottom of the list” or “It’s the fourth bullet point down” is a much more user-friendly experience for your blog audience.

Make things easy for your readers.

6. Include an appropriate number of list items.

While talking about numbers, let’s clear up some misconceptions about them. Listicle writers believe you should choose a number before writing your list and ensure you have enough points to fit that number.

We disagree.

Sitting down and saying you’re going to write a list of 14 items makes no sense. What if only 11 solid, valuable items make up the list? Should you come up with three lower-quality items to achieve your goal of 14?

Just be comprehensive. For example, this very listicle how-to post includes ten steps for writing a listicle because that’s how many I thought were individually valuable and indicative of a high-quality list post for this particular subject.

Originally I had brainstormed 11, but as I started writing, I cut one out because it wasn’t that different from another point, and they could easily be represented as one.

As we mentioned before, listicles can quickly become unwieldy. So when you start drafting your listicle, decide how granular you want to make your topic. This will help make your list more manageable. The title you craft can also help you stay focused.

For example, if you work for a plumbing company and want to write a listicle about how you can unclog a drain. You might stick to “The Top 4 Ways to Unclog a Drain,” rather than writing a long list post covering “The 50 Different Ways to Unclog a Drain.”

Furthermore, conduct tests and research to glean some best practices for your list posts. An internal study of our blog revealed that posts for which the title indicated six items or fewer didn’t perform as well as when the title indicated the list contained seven or more items.

The lesson? While we sometimes still write lists posts containing six or fewer items, we don’t include the number in the title for those posts. We might try to title it “Why Every Marketer Needs a CRM” instead of “3 Reasons Every Marketer Needs a CRM.”

7. Use category buckets for longer lists.

When we published “34 Millennial Stats That Marketers Need to Know,” we broke up the statistics into five sections:

• “General Stats and Market Opportunities.”
• “Social Media & Digital Habits.”
• “Behaviors and Financial Factors.”
• “Education and Work.”
• And “Political and Societal Views.”
• If some of our readers don’t care about the average millennial’s financial situation, they can quickly scan the post and avoid that section. Perfect!

If some of our readers don’t care about the average millennial’s financial situation, they can quickly scan the post and avoid that section. Perfect!

If your listicle seems long or unruly, consider breaking it into subcategories to help readers scan for what they’re looking for and feel more relaxed at first glance.

8. Logically order each step.

Like any other post you write, your list should flow and tell a story. How you do this will depend on the subject and contents of your list, but here are some great organizational structures to choose from:

• Alphabetical (great for glossaries).
• Chronological (great for step-by-step guides).,
• Popularity/importance, like most to least or least to most (great for top 10/20/50 lists).

Another best practice is to emphasize your strongest points at the beginning, middle, and end of your list to keep readers engaged throughout the article.

When I sat down and brainstormed this list, it was just that — a brainstormed list. It was unorganized and all over the place. I rearranged the furniture once I’d identified all the points I wanted to include.

Sometimes your list points will practically arrange themselves (e.g., “5 Steps to Do X”), and sometimes there won’t be as obvious a story (e.g., “20 Ways to Do Y”). Just put the time into figuring it out and ordering your items as logically as possible.

9. Make sure your listicle is consistent.

I’m not as strict about this one as some listicle purists, but your listicle should have a consistent and parallel look. Failing to do so only confuses readers.

Here are some helpful guidelines to consider:

• Try to keep sections similar in length.
• Use the same header style to highlight your list items, and make sure they stand out.
• Make sure your list item headers are written in a parallel fashion (i.e., if it’s a list of action items, each should be led with a verb).
• Finally, use images and bullet points to break up text when appropriate.

10. Have a clear and catchy title.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this post, one of the reasons people have always loved listicles is because they know exactly what — and how much — they’ll get out of them.

There is no guesswork involved, and your expectations are very clear for your readers. Make sure your title epitomizes that.

A compelling listicle title should accomplish three things to entice readers actually to read the post:

1. Capture the readers’ attention
2. Clearly indicate the value or what the reader will learn
3. Suggest how much they will learn with a number.

For example, consider this post, “5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan [Free Templates].” Do you wonder what this post will be about? Not at all.

You know that you’ll learn how to create a marketing plan (in 5 steps), and you’ll have templates if you need help.

Listicle Examples

As marketers, we’re often tasked with writing about drier topics to educate our viewers and attract leads. A listicle can help the reader scan for the information they need and feel less overwhelmed by the amount of content.

Let’s explore a few examples to inspire you.

1. HubSpot’s “6 Secrets to Achieving Work-Life Balance, According to HubSpot Marketing Managers“

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This post from HubSpot explores how you can achieve work/life balance, so you can be your best self every day.

What we love: This post includes plenty of quotes from marketing managers explaining their secrets. Quotes are a great way to provide value to your readers.

2. Buzzfeed’s “24 Of The Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books Of 2023“

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When it comes to book reviews, Buzzfeed knows the right formula. The site creates listicles of both recent releases, as well as titles that will be hitting shelves soon.

