In March 2017, Snap Inc., the parent company of the popular social media app Snapchat, went public. To meet revenue expectations, they opted into a self-service ads model, as opposed to direct sales.

It’s no question Snapchat is a popular platform — in the U.S. alone, 87.3 million people use the app. Given this, marketers may be curious about using Snapchat to meet marketing goals, and the advertising options available on the platform. 

In this post, discover the benefits that can come from using Snapchat, whether the platform will help you meet your business goals, and a case study from my experimentation on the platform.

Advertising on Snapchat

While it is not as new and emerging as TikTok, Snapchat is not exactly a B2B platform, so you may be skeptical about using it to meet your marketing goals. 

Marketers can create and leverage various types of Snapchat Ads on the platform Like AR experiences, unique business filters for photo overlays, and even 3-minute long commercials. These ads can be used for a variety of different purposes, like general brand awareness, driving sales, or driving website traffic. 

Many people may compare the platform to Facebook, but there’s a significant difference between the two products. Although Facebook’s ads and targeting tools are more robust, Snapchat’s creative studio puts an emphasis on design. While Facebook’s Business Manager can feel initially overwhelming, Snapchat offers a tool that will guide you through the process of getting your campaign up and running. 

Additionally, Snapchat offers templates for creating ads, which can be helpful for businesses that don’t have teams responsible for making creative assets or videos. You can choose from specific templates and create what works best for you, and businesses of all sizes can leverage the tool to build ads and create product catalogs to share with their target audiences. 

Let’s go over some statistics that explain additional facts about advertising on Snapchat.

1. The largest audiences on Snapchat globally are females between the ages of 13-17 and males between 25 and 34. 

Millennials are currently the generation with the most significant purchasing power. Many users in Gen Z are approaching ages where they can begin making purchases for themselves or have already begun to do so. Given this, leveraging Snapchat gives you an in with the generations with significant spending power. In fact,

2. Snapchatters hold $4.4 trillion in global spending power. 

The opportunity to generate revenue on the app is high, especially when advertising products and services. 

Image Source

3. Foresight Factory Research predicts that in 2025 we’ll see a 37% increase in the proportion of U.S. Gen Z shoppers that use AR before buying a product. 

Snapchat has unique AR tools that set it apart from other social media apps. If you leverage this in your Snapchat Ads strategy, you’ll meet a significantly large audience desire and stay up on the trends.

4. Snapchatters are 63% more likely than non-Snapchatters to have purchased a product in the last month via a mobile device. 

If you’re selling a product on Snapchat, your audience is likely less hesitant to make purchases on social media apps and may be ready to do so again.

5. Snapchat commercials have 5x higher ad awareness than other mobile video ads. 

This statistic shows that the video you create on Snapchat can attract more customers than the ads you make on other platforms. 

Let’s go over an experiment I ran for my business on Snapchat to test out the platform.

42 Agency: A Snapchat Case Study

When I first started exploring Snap Ads, I was a little skeptical whether or not it could work for 42 Agency. Snap is not exactly a B2B platform, and, to my knowledge, didn’t have deep targeting options for companies working on Demand Generation or Growth projects.

For my purposes, I decided to run a simple web traffic objective campaign (Snap also supports app installs, engagement, and other objectives). I wanted to target business-specific audiences, so I focused my efforts on ages 27 and up.

I was impressed with the targeting options available on Snap Ads. Snap has similar categories to Facebook, available from Experian & Datalogix (income, occupation and such), albeit not as exhaustive as Facebook. However, these targeting options are available for the U.S. only. Along with Advanced Demographics, Snapchat’s ad targeting includes options for TV viewing, purchase behavior, lifestyles, and more.

Overall here are the campaign stats:

In this case, the “Swipe Ups” measure click-through rate. Rather than using a click-through link, Snap’s product urges users to “Swipe Up” from the bottom to view the destination URL. In my opinion, this creates higher intent and less risk of mistaken clicks than Facebook or Twitter mobile ads.

If you’re still on the fence, here’s a summary of when you should consider using Snapchat and when your marketing efforts may be best spent elsewhere. 

Should You Advertise On Snapchat? A Final Verdict

There is no right or wrong answer to the question of whether or not you should advertise on Snapchat, as most businesses can find success on the platform. You can easily segment your audience, upload your assets, set a campaign goal, and drive results. In addition, it’s less risky than TikTok simply because of the variety of advertising options available. 

If you’re a SaaS business, you can easily create commercials advertising your products and services. If you’re a clothing retailer, you can create product catalogs so users can see what you have to offer within the app. If you’re a dog groomer, you can use location targeting to get brand awareness for your business among local audiences.

Given this, there really is no set rule for which businesses can and cannot advertise on Snapchat. However, it is essential to the companies that do advertise on the platform to consider the following: 

• If your audience isn’t younger Gen Z or older Millennials, your audience likely won’t be on the platform. However, if you do, you’ll expose your content to an audience with significant purchasing power.  
• Snapchat is a visual-focused platform and, if you can’t create unique brand assets, like images and videos, it will be hard to meet audience expectations. 
• If you don’t have an existing social media marketing strategy for other platforms, it may not be best to focus your efforts on the platform as it is more unique than Instagram or Facebook.

If you’re looking for more information, let’s go over an experiment I ran for my business on Snapchat to test out the platform.

Ultimately, the decision to use Snapchat in your marketing strategy depends on your overall marketing goals and target audiences. Consider the benefits listed above that it can bring to your business, and decide whether it fit into your strategy.

As many marketers know, the months of November through January can be the most pivotal for a business.

Why? This is when many marketing teams dive deep into planning for the next year. 

At this point, you’re probably starting to get overwhelmed by all the market research, industry news, competitive analysis, and/or team metrics you need to sift through as you plan for 2022. And, this overflow of information can make it incredibly hard for teams to determine what they need to focus on.

To help marketers plan for 2022, I recently published findings from the HubSpot Blog’s Marketing Industry Trends Survey, where I collected data from more than 1,000 global B2B and B2C marketers — and aimed to answer questions like:

• Which industry trends and tactics are marketers investing in?
• What challenges are they facing?
• And, what are their plans and expectations for 2022 and beyond?

To help readers distill and act on this helpful information even further, I’ve gone deeper through the survey data and made a list of some of the key recommendations marketers should consider in 2022.

Here are just a few suggestions, based on our data:

11 Data-Backed Marketing Recommendations for 2022

1. Produce short-form videos.

Short-form video is popular, effective, and still growing, with 31% of marketers currently leveraging short-form video and 29% planning to leverage it for the first time in 2022.

More than half of marketers (51%) who leverage short-form video plan to increase their investment in 2022, while 38% plan to continue investing the same amount.

Short-form video also has the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy and 30% of social media marketers plan to invest in it more than any other trend in 2022.

Why do consumers engage with short over long-form content? When done right, short-form content is quick, but still concise, enabling fast-paced web users to get most of the information they need very quickly. And, if a short-form video doesn’t pack all the information a person needs to convert in it, it usually forces marketers to point out the most important facts that will make viewers eager to learn more.

One example of a great short-form video is from the Instagram account Miss.Excel (a company that offers Microsoft Excel courses). In this quick video, company founder and CEO, Kat Norton, demonstrates her credibility as an Excel coach by showing viewers how to convert a list of names in all caps to proper text.

If you plan to leverage short-form content in the next year, read up on the latest trends and tips from experts in the video space to get inspiration for your strategy.

2. Partner with influencers.

Influencer marketing is the most popular and effective trend, with the biggest ROI. This trend will keep growing in 2022 with 21% of marketers planning to leverage it for the first time.

Additionally, 46% of marketers who leverage influencers will increase their investments in 2022, while 40% will continue investing the same amount.

While you might expect brands to invest in high-priced, macro-influencers with the largest following possible, we actually saw that many marketers are instead opting to hire more affordable, but still highly-engaging nano or micro-influencers.

This wasn’t all that shocking to the Blog team. Because nano and micro-influencers aren’t celebrities with the highest budget content out there, they’re more relatable and trustworthy, which can lead to persuasive and effective product or brand endorsements.

Want to leverage influencer marketing, but don’t know where to start? Check out this handy checklist.

3. Prioritize LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram — but keep TikTok on your radar.

B2B brands might want to focus their social media marketing strategies on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram — these platforms have the highest ROI for B2B businesses.

While just 40% of B2B social media marketers leverage TikTok, 65% of those who do plan on increasing their investment in 2022, the highest increase of any social platform. Meanwhile, 43% and 51% of marketers who use Facebook and Instagram will increase those platform investments in the next year.