What we love: Each item on this list includes a release date for the book, as well as a summary. The listicle also links to where readers can order the book.

3. Southern Living’s “Soups To Make Every Month Of 2023“

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When it comes to cooking, what’s in season changes every month. Southern Living blends the best of a cooking calendar and a listicle for this collection of soup recipes.

What we love: This list makes use of clever organization, ordering recipes by month. And with 12 recipes highlighted, this listicle is easy to digest.

4. UpgradedPoints’ “The 12 Best Websites for Booking Flights at the Cheapest Prices”

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UpgradedPoints created a listicle to help travelers save on their next vacation. This article gathers sites that offer flight discounts, including a list of pros and cons for each.

What we love: At the end of each list item, the author includes a “hot tip” that can help readers save even more. By using icons and distinct colors with this text, this tidbit draws readers in.

5. Polygon’s “The Best Super Bowl Commercials of 2023“

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Whether or not you watched the big game, everyone at the office will be talking about the commercials. Polygon gathers the ads everyone will be discussing in this article.

What we love: It’s not enough to describe the ad. People need to see it. This post breaks up chunks of text with videos of the ads themselves.

Now that we’ve explored some examples, let’s dive into some ideas you can use to create yours.

Listicle Ideas

Finally, let’s explore some listicle ideas to help your marketing team brainstorm highly engaging content for your readers.

We’ll explore a few more tactical pieces you might write for an ecommerce, B2C, or B2B company, but we’ll also dive into some fun, “trendier” ideas if you work for a publication looking to expand your reach.

Listicle Ideas For Ecommerce or B2C Companies

• 14 Essential Ways to Build a Timeless Wardrobe
• How to Apply Black Lipstick in Three Easy Steps
• 20 Things You’ll Need in Your First Apartment
• 13 Things You Should Know Before Buying a Sofa
• The 7 Best Sustainable Furniture Companies

Listicle Ideas For B2B Companies

• How to Choose a CRM in 4 Easy Steps
• The 11 Best Website Builders
• 5 Steps to Creating a Marketing Playbook
• 3 Steps to Create a Better About Us Page
• 7 Communication Channels Your Team Needs in 2023
• 12 Marketers Tell Us Their Favorite Marketing Campaigns of 2023

Listicle Ideas For Publications Looking to Trend Online

• How to Make These 3 Meals With Only 5 Ingredients
• 10 Cool Gadgets You’ll Definitely Need This Summer
• 7 Hilarious Videos Trending on YouTube Right Now
• How to Become an Entrepreneur, According to 11 Successful Ones
• If You’re a Leader, You Need to Accept Some Harsh Truths. These Seven CEOs Explain Why.

There you have it! Remember that listicles should serve the same purpose as any other marketing content — to attract the right audience to your products or services.

Sit down with your team and brainstorm challenges your readers might be facing, and then decide whether that challenge can be solved with a step-by-step guide or a list of tools (that includes yours).

Now, you’re well on your way to having more listicles in your content strategy. Happy planning!

Ecommerce conversion rates are the ultimate top-line metric for online store owners. With this data, you can see if the changes you make to your site positively or negatively impact how many visitors become customers.

Download Now: Ecommerce Conversion Rate Calculator

Although crucial, there’s often confusion around what’s considered a reasonable conversion rate. Before you evaluate if your ecommerce conversion rate is good or bad, you must evaluate how your performance measures against your industry’s standard.

In this article, you’ll learn the ins and outs of ecommerce conversion rates, conversion rate benchmarks across industries, and how you can improve your results. Let’s dig in.

For example, suppose 30 out of 1,000 visitors to your online shop made purchases.

To calculate your ecommerce CVR, take the total number of people who completed checkout (30) and divide that by the total number of site visitors in the same time frame (1,000). In this case, your ecommerce CVR would be 30/1000 = 0.03 = 3%.

Today, many ecommerce retailers sell across multiple platforms. You’ll need to aggregate your site visits and conversions in one place.

You can leverage a tracking spreadsheet or find a technology solution to keep a pulse on your performance across platforms.

We’ve put together a free ecommerce conversion rate tracker that you can download here, along with an ecommerce marketing and sales plan template in our Ecommerce Planning Kit.

Featured Resource: Ecommerce Conversion Rate Tracker

Why is your ecommerce conversion rate important?

Your ecommerce conversion rate is crucial to the success of your online shop.

For example, you could bring in 50,000 views per month to your website through ads. If the user experience on your website is poor or your product descriptions aren’t effectively communicating value, you might only end up with a small percentage of that traffic converting into customers.

Ecommerce CVR is also a valuable metric to track over time to see how the improvements you’re making to your website, product categorizations, product descriptions, checkout process, or any other aspects of your online store are actually impacting your business’s bottom line.

What’s a good ecommerce conversion rate?

Don’t compare your ecommerce CVR to an overall benchmark that aggregates CVRs across industries. CVRs vary wildly across ecommerce sectors. Try to find conversion rates for your category or industry to use as a benchmark.

Looking at numbers isn’t all you need to do. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis and ensure that you make more money than you spend by selling your products online. From there, focus your time on optimizing your site beyond where it currently stands.

If you have one category of items with an excellent conversion rate, you can also aim to bring all categories up to that standard. With that approach, you can count on the CVR benchmark reflecting your specific target persona, not anyone else’s.

If you’re starting from scratch, see below for industry-specific benchmarks backed by recent research.

Ecommerce Conversion Rate Benchmarks by Industry

The numbers below come from IRP Commerce, which constantly collects data across many industries and ShippyPro. The numbers were most recently updated in December 2022.

• Agriculture: 0.62% – 1.41%
• Arts and Crafts: 3.84% – 4.07%
• Baby and Child: 0.87% – 1.43%
• Cars and Motorcycling: 1.35% – 0.65%
• Electrical and Commercial Equipment: 2.49% – 1.31%
• Fashion, Clothing, and Accessories: 1.01% – 2.20%
• Food and Drink: 1.00% – 2.01%
• Health and Wellbeing: 1.87% – 4.20%
• Home Accessories and Giftware: 1.55% – 2.34%
• Kitchen and Home Appliances: 1.72% – 3.00%
• Pet Care: 2.53% – 2.20%
• Sports and Recreation: 1.18 – 1.62%

1. Put explainer videos on your product pages.

It can be challenging to get a sense of sizing, fit, and material quality from photos. Video tends to demonstrate more detail. Add videos that show your product from various angles and allow people to see them in action.

You’ll also want to account for the increasing number of people who prefer to consume video over text.

2. Give your visitors a clearer set of product images.

There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to look at the small details of the item you’re considering buying online only to find out that you can’t zoom in.

Your ecommerce site should include images of your product from different angles and allow prospective buyers to zoom in on the product images. Doing so allows these potential customers to have a more accurate sense of your product before purchase.

3. Tighten your copy.

Ensure your product descriptions are grammatically correct, easy to understand, and properly structured. It’s vital to keep your ideal buyer in mind as you write your product description.

In some cases, retailers may have a couple of identical products that are differentiated only by size. While the product specifications should reflect the different product dimensions, it’s okay to leave the copy describing the product’s use as is.

On the other hand, if you’re selling something like body care products, you might write an entirely new copy to describe who each product is suitable for, the different sensory elements of the product, and the look and feel of each.

At a baseline, always include product measurements, material specifications, warranty information, and any other information that would be crucial for buying your product. With this information, you won’t lose a prospective customer who is wondering about a key detail.

4. Add a chat feature to your website.

You simply can’t answer every question that anyone will ever have in your product description. However, since you want to do everything you can to convince someone to buy your product while they’re already on your site, consider chat as another avenue.

Chat can be a powerful tool for bridging the gap between your product descriptions and the information an individual needs to buy.

Customers can ask questions about your brand, shipping policies, and anything else non-product-specific without leaving the web page of the product they’re close to buying.

5. Test different call-to-action (CTA) placements, options, and wording.

Altering your CTAs is a classic method of optimizing a website’s conversion rate. Switching up the copy within your CTAs, the options people have for the next place they can go, or the prominence of those CTAs can be low-effort, high-impact ways to encourage people to buy.

Studies have found that while the majority of CTA tests don’t produce statistically significant results, the ones that do create enormous impact, with on-page conversion lifts averaging 49%.

You won’t know what conversion rates you’ll see until you start experimenting with each little aspect of your site.

6. Add social proof with stellar customer reviews.

It’s becoming increasingly easy for companies with cheap, low-quality products to deliver comparable on-site experiences and images. This convinces buyers that their products are the same as the others in the market, just less expensive.

However, the one element that’s hard to fake is customer reviews. Allow your customers to leave reviews of your products to prove their quality. If you’ve got great reviews, consider moving them higher on the product pages. Social proof can positively impact prospective customers’ buying decisions.

If you don’t have a solution that allows customers to leave reviews automatically, collect quotes from people who’ve bought from you before. Add several to each of your product descriptions.

Remember that you can always run A/B tests by tweaking your testimonial’s design and placement. You’ll soon find out what works best.

7. Offer free shipping.

We’ll admit that offering free shipping isn’t the cheapest option. However, the ROI can be enormous. Many people choose to go to a local store when it’s significantly cheaper to drive 15 minutes than pay $5-10 for shipping.

Free shipping reduces the perceived barriers to ordering something online. That means that you likely end up with more people making purchases. The revenue from those additional customers may compensate for the losses incurred by paying for their shipping.

You can also set a minimum purchase amount before free shipping applies to an order. You’ll incentivize your customers to spend a little more on products to avoid paying the shipping costs.

8. Tweak your checkout process.

You can make dozens of small changes to the user experience of your checkout process. Two of our favorites are eliminating unnecessary fields and adding a progress bar.