In the B2C world, our survey found that 24% of marketers say Facebook returns the biggest ROI, while 19.5% and 12.1% point to Instagram and TikTok respectively. However, 62% of B2C marketers plan to increase investments in TikTok next year, compared to 44% of marketers who use Facebook and 56% of those using Instagram.

4. Leverage audio for engagement rather than ROI.

In the last year, audio platforms like Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, and Spotify (for podcasting) showed us just how viral audio content can be — even when it’s branded.

And, in 2022, audio trends won’t be toning down.

While only one in three content marketers leverages podcasts or other audio content at the moment, 53% of them say it’s the most effective media format they use.

Investment in podcasts or other audio content will grow in 2022, despite low ROI, our survey found that:

• 26% of content marketers plan to leverage podcasts or other audio content for the first time in 2022.
• 51% of those who already leverage podcasts or other audio content will invest more in 2022
• 43% of those who already leverage these strategies plan to invest the same amount in 2022.

When it comes to audio chat room platforms like Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces, just 14% of social media marketers use them, but 68% of those marketers say it’s the most effective social media marketing strategy they use.

Despite having low ROI, similarly to podcasts and other audio content, investment in audio chat rooms will continue to grow in 2022.

Nearly 50% of marketers who already use audio chat rooms plan to increase their investment in 2022, while 47% plan to maintain their current investment.

5. Go live.

Live video combines the visual and informative benefits of video marketing with the authenticity of unedited and uncensored content. By going live, consumers can see, hear from, and develop an authentic sense of trust from a brand that has decided to put their product, mission, or expertise out on social media for the world to see.

Today, the use of live video is growing, with 32% of social media marketers in our survey planning on leveraging it for the first time in 2022. And, of the 28% of social media marketers who currently leverage live video, 59% say it is the most effective social media marketing strategy they use.

6. Use marketing automation software to streamline strategies.

Automation is no longer a high-priced, inaccessible technology used by giant corporations. In fact, it can help with most areas of marketing, from running complex predictive analytics reports to personalizing marketing emails, to simply streamlining basic tasks to give marketers more time for complex strategies or tactics that require the human touch.

Our survey found that 70% of marketers use automation in their roles, while 33% plan to start in 2022.

7. Champion social responsibility.

While just one in four marketers currently devote resources to social responsibility, professionals we surveyed recognize its importance, with 27% planning to actively embrace it for the first time in 2022.

In 2022, 10% of B2B marketers plan to invest more in social responsibility than any other trend.

As we noted above, social responsibility helps your customers and prospects know what you stand for and that they share similar values or missions as you. For more on why the blog team encourages taking social responsibility, check out this post. 

8. Use an omnichannel approach.

Today, 81% of marketers leverage 3 or more marketing channels, and 89% of social media marketers leverage 3 or more social channels.

In a separate Social Media Trends survey, which I’ll report on in an upcoming post, we found that 82% of social media marketers repurpose content across various social channels. However, 69% of B2B companies repurpose content across social media channels, lagging behind B2C companies (89%).

9. Align sales and marketing teams with account-based marketing (ABM).

Just over 27% of marketers struggle with sales-marketing alignment, or smarketing, strategies. Although this challenge is not new to companies, tactics like account-based marketing, or ABM, can help.

Account-based marketing is a sales and marketing alignment tactic where marketers create campaigns, assets, and tactics based on data and feedback directly from the sales floor.

Today, 62% of marketers use ABM in their role, but 27% of marketers who haven’t leveraged it plan to start in 2022.

10. Focus on building hybrid strategies.

In 2022, employees might not be rushing back to the physical office full-time. But, many businesses and marketers will opt for hybrid work environments.

At the moment, half of the global marketers we surveyed are hybrid employees, while just 28% are fully remote.

As you plan for 2022, consider building strategies that work best for a dispersed workforce as some employees will work from home or a remote location either part-time or full-time, while others might rush back into the office.

11. Make the most of your marketing budget.

Between 2020 and 2021, 41% of marketers say their budget increased, while 45% of marketers operated on the same budget from the previous year.

Marketers likely saw their budgets stay fully intact or increase from 2020 to 2021 due to the economic and virtual business landscapes that were accelerated by the pandemic.

For example, businesses with high-priced products saw a lack of sales floor performance as decision-makers needed to spend more cautiously. Meanwhile, online marketing provided exceedingly solid traffic and conversion opportunities as consumers and prospects were stuck inside on the web.

As we move into 2022, the events of the past two years have placed more importance on marketing. For this reason, it’s not too shocking that nearly half of marketers (48%) expect their budget to increase in 2022, while 39% expect it to stay the same.

If you’re on a team that has seen an increase in budget, it’s important to leverage it wisely and build effective strategies that will justify more budget considerations for your team in the future. 

Want more recommendations?

After conducting our Marketing Industry Trends Survey, we aren’t just stopping after this recommendations post. To help marketers dive deeper into data-backed tactics, we’ll continue to publish content around specific findings, trends, and strategies highlighted in our survey. 

Below are just a few of the posts we’ve written recently about specific trends and tactics discovered in our research. 

• The HubSpot Blog’s 2022 Marketing Industry Trends Report: Data from 1,000+ Global Marketers
• The Marketing Trends of 2022 [A Data-Backed Ultimate Guide]
• The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2022
• 6 Short-form Video Trends to Watch in 2022

Need even more guidance for your marketing planning? We’ve got you covered with the free resource below. 

The social media landscape is constantly changing with new features being introduced, and old features being retired constantly.

Sometimes though, a new feature doesn’t quite do what the platform developers intended. Maybe it doesn’t work properly, or perhaps it just doesn’t have the outcome they were expecting. When that’s the case, it’s removed to make way for newer and better.

This is exactly what happened with Twitter Fleets. That’s right, after just 10 short months, Twitter Fleets have been discontinued.

The Short Life of Twitter Fleets

When the production team over at Twitter designed Twitter Fleets, they were hoping to increase the number of new people joining Twitter. Fleets were highlighted at the top of the screen and were similar to Instagram Stories and Snapchat in that posts disappeared in 24-hours.

Ilya Brown, VP of Consumer Product said in a Twitter blog post from July 14th that, “We built Fleets as a lower-pressure, ephemeral way for people to share their fleeting thoughts.”

Snapchat has been building loyal followers since it debuted in July of 2011, and Instagram Stories became a thriving feature for users of the platform in August of 2016, allowing them to share images and videos with their audience which disappear within 24 hours. The idea that Twitter users might enjoy the same low-pressure posting seemed reasonable enough.

The main goal for the feature was to attract more users, Brown said, “Although we built Fleets to address some of the anxieties that hold people back from Tweeting, Fleets are mostly used by people who are already Tweeting to amplify their own Tweets and talk directly with others.”

The announcement in early July had many people wondering why Twitter Fleets was discontinued. Well, after implementing the feature and testing it out for several months, they saw no notable increase in the number of new people on Twitter and decided to ax the project.

It’s now back to the drawing board for Twitter as they look for new ways to inspire people to join the conversation, not only by sharing others’ Tweets but also by creating their own. Brown said that they are using what they learned during this experiment to optimize some of their other features and improve the experience for their users. They found that the top of the timeline is still a great spot to highlight what’s happening now so users will still see Spaces up there when someone they follow is “hosting or speaking in a live audio conversation.” They’ll also explore different updates to improve photos and videos such as the full-screen camera, text formatting options, and the use of GIF stickers.

Social media platforms don’t usually act that quickly to remove a feature that’s producing sub-par results. While Twitter Fleets may not have done what it was intended to do, it has shown the world that if something isn’t working, it can be shut down quickly.

Alternatives to Twitter Fleets

With Twitter Fleets gone, many social media users are looking for alternatives. For now, it looks like Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and Facebook stories are the best options for those looking to post quick pieces of content that are live for 24 hours.

For brands looking to stay connected with their communities on social media, Instagram stories are currently best for reach. According to Rival IQ, brands that have the highest engagement on Instagram post stories approximately 16 times per month, sharing one to three frames each time.

As mentioned before, the social media landscape is constantly changing. There could be an existing platform adding new functionality, or an entirely new social media platform in the works as we speak. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s next on the horizon.

The past two years have been anything but consistent.

The pandemic left the United States in the worst recession in history. People struggled to adjust to remote work, and what we defined as “normal” varied day-by-day.