While collecting additional information about your buyers during the checkout process is tempting, additional questions lengthen the amount of time it takes to buy. Many people might not be that patient.

Progress bars can have two advantages.

• First, they can reduce buyers’ concern that they don’t have the time to complete the checkout process at the moment.
• Second, they give people a sense of accomplishment after each step they’ve completed, building positive momentum toward completing their purchase.

9. Allow guest checkout.

Allowing people to create an account makes sense for repeat buyers. But if you require people to make an account to make their first purchase, you may lose potential customers. Additionally, some people are averse to saving personal information online.

Trustpilot reports that requiring account creation at checkout is the second-biggest reason why people abandon carts, coming in just below having to pay for shipping.

Those who become repeat buyers will create an account eventually if they feel comfortable saving their information. In the meantime, don’t add extra steps to the checkout process for people ready to buy.

10. Add additional payment options.

A study from the Merchant Payments Ecosystem revealed that 50% of consumers would end a transaction if they couldn’t find their preferred payment method.

Consider running a survey to understand your customers’ preferred payment methods and add the one that’s most convenient for them.

By meeting your customers where they are, you’re potentially removing a nuisance (i.e., walking to another room to get a different credit card) or a complete blocker (i.e., not having access to any of the available payment methods). You’ll also create an easier user experience.

Improve your conversion rates.

By tracking relevant website metrics, you can discover what your current conversion rate is.

Find the right tools to help optimize your conversion rate. Then, experiment to see what yields results.

A marketer’s job can feel never-ending, especially when you have multiple daily tasks and campaigns to manage independently. Whether you have to guide a team, communicate with customers, or run a campaign — your to-do list can be exhausting.

Fortunately, there’s a way to automate some of your tasks — bots!

Here’s a list of bot software you can use to automate parts of the marketing process, so you can spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time running your business.

Best Facebook Messenger Chatbots

Here are the best chatbots available for Facebook messenger.

1. Boletia

Boletia is a customer support tool that allows event planners to streamline their businesses. With Boletia, you can automate your ticket sales and make the purchasing process effortless for your customers.

The Facebook integration lets you buy and sell event tickets through Facebook Messenger.

Platforms: Messenger

Functions: Customer Support

Price: Free

Language: Spanish

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2. BrighterMonday Uganda

BrighterMonday is an online job search tool that helps jobseekers in Uganda find relevant local employment opportunities.

The BrighterMonday Messenger integration allows you to speed up your job search by asking the BrighterMonday chatbot on Messenger.

Platforms: Messenger

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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3. Dashbot.io

Dashbot.io is a bot analytics platform that helps bot developers increase user engagement. Dashbot.io gathers information about your bot to help you create better, more discoverable bots.

The Dashbot.io chatbot is a conversational bot directory that allows you to discover unique bots you’ve never heard of via Facebook Messenger.

Platforms: Messenger, Slack, Kik, Web

Functions: Analytics

Price: Paid

Language: English

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4. Faqbot

Faqbot is an automated 24-hour customer and sales support bot for answering frequently asked questions. The few seconds it takes to set it up will allow Faqbot to help your customers while you get some rest.

The Facebook integration lets you turn your static FAQ page into a streamlined conversation via Facebook Messenger.

Platforms: Messenger

Functions: Customer Support

Price: Paid

Language: English

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5. GoHire

GoHire is an online recruitment and branding tool that streamlines hiring and outsourcing talent. GoHire makes managing candidates and scheduling interviews fast and simple – no paperwork or confusing spreadsheets.

The integrations allow you to communicate directly with recruiters and job candidates via Messenger, SMS, and web chat.

Platforms: Messenger, SMS, Web

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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Best Discord Bot

This bot below is excellent for elevating your Discord activity. 

6. MEE6

MEE6 is a Discord bot that offers a suite of features to enhance your Discord server. With MEE6, you can stay on top of internet trends, create custom commands, automate processes, and more.

Platforms: Discord

Functions: Communication

Price: Free

Language: English

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Best Marketing Chat Bots

Need advice ahead of your next marketing campaign? Need a way to schedule your ads automatically? These bots can provide the solutions you need.

7. About Chatbots

About Chatbots is a community for chatbot developers on Facebook to share information. FB Messenger Chatbots is a great marketing tool for bot developers who want to promote their Messenger chatbot.

You can also connect with About Chatbots on Facebook to get regular updates via Messenger from the Facebook chatbot community.

Platforms: Messenger

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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8. Opesta

Opesta is a Facebook Messenger program for building your marketing bots. Opesta is easy to use and has everything you need to generate leads, follow up and deliver your products, and you don’t need coding skills to make it work.

The Opesta Messenger integration allows you to build your marketing chatbot for Facebook Messenger.

Platforms: Messenger

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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9. Revealbot

Reveal is a marketing automation tool for Facebook ads. Save time planning and scheduling your ads; provide the rules and let Reveal do all the work.

The Slack integration lets you get notifications and access your Instagram and Facebook campaigns in Slack.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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10. Surveybot

Surveybot is a marketing tool for creating and distributing fun, informal surveys to your customers and audience. You don’t need any coding skills – anyone can use Surveybot.

All you have to do is let Surveychat guide you through the survey-building process via Facebook Messenger.

Platforms: Messenger

Functions: Marketing

Price: Paid

Language: English

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11. Brand24

Brand24 is a marketing app that lets you see what people say about your brand to take advantage of new sales opportunities. Charts and feeds are available for analysis of brand mentions.

The Slack integration saves you time and enhances collaboration by allowing you to quickly assign tasks to the right people so you can take care of issues before they become big problems.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Paid

Language: English

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12. Brandfolder

Brandfolder is a digital brand asset management platform that lets you monitor how various brand assets are used. Having all your brand assets in one location makes it easier to manage them.

The Slack integration puts all brand asset activity in one channel for easy collaboration and monitoring.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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13. Autopilot

Autopilot is an app that allows you to personalize and automate your customer experience, giving you more time to focus on other aspects of business without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

The Slack integration lets you automate messages to your team regarding your customer experience.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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14. ChatKwik

ChatKwik is a conversational marketing software that works with Slack to keep customer conversations organized to serve your customers better. The Slack integration lets you directly chat with customers in your Slack channel.

It also lets you learn where new prospects come from and generate more leads.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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15. Customer.io

Customer.io is a messaging automation tool that allows you to craft and easily send out awesome messages to your customers. From personalization to segmentation, Customer.io has any device you need to connect with your customers truly.

The Slack integration lets your team receive notifications about your customers’ activity.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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16. GetResponse

GetResponse is a comprehensive online marketing platform that can streamline your online marketing efforts and help you grow your business.

The Slack integration lets you customize notifications for different marketing metrics and channels so that you stay ahead of the game.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: Marketing

Price: Free

Language: English

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Best HR Chat Bots

Managing a team can be difficult, so here are some bots that can help keep your team motivated and on track.

17. HeyTaco

Show your coworkers how much you appreciate them with HeyTaco. HeyTaco is a fun way to celebrate your team members and inspire productivity with friendly competition.

The Slack and Discord integrations allow you to give your team praise and recognition without leaving Slack or Discord.

Platforms: Slack, Microsoft Teams

Functions: Communication

Price: Paid

Language: English

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18. Breezy

Breezy HR streamlines hiring and onboarding new people to your team. Use Breezy HR to discover, vet, and hire candidates that suit your company’s culture without wasting time or getting lost in paperwork.

The Slack integration allows you to rate candidates, view available positions, and get HR updates in Slack.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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19. Sage HR

Sage HR is an HR tool that automates attendance tracking and employee leave scheduling. Sage HR is convenient, straightforward, and fast. The Slack integration lets you track your team’s time off and absence requests via Slack.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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20. Calamari

No more HR scheduling complications; Calamari is an HR tool that manages team attendance, sick days, vacations, and work-related travel.

It takes zero effort. The Calamari-Slack integration allows you to request time off, clock in, clock out and check presence without leaving Slack.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English, French, German, Polish, Spanish

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21. ChiefOnboarding

Give new hires a warm and comprehensive welcome to their new team with the ChiefOnboarding Slack app. ChiefOnboarding simplifies the onboarding experience and is a great help for new hires.

The Slack integration enables you to get reminders, tasks, and tips from ChiefOnboarding via Slack.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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22. Fortay

Fortay is a new analytics Slack bot that helps you keep your team on track. Fortay uses AI to assess employee engagement and analyze team culture in real time. This integration lets you learn about your coworkers and make your team happy without leaving Slack.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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23. Icebreakers

Get to know your coworkers with Icebreakers, an HR chatbot for building team culture. Icebreakers is a fun and modern way to make your team comfortable and invigorated.

Installing Icebreakers only takes a few seconds, and then you can exchange enjoyable getting-to-know-you questions and answers with your Slack team.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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24. Karma

Make your workplace more fun and more productive with Karma. Karma is a team management and analytics bot that tracks your team’s accomplishments and performance while promoting friendly competition. The Slack integration lets you view your team performance stats and reward high-achieving coworkers.

Platforms: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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25. Zenefits

Zenefits is a comprehensive digital HR platform for small to medium-sized businesses. Zenefits streamlines weeks of accumulated repetitive administrative tasks and handles team requests for you. Zenefits is so friendly you might start thinking it’s a human.