And yet: Out of that turmoil and inconsistency, we now see a record number of people quitting their jobs in pursuit of better opportunities.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, 4 million people quit their jobs in April 2021, and July saw another 4 million leave.

Which leads me to question: Amidst the past two years of unpredictability — and a resulting lack of security — why are so many people taking the leap now?

Here, we’ll explore what employee turnover is, how much it could be costing your business, and how to calculate employee turnover. Plus, how employers can minimize the effects of what’s being called the Great Resignation, according to experts.

What is employee turnover?

Employee turnover refers to the percentage of employees who leave your company during a given period of time.

Your company’s employee turnover rate includes anyone who leaves for anyreason. This includes resignations, terminations, or retirements. However, turnover rate typically doesn’t include internal movement, such as an employee switching teams or being promoted.

Turnover can cost a business thousands — if not millions — of dollars, and can negatively impact team morale and performance.

All of which is to say: The lower your turnover rates, the better. Low turnover rates signal a healthy, engaging company culture— which is critical for any business’ long-term success.

To determine how your company’s turnover rates compare, let’s explore average turnover rates by industry next.

Employee Turnover Rates in 2020 (By Industry)

Employee turnover rates vary by industry, so you’ll want to do your own research to determine how your company’s turnover rates stack up against competitors.

However, to give you a sense for an appropriate range, let’s take a look at a few turnover rates by industry as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor(it’s important to note, these turnover rates are from 2020, which had unusually high turnover rates):

• Professional and business services: 69.2%
• Health care and social assistance: 45.2%
• Trade, transportation, and utilities: 60.5%
• Retail trade: 69.7%
• Leisure and hospitality: 129.3%
• Government: 24.2%
• Real estate and rental and leasing: 49.4%

Next, let’s look at average employee turnover rates.

Average Employee Turnover Rates

In 2021, the overall turnover rate across industries was 57.3% — but that drops to just 25% when considering voluntary turnover alone.

Voluntary turnover trends continue to rise. In fact, the Work Institute’s 2020 Retention Report states that there’s been an 8% increase in turnover rates since 2018, and an 88% increase since 2010.

Average turnover rates varies significantly depending on your industry. However, a 90% employee retention rate is generally considered good — which means the closer you can get to a 10% turnover rate, the better.

Cost of Employee Turnover

The cost of employee turnover is broken down into the costs of four factors — the cost to terminate, the cost to hire a replacement, the vacancy cost (i.e. how many days the job is open multiplied by the average value of the job per day), and the productivity cost (i.e. how long it takes the new hire to get up to speed).

Josh Bersin of Deloitte says the cost of losing an employee can range from tens of thousands of dollars to 1.5-2X the employee’s annual salary. This means, if you lose an employee who was making $70,000, you can expect to lose upwards of $140,000.

Alternatively, the Work Institute cites the cost of employee turnover at roughly 30%of the employee’s salary — meaning, if you lose an employee who was making $70,000, you’ll expect to lose closer to $21,000.

Employee Benefit News suggests a similar turnover cost at roughly 33% of a worker’s annual salary.

So, whichever way you slice it … you stand to lose a lot of money with each individual employee who leaves. Of course, turnover costs are so difficult to quantify because they’re so specific to each employee’s role and salary.

When determining your own turnover costs, you’ll also want to keep in mind the negative impact high turnover rates can have on company culture and employee productivity — which could lead to even more lost revenue down the line.

How to Calculate Employee Turnover [Plus High and Low Rates]

To calculate your turnover rates, you need to divide the number of employees who leave your company by the total average number of employees, and then multiply by 100.

And, to find your average number of employees, you’ll want to take the number of active employees at the beginning and end of each period, and then divide by two.

To understand this concept, let’s consider an example. If you have 1,200 employees at the beginning of the month, and 1,250 at the end of the month, your average number of employees on a monthly basis is 1,225 (1,200 + 1,250 / 2).

Now, let’s calculate your monthly turnover rate. In the month of September, if 7 people left your company, your turnover rate formula looks like this:

To calculate annual turnover (which is typically the number companies use when assessing employee trends), you’ll want to find your average number of annual employees. If at the beginning of 2021 you had 1,200 employees, and at the end of 2021 you had 1,500 employees, your average number of employees is 1,350 (1,200 + 1,500 / 2).

Now, let’s calculate your annual employee turnover. If you had 200 employees leave in 2021, your annual turnover rate formula looks like this:

To put these numbers into context, you’ll want to determine what a high and low turnover rate for your industry looks like, since turnover rates vary greatly depending on industry. For instance, retail and e-commerce saw a 30.7% turnover rate in 2021, while the technology industry’s turnover was roughly 20%, and financial services was closer to 15%.

Why is turnover so high?

To reduce employee turnover, we first need to understand what’s causing it.

For starters, we’re seeing employee turnover increasing on a national scale. The Labor Department reports that job openings outnumbered the unemployed by more than 2 million in July as companies struggled to fill positions.

Additionally, Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index predicts 40% of the global workforce will consider leaving their employer this year.

This extreme workplace shift — being called the “Great Resignation” — is due to a variety of factors.

To better understand the high turnover rates of the past year, I spoke with Lily Zheng, a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Strategist and Consultant.

Zheng told me, “We call it a great resignation but it’s more of a great correction. These are employees who had already resolved to leave in 2020 but felt they couldn’t.”

Our HubSpot Blog analyst further investigated this issue by polling 500 marketing professionals to learn why turnover was high at their companies. (Those polled belong to both B2B and B2C companies.)

As shown below, 41% of respondents cite lack of work-life balance as the primary reason for high turnover. Another 37% additionally cite a lack of flexible work schedules.

HubSpot Blog Research

In 2020 and 2021, flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to work from anywhere became a necessity as the world shifted to a pandemic and post-pandemic workforce. And even as offices begin to re-open, we see employees continue to prioritize work-life balance and flexibility.

A few other factors? Lack of remote work options, lack of career growth opportunities, burnout, and employees switching careers to pursue other passions.

For better or worse, the pandemic permanently shifted people’s mindsets when it comes to what they value. And one of the biggest value shifts is a newfound prioritization of time.

Simply put, people will work hard for your company if you enable them to choose when, where, and how they work best.

Next, let’s explore a few tips for reducing employee turnover at your organization.

How to Reduce Employee Turnover

1. Give employees a remote or hybrid option (if conducive to your business and work culture).

Now that people have settled into a remote lifestyle, many of them don’t want to return to the office. In fact, when HubSpot surveyed roughly 500 marketers, 40% of respondents said they’d like to continue working remotely full-time even when given the option to return to the office.

A remote lifestyle enables employees to dedicate more time to priorities outside of work. For instance, I have one colleague who now spends her mornings journaling and meditating — which greatly outweighs her old mornings of being stuck in traffic on her commute to work.

I have another colleague who spends lunch break with his kids.

People have recognized the amount of valuable time they win back when they’re fully remote. So if your company doesn’t offer remote or hybrid options, some of your employees will inevitably leave.

2. Prioritize your employees’ well-being.

Promoting wellness at work has been proven to result in better productivity and less employee turnover — which is why it’s a critical strategy to consider when aiming to reduce turnover.

As Lily Zheng writes in her LinkedIn post with over 19,000 reactions, “Your employees aren’t leaving just because they’ve found better opportunities elsewhere. They’re leaving because this is the first chance they’ve gotten to re-balance the scales of their own wellbeing and success, scales that you and your company swung out of whack during the pandemic.”

Seeing as the post received over 19,000 reactions, I’m willing to bet many employees — and employers — agree that, in some instances, well-being wasn’t prioritized by companies in 2020.

To invest in your employees’ well-being, consider creating a wellness program, which includes strategies aimed at increasing physical activity, reducing employee stress, and offering information on nutrition and health.

Additionally, a few big factors that contribute to a positive workplace experience include flexible work hours, an emphasis on autonomy, an investment in diversity and inclusion, and a focus on employees’ mental health and psychological safety above all else.

3. Foster a sense of belonging.

If you want to reduce turnover, take belongingness seriously.

A sense of belonging is undeniably critical for long-term employee satisfaction. In fact, there’s a 91% correlation between employees who say they belong and those who stay engaged at work, and a 50% drop in attrition among employees who report a sense of belonging.

As Belonging Strategist and Managing Director of BelongingIQ Abam Mambo puts it, “Employees who feel a sense of belonging tend to stay engaged, productive, and are far less likely to leave than those who feel excluded. So if you want your good employees to stay, invest in belongingness.”