The Slack integration allows you to enjoy the perks of Zenefits right in your Slack channel.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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26. Charlie

Charlie is HR software that streamlines your HR processes by organizing employee data into one convenient location. Whether you need to track employee time off, quickly onboard new employees, or grow and develop your team, Charlie has all the necessary resources.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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27. Donut

Donut is an HR application that fosters trust among your team and onboarding new employees faster so everyone works better together. The Slack integration lets you sort pairings based on different customizable factors for optimal rapport-building.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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28. Duuoo

Duuoo is a performance management software that allows you to continuously manage employee performance so you can proactively address any issues that may arise. The Slack integration uses notifications to help you keep track of meetings and agreements in your Slack channel.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Free

Language: English

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29. Geekbot

Geekbot is a bot that allows you to have effective meetings without everyone being physically present. The Slack integration lets you stay updated quickly on the status of various tasks that different teams handle.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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30. Koan

Koan is an application meant to help strengthen the bonds within your team. This app will help build your team with features like goal-setting and reflection.

The Slack integration lets you manage all your Koan data without leaving Slack and keep your team updated.

Platforms: Slack

Functions: HR

Price: Paid

Language: English

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You can focus on strategizing and executing your next marketing campaign by delegating certain tasks to automated bots. Maybe it isn’t such a scary idea to let the robots take over sometimes.

Artificial intelligence continues to be a hot topic within the marketing industry. The market for AI in marketing will likely grow to $107.5 billion by 2028, up from $15.84 billion in 2021.

As the technology’s role in marketing expands, you’ve probably heard the terms “deep learning” and “machine learning,” — but what do these terms mean? Here’s what marketers need to know about deep learning and machine learning.

What is Machine Learning?

3 Common Ways Marketers Use Machine Learning

What is Deep Learning?

3 Common Ways Marketers Use Deep Learning

The Difference Between Machine Learning and Deep Learning

An example of machine learning is speech recognition. Machine learning can translate speech into text; software applications can convert live voice and speech recordings into text files.

Voice search, voice dialing, and appliance control are all examples of machine learning in speech recognition.

So if you’ve ever listened to your favorite song by saying, “Alexa, play ____,” you can thank machine learning for the capability.

3 Common Ways Marketers Use Machine Learning

Here are some ways machine learning is often implemented in marketing strategies.

1. Predictive Recommendations

Predictive recommendation machines rely on data to predict what content or services a user would enjoy. A well-known example is Netflix’s AI system that recommends movies and shows based on what a user has already watched.

The AI reportedly saves Netflix $1 billion annually through decreased churn and higher retention.

2. Churn Prediction

Some companies use machine learning to predict when a customer is about to churn so the company can take action before the customer leaves.

They achieve this by examining demographics, past user actions, and other data to predict future behavior.

For example, if a customer’s behavior indicates they may end their subscription to a music stream. In that case, the service may offer an exclusive deal — such as a temporarily discounted subscription rate — to keep them from churning.

This type of machine learning helps companies keep high retention rates, which leads to increased revenue.

3. Lead Scoring

Leading scoring predicts which leads are likely to convert into customers. This form of machine learning helps sales teams avoid manually sorting and reviewing thousands of leads every month.

Teams can use a lead scoring model to automatically identify and prioritize the most promising, thus boosting productivity while reducing costs.

What is Deep Learning?

Deep learning is a discipline of machine learning that uses algorithms and data to mimic the human brain to train a model. This discipline uses neural networks to learn a specific task. 

The neural networks comprise interconnected neurons that process data in the human brain and computers.

3 Common Ways Marketers Use Deep Learning

Here are some ways marketers use deep learning in their strategies.

1. Segmentation

Deep learning models can find patterns in data to initiate advanced segmentation. This allows marketers to easily and quickly identify the target audience for a campaign and predict potential leads.

2. Hyper-personalization

Deep learning can develop personalization engines that help marketers streamline the process of delivering hyper-personalized content.

Examples of hyper-personalized materials are websites that show content that varies depending on who’s browsing or push notifications for customers who leave without making a purchase.

3. Predicting Customer Behavior

Marketers can use deep learning to predict a customer’s actions by tracking how they move through the brand’s website and how often they purchase.

In doing so, AI can tell companies which products and services are in demand and should be the focus of future campaigns.

The Difference Between Machine Learning and Deep Learning

Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence, while deep learning is a subset of machine learning.

Machine learning means computers learn from data using algorithms to learn and act without being programmed — in other words, without human intervention. And deep learning uses algorithms and neural networks to train a model.

The image below illustrates the relationship between artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning.

Machine learning can also train on smaller data sets, while deep learning requires large amounts of data.

Deep learning improves via its environment and by learning from past mistakes, but machine learning requires more human intervention to learn and correct itself.

Here are some other key differences between machine learning and deep learning:

• Machine learning requires shorter training but can result in lower accuracy.
• Deep learning requires higher training and results in higher accuracy.
• Machine learning makes straightforward, linear correlations.
• Deep learning makes complex, non-linear correlations.

As artificial intelligence further integrates into various industries and our daily lives, marketers must understand its basic principles and learn how to leverage it for their brands.

Both deep learning and machine learning will create new possibilities in marketing by streamlining tedious processes and predicting audience behavior.

AI can help marketers improve their strategies and ensure they’re always on trend with consumers.