How can you invest in belongingness? While this list isn’t exhaustive, Mambo lists a few strategies you can implement to begin facilitating a sense of belonging on your team:

• Appoint and pipeline inclusive leaders
• Recruit and empower a diverse workforce
• Implement fair and equitable employment practices
• Reward performance
• Reframe your ‘speak-up’ program to ensure employees are heard, treated fairly, and not retaliated against

Ultimately, a sense of belonging contributes to an employee’s sense of pride, happiness, and satisfaction at work. So investing in belonging won’t just help your turnover rates — when done right, it will also positively impact your bottom line, as employees who belong are also employees who are engaged.

4. Use a net promoter score to measure employee satisfaction.

A net promoter score (NPS) survey can help you measure your employee satisfaction, and how likely your employees are to suggest your workplace to friends or family.

The survey uses a 0-10 scale, and those in the high range (between 9-10), are your most loyal and engaged employees who will help fuel your growth through word-of-mouth. The next batch (scoring between 7-8), are satisfied but slightly more indifferent — these are employees who are more susceptible to competitors’ offers.

And, finally, you have your lower scorers (between 0-6). This signifies a group of employees who aren’t fully satisfied at your company. These people are less engaged and more willing to leave.

To lower turnover rates, it’s vital you determine what’s working for your employees, and what isn’t. If you aren’t measuring employee satisfaction, there’s no way for you to know how to improve it. A NPS can help you determine weak spots in your current culture and opportunities to strengthen your employee offerings, which will enable you to keep more employees around for the long-haul.

5. Offer competitive pay and benefits.

Earning more money is the top reason people leave jobs. In fact, PayScale research found 25% of people surveyed left their jobs for higher pay — ranking far above people who left because they were unhappy, wanted more flexibility, or needed to relocate.

Offering competitive pay depends on a variety of factors. You’ll want to consider your geographic area and industry to determine a baseline competitive rate.

Additionally, it’s important to keep in mind the level of expertise for which you’re hiring, as well as supply and demand — for instance, if you’re looking for a senior developer and you know the pool of developers is relatively small in your area, you might need to increase base pay to compete.

If you can’t increase base rate, consider offering competitive benefits packages, instead. Tuition reimbursement, PTO, flexible hours, fitness discounts, and parental leave are all factors to consider when creating a comprehensive employee benefits package.

6. Provide professional development opportunities.

Learning and professional development matters for long-term employee satisfaction.

Consider, for instance, how 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if the company invested in helping them learn.

Additionally, did you know Gen Z learners watched 50% more hours of learning content in 2020 compared to 2019?

Ultimately, the desire to learn and grow is fundamental to human nature. So investing in training and development opportunities is vital for reducing employee turnover.

As Greenhouse’s Director of Talent Acquisition Ariana Moon puts it, “Investing in growing and up-skilling employees is especially important in the context of our rapidly evolving digital environment today.”

Moon says, “Recognizing the talent you have and prioritizing internal mobility is not only key for retention and engagement, but also a win-win for your company due to opportunities to cross-pollinate knowledge and skills across teams.”

While Moon acknowledges the hesitations some team leaders might feel when considering internal mobility programs (due to anxiety about vacancies they’ll have if people move off their teams), she says it’s ultimately critical for the success of the business as a whole. 

As Moon puts it, “Companies need to think holistically about how internal movement can benefit the overall business — through improving morale and productivity, elongating tenure due to new opportunities for growth, and developing employees who have multifaceted skill sets and are more resilient to change.”

At HubSpot, we offer development and training courses that focus on clear communication, leading effectively, giving and receiving feedback, and expanding impact. These trainings are offered by HubSpotters, for HubSpotters.

To create an effective learning and development program, you’ll want to map out a clear career growth plan for each department. Next, you’ll need to determine which skills are vital for each role. Once you have a list of skills, you can begin mapping out a plan that includes training and development opportunities for each of those necessary skills.

7. Be thoughtful and strategic when hiring new candidates.

Retention rates will vary greatly depending on your hiring process. The more time and effort you can put into finding the right candidate(s) who will fit well into your existing organization, the less likely you are to see high turnover rates. 

As Co-Founder and CEO of Crosschq Michael Fitzsimmons puts it, “Historically, hiring managers have been incentivized to increase headcount as fast as possible, but the data shows that approach is a losing proposition. As recruiters work quickly to keep pace with filling roles, they rely on imperfect gauges for candidate quality — including resume claims, interview feedback, and perhaps traditional reference checks.”

“Unfortunately, these methods are scattered at best, introducing bias and frankly, noise. In fact, Crosschq’s research has shown only a 9% correlation between interview scores and the quality of a hiring decision.”

Fitzsimmons adds, “The finish line isn’t the new hire’s first day on the job … it’s the productivity, culture fit, and retention of that hire for months and years to come. It’s important to align what you’re hiring for with what you’re expecting on the other side.”

To improve your hiring strategy, Fitzsimmons recommends modernizing your hiring tools and processes to better leverage data insights for improved hiring decisions. 

Additionally, it’s vital you’re clear and honest upfront with candidates about a role. Even though it might be tempting to paint an unrealistic picture of a role to secure high-quality candidates, it’s better in the long-run if you ensure your candidates are fully aware of both the perks and challenges of each role before they’re hired.

Ariana Moon agrees that hiring is vital for long-term retention — as is onboarding.

She told me, “Many industry surveys have shown that over 85% of new hires make the decision [to stay or leave] within the first six months of employment. That number can be traced back to the onboarding experience. 69% of employees will stay for longer than 3 years if their onboarding experience is good, while 1 in 5 will leave within 45 days if it’s bad.”

To improve your onboarding process, Moon suggests taking a hard look at your programming through the lens of various employee personas, and focus on creating experiences where each new hire can feel heard, represented, supported, and enabled for success.

8. Develop an inclusive culture for distributed teams.

Inclusivity is undeniably paramount for ensuring each employee feels valued — but as the workplace changes, you’ll need to adjust your approach to ensure you’re still creating an inclusive environment for a hybrid or fully remote team.

“To create an inclusive culture,” Zheng told me, “I’d first encourage employers to show humility and admit you don’t know the best solutions for a new, hybrid environment. Host focus groups and listening sessions, and ask your employees what would be ideal for them — and then collect the data.”

As Zheng describes, an inclusive workplace will look different for everyone. Perhaps your data shows your team wants to return to the office — in which case, the ideal solution is to support a return-to-office policy.

Alternatively, maybe your workforce has people who want to feel a greater sense of connection, but don’t necessarily want to return to the office. “In that case,” Zheng says, “maybe you’d benefit from considering a model where you ask people to come back to the office for social activities or team-building activities, but outside of those activities you support remote work.”

Of course, if you have a distributed team with employees across the globe already, you’ll want to brainstorm how you can create a more inclusive culture in a fully remote environment.

Reducing employee turnover will likely require more than just the eight tips mentioned above. Employee satisfaction varies between industries and individual companies, so you’ll want to take the time to research what truly drives people towards — or away from — your business.

And, as Zheng reminds me — reflection is key. “It’s important for employers to recognize that employees have a lot of power right now, and so it’s not the time to be complacent … And, [as you reflect on your employees’ experience], go back and consider which aspects of the ‘status quo’ have always failed a large portion of your workforce. What do you need to reckon with if you want to survive into 2022 and beyond?”

Ultimately, the pandemic shifted people’s perspectives and values when it comes to work. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you notice your turnover rates are higher than normal, consider what you need to change to remain competitive in a post-pandemic landscape.

Guess what? Global marketing is no longer reserved for brands with deep pockets, nor is it a huge hassle for marketing managers who handle all marketing efforts.

In fact, a global presence is possible for any business with a creative strategy and an understanding of world markets. Let’s go over what a good global marketing strategy looks like and the best examples worldwide.

What Is Good Global Marketing?

Global marketing is the act of focusing a product on the needs of potential buyers in other countries.

Like most types of marketing, though, a global marketing strategy comes down to one thing: audience. Knowing who needs your product, what form they need it in, and how to market it in a way that strengthens the brand are core ingredients of awesome global marketing.

Typically, a global marketing strategy requires a business to do new market research, identify countries where the business’s product might be successful, and then localize the brand to reflect the needs of those communities. However, localization is not always necessary. Some brands adopt a global standardization strategy instead.

No matter where you visit those brands, the experience and imagery is virtually the same.

In contrast to localization, where there’s a more differentiated marketing approach to each market, global standardization provides significant cost benefits as a result of less messaging and fewer campaigns.

However, the key is in knowing when a global standardization strategy will be effective. Because it banks on a universal appeal despite cultural or locational differences, you’ll need to research whether customers use or think about your products differently depending on their market. If there’s no difference between the usage and understanding from country to country, a global standardization approach is practical.

Choosing localization or global standardization is one aspect of creating a great global marketing strategy.

To give you an idea of what a great global marketing strategy looks like, we’ve compiled a list of brands that totally “get it.”

From adapting their social strategies to translate across multiple languages to adjusting their menus to appeal to the cravings of a diverse group of people, these brands are taking positive steps toward creating a solid presence across the globe.

So, if you’re looking for inspiration on how to craft a successful international marketing strategy and expand your business’ reach, check out these examples from the world’s most successful companies.

1. Red Bull

Austrian company Red Bull does such a great job with global marketing that many Americans assume it’s a local brand. How?

One of its most successful tactics is to host extreme sports events all over the world. From the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix to the Red Bull Air Race in the United Kingdom to the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Jordan, the brand’s powerful event marketing strategy takes them here, there, and everywhere.

Aside from events, Red Bull’s packaging also plays a part in its global appeal.

“Red Bull really looks like a product from a global economy. It doesn’t look like a traditional American soft drink — it’s not in a 12-ounce can, it’s not sold in a bottle, and it doesn’t have script lettering like Pepsi or Coke. It looks European. That matters,” explains Harvard Business School professor Nancy F. Koehn. Though it’s since diversified its product selection since that article was published, the fact remains that Red Bull’s consistent packaging has helped this brand go global.

How to Imitate Red Bull’s Strategy

For smaller brands, reaching Red Bull’s level of international awareness might seem out of reach, but you can imitate the brand’s strategy by offering one notable product — the product you’ll most be known for. Then, be sure to keep the packaging the same no matter where you distribute it.

You can also host virtual events across different time zones and regions, which the pandemic has made more possible and trendier than ever.

2. Airbnb

Airbnb, a community marketplace for people to list and book accommodations around the world, was founded in 2008 out of San Francisco, California.

Since then, Airbnb has grown to 1,500,000+ listings in 34,000+ cities worldwide. A large contributor to the company’s explosive global success? Its video campaign titled “Made Possible by Hosts.”

Airbnb launched the campaign to bring its worldwide community of hosts and guests closer in the wake of COVID-19. The company referred to the campaign as a way to highlight “the magical experiences that hosts bring to guests.” To create the campaign, Airbnb took real videos and photographs from guests and put them in a video to create the “sense of nostalgia” we feel when we travel.

Over 3 million people worldwide have engaged, created content, or talked about the campaign. Just one of its videos has over 3.5 million views.

How to Imitate Airbnb’s Strategy

Airbnb is inherently an international brand because its guests and hosts hail from a wide variety of locations worldwide. Even if you identify as a more local brand, there are ways to globalize your efforts.

First, bring the focus to different customers in different regions when you create a testimonial or case study. You can also ask your international customers to contribute a photo or video of your product in use, and feature that in your social media content.

3. Dunkin Donuts

National Donut Day happens every year in June. While we get our hands dirty with a Boston creme (or two) here in the States, Dunkin Donuts China serves up a fresh batch of dry pork and seaweed donuts.

With over 3,200 stores in 36 countries outside of the U.S., Dunkin Donuts has evolved its menu to satisfy the sweet tooth of its global customers.

From Korea’s Grapefruit Coolata to Lebanon’s Mango Chocolate Donut to Russia’s Dunclairs, it’s clear that Dunkin Donuts isn’t afraid to celebrate cultural differences in an effort to strengthen its international presence.

How to Imitate Dunkin Donut’s Strategy

If you run a restaurant business, Dunkin Donut’s strategy should draw plenty of inspiration. To globalize your restaurant brand, try to serve regional or cultural menu items during special holidays for those cultures and regions.

You don’t necessarily have to expand to international regions first, but if it’s financially viable, opening new locations or launching regional websites can help you become a global brand.

4. Domino’s

Similar to Dunkin Donuts, Domino’s has prioritized menu innovation as a means of increasing international interest and awareness.

“The joy of pizza is that bread, sauce, and cheese works fundamentally everywhere, except maybe China, where dairy wasn’t a big part of their diet until lately,” explains Domino’s CEO J. Patrick Doyle.

“And it’s easy to just change toppings market to market. In Asia, it’s seafood and fish. It’s curry in India. But half the toppings are standard offerings around the world.”

By making a conscious effort to gain a better understanding of the preferences of the markets it’s trying to break into, Domino’s can deliver pies diverse enough to gain international attention.

How to Imitate Domino’s Strategy

Domino’s strategy is another you’ll want to use as inspiration if you run a restaurant business. Try to invite chefs from different cultures and regions, then have them cook your menu items in their regional style and with regional ingredients.

Highlight the chefs in your social media profiles. By doing so, you’ll show your followers in those regions that they’re also top-of-mind, expanding your global reach.

5. Rezdy

Some companies may not be trying to attract global markets directly, but if their clients are, they better know how. Rezdy is an Australian-based reservation software designed to make online booking smoother for tourists and agents alike.

Though Rezdy’s clients are Australian-based, the company needs to cater to its clients’ international visitors. On its homepage, it says it works for operators and agents in over 100 countries.

The service is designed to be used globally, with hundreds of personalization options for the tool’s timezone, language, and currency. Rezdy’s website and marketing collateral is English, so it caters to English-speaking tour operators, particularly in Australia, the UK, and North America. But it knows its customers’ target audience are in other countries abroad. It thus emphasizes its tool’s internationalization capabilities.

How to Imitate Rezdy’s Strategy

Rezdy effectively globalizes its services by taking into account that its customers’ target audience will be in other countries. Even if your company is marketing to other regional companies, consider their global customers as if they were your own. If your product, tool, or software can be used abroad in a wide variety of applications, be sure to add that to your marketing collateral — even if you operate regionally.

6. World Wildlife Fund

World Wildlife Fund takes the literal approach to global marketing by having hundreds of offices worldwide, each with highly localized goals for each region. It goes global every year with its Earth Hour initiative — a voluntary worldwide event where participants turn off their lights for an hour to show how easy it can be to battle climate change.

It specially promoted its Earth Hour event in Norway. Scandinavian countries like Norway experience extreme daylight hours in different seasons, making the country a prime candidate for WWF’s Earth Hour campaign. Using digital agency Mobiento, the nonprofit placed the Earth Hour Banner across Norway’s top media sites to promote the event. With one tap of the banner, the screen went black. Finger swiping the black screen slowly revealed the Earth Hour countdown. The banner attracted roughly 1,000,000 impressions and the campaign received three MMA Global Mobile Marketing Awards.

How to Imitate WWF’s Strategy

WWF has hundreds of offices that make it easier for the non-profit to go global, but thanks to the internet, its easier than ever to connect with international audiences, especially for a certain initiative you might want to launch, like Earth Hour.

If you have a cool idea, don’t be afraid to try it out on one international market — just make sure it’s the appropriate audience. (Also, don’t be afraid of the dark.)

7. Pearse Trust

With offices in Dublin, London, Vancouver, Atlanta, and Wellington, Pearse Trust has grown to be an international authority on corporate and trust structures. But it takes more than offices all over the map to reach an international audience.

That’s why Pearse Trust keeps content flowing on its blog that engages its various markets. In the screenshot above, you can see Pearse Trust posts a lot of content featuring international affairs relating to the company’s practice.

It also levels out external articles with Pearse Trust content, featuring news from places like Germany, Ireland (where it has a Dublin office), and the U.K. (where it has a London office).

How to Imitate Pearse Trust’s Strategy

This is a great example of focusing on common interests shared among your company’s various markets while also making the content relatable to customers by region. Globalizing your marketing can be as simple as creating content that caters to different target audiences in different target regions.

8. Nike

Nike has been able to evolve its global presence through the careful selection of international sponsorships, such as its previous long-standing relationship with Manchester United.

Although sponsorship spending can be fairly unpredictable — demand costs tend to surge due to triggers like championships and tournaments — these partnerships have certainly helped the brand capture the attention of a global audience.

Nike’s “Nike by You” co-creation platform serves as another strategy that the company is using to appeal to international markets. By putting the power of design into the hands of the consumer, Nike is able to deliver customized products that align with different cultural preferences and styles.

How to Imitate Nike’s Strategy

Partner with other brands, influencers, and ambassadors in your international target markets. Choose them carefully. For instance, Manchester United is a prominent cultural force in the UK, and that certainly helped Nike grow in that country.