Moving people to act is a challenging task. With just a few words, CTA copy needs to show that you see where your audience is coming from and empathize with their issues. That CTA (call-to-action) must also motivate them to move toward a solution.

If the CTA copy you craft doesn’t keep your visitors’ attention, it can hurt your click-through rate, lead conversions, and ultimately, sales.

So, a CTA needs to inspire, encourage, and coax a person into action, but not bore, scold, or distract. Clearly, writing CTAs is a tricky balance of skill, influence, and awareness. But how can you write the perfect CTA copy on your own?

Keep reading or skip to a section to learn:

• What is CTA copy?
• Real-Life Examples of CTA Copy YOU Should Copy
• How to Write CTA Copy That Converts

When marketers think about call-to-action (CTA) creation, the first thing many of them tend to focus on is design. And while CTA design is critical to initially drawing the attention of your visitors, it’s CTA copy that has to be compelling enough to get them clicking.

Bring your calls-to-action to life with HubSpot’s 28 Free CTA Templates. Simply add your own copy, adjust designs as needed, save as an image, and upload to your CMS.

Looking at CTA examples can also help when you’re writing. The following examples can inspire you and compel your visitors to click and convert.

Real-Life Examples of CTA Copy YOU Should Copy

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is all about growing better, and visitors quickly get that message from the call-to-action at the top of the page. Then, the copy outlines how HubSpot can help your business grow better.

The next CTA is highlighted with a button, “Start free or get a demo.” This gives you two different choices with a single click, meeting the needs of many different users with a single action.

2. Kate Spade

This compelling CTA asks readers to “treat yourself” and “shop self-gifting.” The contrast of traditional Valentine’s day terms like “romancing” and “heart” with a unique statement makes this CTA stand out. It also highlights a specific audience that’s often ignored on this holiday, inviting them to flip through and “make the moment all about you.”

3. KLM

The language of this call-to-action (“50,000 Bonus Miles online offer”) is written in a way that gives visitors context even if they skim over the copy listed below it. The bottom line of text uses punctuation and uppercase letters to emphasize urgency. It’s effective because it’s both specific and action-oriented.

4. Duolingo

The copy of the call-to-action button here is so descriptive that visitors can move immediately into action, either getting started or continuing to use the app. This straightforward CTA tells you exactly what this app does and why you want to use it. Remember — sometimes being to the point is all you need to drive conversions.

5. Eventbrite

The text outside the call-to-action button here serves to create an incentive. The best time to find an event is now, so there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t just go ahead and find one. While this app is best known for creating events online, this CTA shows that Eventbrite also invests in promoting events posted on the app, creating more reasons to use the platform.

6. American Red Cross

This is an inspirational CTA example. It starts by reminding each individual who visits the site of their potential impact with one phrase — “You Can Make a Difference.” Then, it outlines how a financial gift can help. This framework creates an experience that feels more inspiring and less transactional, while still supporting the goal of collecting donations.

7. AWS

In this example, the text above the call-to-action — “Start Building on AWS Today” — gives specific details about the action visitors will be taking if they click. It reveals the ‘how’ of “Get Started for Free” too, with detailed sections for builders and decision makers. This copy clearly sets expectations before conversion so visitors know exactly what they’ll get in return for their click.

8. GoTo

This CTA starts with “One solution. So many ways to stay connected.” It goes on to describe the value of their cloud phone system. Then GoTo uses CTA buttons to clarify exactly what visitors will get after their click(s): either “See Plans and Pricing” or “Get a Demo.” The lesson is simple, if your button text is short and simple, clarifying copy can give visitors an extra boost to click.

9. Fitbit

In this example, the CTA copy tackles the problem of decision overload. Some companies use a CTA to compare their products to a competitor, then offer their best product as the best choice. Instead, this CTA assumes that the issue isn’t whether to purchase from Fitbit, but which Fitbit product to buy.

The CTA copy calls out a problem in a friendly way — “Trouble choosing? We’ve got you covered.” Then, it offers an immediate solution — “Start the quiz.” While some customers have complicated problems, you can simplify by looking at your ideas from your customers’ perspective.

10. Turbo Tax

When a web page offers many different choices, you may need to display more than one CTA. Each CTA needs to be powerful by itself, conveying a compelling and targeted offer through both visuals and copy. In this example, the language of the calls-to-action here gives readers solid context around three distinct offers.

11. Secureworks

This call-to-action gives visitors enough information to take the next step without needing to give away much background information. This text is a teaser that tempts people to keep reading, making a subject that can sometimes seem boring (cybersecurity) more enticing.

12. On24

The main call-to-action in this example urges action. Then, the text above each follow-up CTA highlights details about each offer. This language offers clarity and sets expectations for the visitor, eliminating any guesswork.

13. Upwork

This CTA starts with a motivational message — “How work should work” — then shifts the focus to direct action. The CTA buttons offer two different ways to engage. First, a CTA that asks visitors to start using the platform for hiring. Next, a CTA for people who aren’t sure how to hire and may have a longer buyer journey before they start using the platform.