If you sell a consumer product, why not give the option for your audience to customize — and resell — the products as well? You’ll end up capturing a much larger audience, and consumers from different regions will much better capture their region’s preferences and tastes.

9. McDonald’s

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We all know McDonald’s is a successful global brand. While keeping its overarching branding consistent, McDonald’s practices “glocal” marketing efforts. No, that’s not a typo. McDonald’s brings a local flavor to different countries with region-specific menu items. For instance, McDonald’s offers the McArabia, a flatbread sandwich, in its restaurants in the Middle East.

McDonald’s has also introduced macaroons to its French menu:

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And added McSpaghetti to its menu in the Philippines:

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No matter what, there’s something to learn from the giant.

How to Imitate McDonald’s Strategy

Like the other restaurant examples on this list, opening restaurants in other regions may be the first and most natural answer. But if that’s not feasible, especially if you run a regional brand, celebrate the flavors of the world by hosting an “International Day” and posting about it on your website and online. This will get you on the radar of those who may enjoy those foods daily and help you spread the word in other markets.

10. Innocent Drinks

Innocent Drinks is the leading smoothie company in the U.K., but that’s not the only place you’ll find its products. In fact, Innocent products are now available in 15 countries across Europe.

And despite its widespread reach, the company’s friendly branding remains consistent across the board. For instance, the website is very bubbly, with contact information that prompts to the viewer to “call on the banana phone” or “pop by Fruit Towers,” the name for its corporate office.

While global expansion and rapid growth can sometimes distract a company from consistent branding, Innocent Drinks has managed to remain true to itself. By ensuring that the brand’s voice is interpreted the same way around the world, Innocent is able to create a more recognizable brand.

How to Imitate Innocent Drink’s Strategy

Stay true to your brand voice even as you expand to other markets. Innocent Drinks is immediately likeable because of its tone on its website and social media. Friendliness makes you feel more approachable — and thus more accessible to a global audience. Plus, if your brand is consistent across the board, audiences across regions won’t feel like they’re getting cheated out of everything your brand can offer.

11. Traffic Ticket Clinic

The phrase “glocal” can be defined as “Think Globally, Act Locally.” But what happens when you switch the two around?

Traffic Ticket Clinic is a traffic ticket law firm that defends drivers in the state of Florida. Not very global, right? Well, Traffic Ticket Clinic understands that America is a melting pot and that Florida is bursting at the seams with different cultures and languages.

Though a domestic service, the firm’s website is available in English and Spanish. With those options, Traffic Ticket Clinic can cater to Florida’s nearly 3.5 million Floridians who speak Spanish. Don’t miss out on expanding your client base — sometimes you don’t have to look far to attract international business.

How to Imitate Traffic Ticket Clinic’s Strategy

One of the easiest ways you can begin global marketing is by offering your website in different languages. If you own a WordPress website, you can do that by using a translation plugin. But remember: Look at your target market first to figure out the best languages you should offer on your site. For instance, don’t offer Swahili if you don’t serve East Africa.

12. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a great example of a brand that’s well-known for its international marketing efforts. Though a large corporation, Coca-Cola focuses on small community programs and invests a lot of time and money in small-scale charity efforts.

For example, in Egypt, Coca-Cola has built 650 clean water installations in the rural village of Beni Suef and sponsors Ramadan meals for children across the Middle East. In India, the brand sponsors the Support My School initiative to improve facilities at local schools. Not to mention, the brand sticks with selling an emotion that can’t get lost in translation: happiness.

How to Imitate Coca-Cola’s Strategy

In your marketing efforts, try to promote your values by investing in communities worldwide. You can start small, such as with a yearly sponsorship or recurring donation, and then work your way up to launching a charity effort on the ground.

Try to appeal to a universal human feeling as well. If you’re a marketer at a hospital, you might appeal to grief and hope in a 1-minute video about a hospital visit. These are feelings that trascend countries and languages, automatically helping you reach a global audience.

13. Spotify

Spotify is considered one of the best global companies in the world, according to Interbrand. We’ve all heard of Spotify (no pun intended), but how did it suddenly, and so quickly, expand from Sweden into other countries?

Spotify’s business model is focused on helping you find something new.

It’s one thing to select a genre of music to listen to — it’s another thing to select a “mood” to listen to. In Spotify’s “Browse” page, you can listen not just to “country” and “hip-hop,” but also music that caters to your “workout” or “sleep” preferences.

By changing how they describe their content, Spotify gets users to listen to music that goes beyond their favorite genres, and instead satisfies habits and lifestyles that people share all over the world. This allows international artists to access listeners from other countries simply because their product is being categorized a different way.

Spotify now has offices in more than fifteen countries around the world.

How to Imitate Spotify’s Strategy

Spotify’s example is a winner because its global marketing strategy is entirely product-based. It offers music, podcasts, and media in so many languages, the audiences in those countries couldn’t help but start using the product. If your product lends itself to that, try featuring items or products that will appeal to the people of different regions and countries.

Start Global Marketing in Small Steps

If you have global aspirations for your business, you need to find out what customers in different communities have in common — and how to localize your product for these different markets. Your first step? Take inspiration from one of the businesses above. Start small, then work your way up as your business grows.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

A very famous Cheshire cat once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Alright, maybe Lewis Carroll is actually the one that penned that quote, but it’s true nonetheless, and good advice for life and business.

As a leader, you have expectations for your team. You want to see a specific level of performance and efficiency, but have you ever been clear about exactly what success looks like?

If goals and desired outcomes are not communicated to employees, they can’t possibly meet your expectations. This leads to micromanaging or helicopter-managing and instills the belief in your employees that you do not trust them or their ability to achieve results. Over time, this breeds resentment erodes job satisfaction and increases the rate of turnover as employees go off in search of greener pastures.

If you’ve seen this situation occur multiple times throughout your organization, it’s time to look at your leadership style. Do you provide your employees with the knowledge and the skills they need, and clearly communicate what you want to see?

If not, it’s not too late. Shift your mindset and company culture to management by objectives and watch your employees step up to the challenge.

What is management by objectives?

The term “management by objectives” (MBO) may be new to your vocabulary, but it’s certainly not a new concept. MBO is one approach managers use to get the most out of their employees. It involves creating a series of concrete goals for an employee to accomplish for the betterment of the organization.

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What is the purpose of management by objectives?

MBO ensures that employees receive clear communication regarding their roles and responsibilities, and they understand the role they play in the overall health of the organization. It not only helps them get clear on what’s expected of them but also gives them a sense of purpose as they take ownership of how they impact the rest of the organization and help meet its mission.

Businesses that operate in silos where from one department to another, people don’t know what anyone else is working on, have a lower chance of succeeding. Employees can easily become disheartened when they can’t see the larger picture. Management by objectives aims to break down these walls for great transparency across organizations.

Management by Objectives Advantages and Disadvantages

Just like any management style, there are pros and cons to management by objectives. Let’s take a closer look:

Advantages of Management by Objectives

• Employees can understand and appreciate their individual impact on the company as a whole.
• Expectations are clearly communicated and based on Key Result Areas (KRAs) tailored to each employee.
• Employees understand what success looks like and what they have to accomplish to reach it.
• Teamwork improves and finger-pointing decreases. Employees know their responsibilities and tasks are less likely to fall through the cracks.
• Employees feel essential and indispensable to the organization as they each perform a unique task.

The Disadvantages of Management by Objectives

• It’s possible for managers to rely too much on MBO and a management style. While it can revolutionize your organization, it has its limitations and is not always appropriate.
• With goals and objectives overemphasized, non-measurable aspects of the work environment (like teamwork, positive customer interactions, etc.) may become less practiced and valued.
• With a constant focus on numbers and metrics, employees may feel anxious about their performance which could make things worse.

As you can see, management by objectives can help your organization move in the right direction, however, it is not a cure-all for every challenge your organization may face. Let’s take a closer look at how to utilize this leadership style for optimum effectiveness.

How To Incorporate Management by Objectives Into Your Organization

Like everything in life, it helps to have a plan before you dive in. Let’s review how to implement MBO in your own company.

Management by Objectives Steps

Define Your Goals

What would you like to see the organization as a whole achieve, and during what time period? These goals should be shared with everyone in your organization.

Create and Communicate Employee Goals

How do your employee’s responsibilities play into the goals of the organization? This will allow you to create specific goals and objectives for them to meet.