14. Citizen Group

Simple doesn’t mean boring. This example offers creative CTA copy that aligns with the voice of the organization. CTAs like “Building Citizen Brands,” “Connecting Through Culture,” and “Let the Work Speak” offer a clear idea of what visitors will find after clicking. At the same time, the tone and voice of each CTA feels unique to this brand and makes the act of clicking more exciting.

Check out this post for more clickable call-to-action examples.

CTA copy is often the shortest copy on the page, so to some, it can be mystifying that it’s often the copy that takes the longest to write. A call-to-action is like a bumblebee, with its big body and tiny wings. It carries a heavy load with just a few carefully chosen words.

To create a CTA that makes the most of every blog, landing page, email, and button, check out these tips.

1. Use active language.

Using active voice puts the reader in the center of the action. It also helps cut down on wordiness. An example of active voice is, “Jack eats cherries to stay fit.”

In contrast, passive voice talks about action in a more roundabout way. For example, “The cherries were eaten by Jack for fitness.”

A writing tool like Hemingway Editor can help you test your copy for active voice.

2. Make your message specific.

CTA copy needs to be original, eye-catching, and drive action. That is a lot of work for a small number of words. So, to meet conversion goals with your CTAs, be specific.

Specific copy focuses on a single focused topic. Then, it uses language that makes it easy to visualize both the problem at hand and how the CTA offer can help.

If you’re not sure whether your language is specific enough, ask a few friends or colleagues to quickly scan your copy. If they all come up with the same meaning, chances are your CTA copy is specific enough. But if your proofreaders come back with different ideas about your offer and meaning, you probably want to rewrite your CTA.

3. Short and simple copy is best.

CTA copy should be easy to scan and understand. People tend to scan when they read online, and CTAs should draw their eye and be quick to take in.

Positive language with simple word choices can also help you create more effective CTAs. Check out this post for more tips on how to write clickable copy.

4. Avoid cliches and trends.

If you’re not sure what to write for your CTA it can be tempting to mimic what competitors are doing or to add a familiar cliche. It’s easy to understand why you’d do this, but it may impact your conversions.

Cliches are easy to remember because you’ve heard them so many times. Jumping on what competitors are doing might make readers think your business lacks creativity.

These approaches to writing copy may give your CTAs meanings that you don’t intend. They’re also something your reader has seen or heard before, so they’re likely to skim over and ignore your call to action.

Instead, use your CTA to tell an authentic story or make an interesting point. This will spark curiosity, and make your reader more likely to engage.

5. Focus on practical value.

Online readers are often searching to solve a problem. And the most effective CTAs make it quick and easy to see that you are offering a solution to that problem.

There are many ways to entice a reader to take a desired action. But being direct can be surprisingly effective. You can often get readers to do what you want them to do by offering a practical solution to a specific problem.

More resources:

• Types of CTAs
• Call-to-action formulas

6. Connect your CTA to your other copy.

Context is essential when you’re building trust with a customer. For example, say you’re at a dog show. If you’re selling dog food, you have a good chance of making a sale. But if you sell cat food, you may not have as much luck. You might even draw negative attention.

CTA copy needs to align with its context too. If you’re writing a landing page for a product, the action you want users to take needs to match the intention that brought that person to the page. Then the CTA copy you write needs to combine the content of the landing page with that offer.

To do this, use phrases and emotional words that match the two pieces of content that you’re connecting with your CTA. Then, edit your copy to emphasize why that connection is useful to your reader.

This post offers more dos and don’ts for CTA copy.

7. Target a specific audience.

You might have a broad target audience. But CTA copy needs to connect with that audience at a particular moment in their journey to drive conversions.

It’s important to know who you’re speaking to. Is it a new visitor to your site arriving from a referral page? Is it a current customer who’s looking for answers? Or a lead hoping to take the next step toward a purchase?

Take some time to look at your content and offer from a target user’s perspective, then write a CTA that will connect to them at the right moment.

8. Test your CTAs for results.

While you can jump into a new CTA and gauge your results by looking at your conversion data, there’s a less risky way to try out new calls to action.

The most popular way to test CTA copy is with A/B testing. You can test CTA performance on different landing pages, with unique designs, or test different versions of CTA copy.

This testing approach isolates one variable at a time so that you can see how the copy of your CTA is impacting performance. Then you can make changes to optimize your CTAs.

Write Copy That Inspires People to Take Action

When it works a CTA can transform your buyer journey, drive conversions, and fuel business growth. But a lackluster CTA can damage your brand reputation, product sales, and more.

CTA copy is how you connect your marketing and sales content to the value your business offers. Writing this copy is both a craft and an art. It takes practice, research, and hours of effort to put together just the right message.

Use the tips and examples in this post to develop your CTA know-how. Then, track your results to refine your skills and keep learning.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

6. Use Twitter Moments.