Monitor Their Performance and Progress

Review your employees’ performance on a regular basis. Are they hitting whatever numbers you’ve assigned them? Are they steadily working towards a larger goal?

Assess Their Performance

It’s good to know where your employees stand, however, it’s even more important to communicate how they’re doing with them. Without regular performance reviews, your employees can’t gauge how they are performing and if changes need to be made.

Provide Feedback

If employees are doing well, let them know. You may wish to do this privately or publicly to congratulate them and inspire others. If they are not meeting your expectations, provide this feedback privately so as not to demean them in front of their colleagues. You will also need to give them steps to take to improve their performance.

If they’re not reaching their goals, this may be because those goals have not been properly communicated, or because they don’t have the right tools to do what’s expected. Have a conversation to assess if either of these factors is at play, and then do whatever is necessary to remedy the situation.

When you follow these steps, you can implement a successful culture of management by objectives and see an improvement in your team’s performance. This works for a sales environment, as well as customer service, or any other department in an organization.

Management by Objectives Examples

If this sounds like something you’d like to try, you may be wondering what are some examples of objectives that you could set. While specific objectives may differ depending on your industry, product, and specific company, there are some blanket objectives that you can begin with. While any department can use MBO, we’ll take a look at 3 specific instances.

Sales MBO examples

• Decrease the sales cycle to 2 months
• Increase the average sales to $10,000
• Bring in 15 new customers

Marketing MBO Examples

• Increase social media likes by 40%
• Increase time spent on the website by 5 minutes
• Generate 500 new leads per month
• Get 5 media placements

Customer Service BMO Examples

• Decrease call time to under 5 minutes
• Increase customer satisfaction by 30%
• Reduce manager call intervention by 10%

Human Resources MBO Examples

• Improve retention rate by 15%
• Implement a leadership training program for remarkable employees
• Increase employee satisfaction by 30%

When it’s time to inspire your team and breathe new life into your organization, consider incorporating management by objectives into your company culture. You may be surprised how well your employees take to this new system and once they understand your expectations they’re in a better position to meet or exceed them.

Career objectives are a topic of hot debate in the resume space. Certain career experts say they’re outdated. Others claim they give hiring managers a quick glance at your top attributes and experiences.

Whether you call it a personal branding statement, experience overview, or resume objective, a career objective statement is still relevant. That’s because a well-crafted objective lets hiring managers learn about your skills, personality, and career highlights from the first look.

That’s if a hiring manager even makes it to your resume, of course. With an increasingly competitive pool of candidates, HR teams often rely on technology to help sort resumes and select candidates for the next hiring stage. Algorithms pick and choose people based on keywords, often prioritizing optimized language over someone who may be the best fit for the job.

But there are ways to ensure your career objective works for you, instead of against you. Let’s look at what a career objective is and how to make yours meet today’s resume standards.

What is a Career Objective?

A career objective is a succinct paragraph that summarizes your professional experiences, skills, and goals. It is usually two to three sentences long and sits at the top of your resume, under your name and contact information.

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Your career objective is one of the first pieces of information hiring managers will see when scanning your resume, so it has to stand out. You can do this in several ways, like tailoring the objective to the role you’re applying for, adding top keywords, and highlighting relevant skills. The result should be a concise summary that’s clear, actionable, and compelling. Bonus if it hints at your personality.

But what does that look like? Here are the steps you can follow to craft a great career objective for any role.

How to Write a Career Objective

1. Understand the job description.

It’s easy to copy and paste information for your career objective from a job description. But to show originality and thought, you have to understand what a hiring manager truly wants.

Do this by looking for the most in-demand skills or characteristics for the role. These are often listed within the job description under a section labeled “Required Skills” or “Core Responsibilities.” You can find the right skills or traits to include by cross-referencing the list to any additional descriptions about the company or position.

If you can tell it’s a fast-paced work environment, for example, the ability to multi-task and develop efficient processes are good skills to highlight within your career objective.

It’s also important to consider the job-specific software you may need for a position. For technical roles like SEO Marketing Managers, tools such as Ahrefs, Google Analytics, or DeepCrawl are needed to perform audits and analysis. Make sure to note the software requirements so you can reference one or two in your objective.

Here’s a sample job description for a Growth Marketing Manager in the foodservice industry that shows both the software requirements and the company personality.

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Once you comb through the job description, create a list of the top 10 traits and skills you want to include in your statement. You may not use all of them, but it’s good to have options as you write.

2. Know your value.

If you’re deep in the job hunt, you can probably recite your strengths in your sleep. Instead, write down the specific ways you add value to your list of skills and traits.

These can include your strengths, degrees, licenses, or certifications. It’s also worth mentioning any strong connections you have, such as working for top-tier clients or experience speaking at industry events. Just make sure the experience is relevant to the company, industry, and role.

Let’s say you’re applying to a Community Marketing Manager position and have a proven track record of running an ambassador program. The company wants candidates with experience leading teams and implementing community programs.

You can highlight your value by including a statement like this in your career objective: “Experience developing an ambassador program that elevated diverse voices and united micro-communities into one passionate group.”

Again, look to the job description to understand how you can most add value to the company.

3. Keep it concise.

A career objective should be no more than three sentences. Your resume still needs to include your work experience, core skills, education, volunteer experience, and certifications.

Write a draft of your career objective using the list you created in steps one and two. Your first few drafts may be more than three sentences. That’s okay. Try to remove any excessive language, like “that,” “a,” “the.” And don’t worry too much about using complete sentences (see more on this in the examples below).

Here’s what a career objective should, and should not, look like for a growth marketer role:

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If you get stuck, have a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor review the statement. They may be able to offer feedback and correct any errors. You want it to be absolutely perfect, so it’s helpful to have one or more pairs of eyes review your work.

How to Write an Objective for a Career Change

You may be comfortable writing a career objective for a field you have experience in. But what if you’re changing careers?

The goal when writing this type of career objective is to tie your previous experience into your desired role as much as possible. This requires you to draw connections between your past work and your new career. Let’s look at an example, where the candidate is aiming to transition from an accounting career to one in marketing.

The candidate uses the career objective to explain their career switch and draw attention to their analytical skills – a must-have in many marketing careers. If you want to make the switch to marketing, check out this list of in-demand technical skills to get ideas for your career objective.

Career Objective Examples

Every role has distinct requirements, and your career objective needs to reflect those differences. Look to the following examples for inspiration when writing your statement. But remember to change up your career objective based on the position and company.

Lifecycle Marketing Manager

Data-savvy lifecycle marketing manager with seven years of experience crafting omnichannel customer journeys. Have successfully built customer programs that increased loyalty by 25% using best practices for lifecycle frameworks and communication strategies. Strong analytical skills and familiarity with various ESP and CRM software.

Communications Specialist

Highly creative communications specialist who excels in collaborative, fast-paced environments. Over the past four years, I’ve coordinated and refined content for marketing industry leaders to ensure company narratives are compelling and accurate. Experience managing content libraries, social media platforms, and internal newsletters.

Senior Brand Strategist

Creative lead with a knack for developing strong client relationships and innovative branding strategies. Over 10 years of experience crafting strategic marketing plans that have led to 45% growth in clients’ brand awareness. Excellent communicator and coordinator with the ability to foster long-term partnerships while ensuring teams stay on track.

Communications Manager

Proactive global communications manager with 11 years of experience developing and executing strategic communications programs for fintech companies. Skilled at media pitching, evolving core narratives, managing external partners, and overseeing complex technology communications. Looking to guide teams on best practices for translating complex narratives into compelling content that attracts audiences.

Director of Content Marketing and Strategy

An empathetic leader with 15+ years of experience managing high-growth content and editorial teams for Fortune 100 clients. Passionate about building data-driven content strategies that simplify complex messaging to engage audiences and meet business goals. Seeking an environment that challenges assumptions to drive customer acquisition through best-in-class editorial strategies.

Now, it’s time to write a career objective that showcases your skills. If you follow the steps above, keep it original, and reference the job description, your objective is likely to wow hiring managers – and hopefully, help you move on to the next stage in the hiring process.

When was the last time you ran a competitive analysis for your brand? And most importantly, do you know how to do one efficiently?

If you’re not sure, or if the last “analysis” you ran was a quick perusal of a competitor’s website and social media presence, you’re likely missing out on important intelligence that could help your brand grow.

In this detailed guide, you’ll learn how to conduct a competitive analysis that will give your business a competitive advantage in the market.

A competitive analysis can help you learn the ins and outs of how your competition works, and identify potential opportunities where you can out-perform them.

It also enables you to stay atop of industry trends and ensure your product is consistently meeting — and exceeding — industry standards.

Let’s dive into a few more benefits of conducting competitive analyses:

• Helps you identify your product’s unique value proposition and what makes your product different from the competitors’, which can inform future marketing efforts.
• Enables you to identify what your competitor is doing right. This information is critical for staying relevant and ensuring both your product and your marketing campaigns are outperforming industry standards.
• Tells you where your competitors are falling short — which helps you identify areas of opportunities in the marketplace, and test out new, unique marketing strategies they haven’t taken advantage of.
• Learn through customer reviews what’s missing in a competitor’s product, and consider how you might add features to your own product to meet those needs.
• Provides you with a benchmark against which you can measure your growth.

What is competitive market research?

Competitive market research focuses on finding and comparing key market metrics that help identify differences between your products and services and those of your competitors. Comprehensive market research helps establish the foundation for an effective sales and marketing strategy that helps your company stand out from the crowd.

Next, let’s dive into how you can conduct a competitive analysis for your own company.

Competitive Analysis in Marketing

Every brand can benefit from regular competitor analysis. By performing a competitor analysis, you’ll be able to:

• Identify gaps in the market
• Develop new products and services
• Uncover market trends
• Market and sell more effectively

As you can see, learning any of these four components will lead your brand down the path of achievement.

Next, let’s dive into some steps you can take to conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis.

To run a complete and effective competitive analysis, use these ten templates, which range in purpose from sales, to marketing, to product strategy.

Featured Resource: 10 Competitive Analysis Templates

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1. Determine who your competitors are.

First, you’ll need to figure out who you’re really competing with so you can compare the data accurately. What works in a business similar to yours may not work for your brand.

So how can you do this?

Divide your “competitors” into two categories: direct and indirect.

Direct competitors are businesses that offer a product or service that could pass as a similar substitute for yours, and that operate in your same geographic area.

On the flip side, an indirect competitor provides products that are not the same but could satisfy the same customer need or solve the same problem.

It seems simple enough on paper, but these two terms are often misused.

When comparing your brand, you should only focus on your direct competitors. This is something many brands get wrong.

Let’s use an example: Stitch Fix and Fabletics are both subscription-based services that sell clothes on a monthly basis and serve a similar target audience.

But as we look deeper, we can see that the actual product (clothes in this case) are not the same; one brand focuses on stylish everyday outfits while the other is workout-centric attire only.

Yes, these brands satisfy the same need for women (having trendy clothes delivered right to their doorstep each month), but they do so with completely different types of clothing, making them indirect competitors.

This means Kate Hudson’s team at Fabletics would not want to spend their time studying Stitch Fix too closely since their audiences probably vary quite a bit. Even if it’s only slightly, this tiny variation is enough to make a big difference.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should toss your indirect competitors out the window completely.

Keep these brands on your radar since they could shift positions at any time and cross over into the direct competitor zone. Using our example, Stitch Fix could start a workout line, which would certainly change things for Fabletics.

This is also one of the reasons why you’ll want to routinely run a competitor analysis. The market can and will shift at any time, and if you’re not constantly scoping it out, you won’t be aware of these changes until it’s too late.

2. Determine what products your competitors offer.

At the heart of any business is its product or service, which is what makes this a good place to start.

You’ll want to analyze your competitor’s complete product line and the quality of the products or services they’re offering.

You should also take note of their pricing and any discounts they’re offering customers.

Some questions to consider include:

• Are they a low-cost or high-cost provider?
• Are they working mainly on volume sales or one-off purchases?
• What is their market share?
• What are the characteristics and needs of their ideal customers?
• Are they using different pricing strategies for online purchases versus brick and mortar?
• How does the company differentiate itself from its competitors?
• How do they distribute their products/services?

3. Research your competitors’ sales tactics and results.

Running a sales analysis of your competitors can be a bit tricky.

You’ll want to track down the answers to questions such as:

• What does the sales process look like?
• What channels are they selling through?
• Do they have multiple locations and how does this give them an advantage?
• Are they expanding? Scaling down?
• Do they have partner reselling programs?
• What are their customers’ reasons for not buying? For ending their relationship with the company?
• What are their revenues each year? What about total sales volume?
• Do they regularly discount their products or services?
• How involved is a salesperson in the process?

These helpful pieces of information will give you an idea of how competitive the sales process is, and what information you need to prepare your sales reps with to compete during the final buy stage.

For publicly held companies, you can find annual reports online, but you’ll have to do some sleuthing to find this info from privately owned businesses.

You could find some of this information by searching through your CRM and reaching out to those customers who mentioned they were considering your competitor. Find out what made them choose your product or service over others out there.

To do this, run a report that shows all prospective deals where there was an identified competitor.

If this data is not something you currently record, talk to marketing and sales to implement a system where prospects are questioned about the other companies they are considering.

Essentially, they’ll need to ask their leads (either through a form field or during a one-on-one sales conversation) to identify who their current service providers are, who they’ve used in the past, and who else they are considering during the buying process.

When a competitor is identified, have your sales team dive deeper by asking why they are considering switching to your product. If you’ve already lost the deal, be sure to follow up with the prospect to determine why you lost to your competitor. What services or features attracted the prospect? Was it about price? What’s the prospect’s impression of your sales process? If they’ve already made the switch, find out why they made this decision.

By asking open-ended questions, you’ll have honest feedback about what customers find appealing about your brand and what might be turning customers away.

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can start scoping out your competitor’s marketing efforts.

4. Take a look at your competitors’ pricing, as well as any perks they offer.

There are a few major factors that go into correctly pricing your product — and one major one is understanding how much your competitors are charging for a similar product or service.

If you feel your product offers superior features compared to those of a competitor, you might consider making your product or service more expensive than industry standards. However, if you do that, you’ll want to ensure your sales reps are ready to explain why your product is worth the additional cost.

Alternatively, perhaps you feel there’s a gap in your industry for affordable products. If that’s the case, you might aim to charge less than competitors and appeal to prospects who aren’t looking to break the bank for a high-quality product.

Of course, other factors go into correctly pricing a product, but it’s critical you stay on top of industry pricing to ensure you’re pricing your product in a way that feels reasonable to prospects.

Additionally, take a look at any perks your competitors’ offer and how you might match those perks to compete. For instance, perhaps your competitors offer a major referral discount or a month-long free trial version. These perks could be the reason you’re losing customers, so if it feels reasonable for your brand, consider where you might match those perks — or provide some unique perks of your own if competitors’ don’t offer any.

5. Ensure you’re meeting competitive shipping costs.

Did you know expensive shipping is the number one reason for cart abandonment?

Nowadays, free shipping is a major perk that can attract consumers to choose one brand over another. If you work in an industry where shipping is a major factor — like ecommerce — you’ll want to take a look at competitors’ shipping costs and ensure you’re meeting (if not exceeding) those prices.

If most of your competitors’ offer free shipping, you’ll want to look into the option for your own company. If free shipping isn’t a practical option for your business, consider how you might differentiate in other ways — including loyalty programs, holiday discounts, or giveaways on social media.

6. Analyze how your competitors market their products.

Analyzing your competitor’s website is the fastest way to gauge their marketing efforts. Take note of any of the following items and copy down the specific URL for future reference:

• Do they have a blog?
• Are they creating whitepapers or ebooks?
• Do they post videos or webinars?
• Do they have a podcast?
• Are they using static visual content such as infographics and cartoons?
• What about slide decks?
• Do they have a FAQs section?
• Are there featured articles?
• Do you see press releases?
• Do they have a media kit?
• What about case studies?
• Do they publish buying guides and data sheets?
• What online and offline advertising campaigns are they running?

7. Take note of your competition’s content strategy.

Then, take a look at the quantity of these items. Do they have several hundred blog posts or a small handful? Are there five white papers and just one ebook?

Next, determine the frequency of these content assets. Are they publishing something new each week or once a month? How often does a new ebook or case study come out?

Chances are if you come across a robust archive of content, your competitor has been publishing regularly. Depending on the topics they’re discussing, this content may help you hone in on their lead-generating strategies.

From there, you should move on to evaluating the quality of their content. After all, if the quality is lacking, it won’t matter how often they post since their target audience won’t find much value in it.

Choose a small handful of samples to review instead of tackling every single piece to make the process more manageable.

Your sampler should include content pieces covering a variety of topics so you’ll have a fairly complete picture of what your competitor shares with their target audience.

When analyzing your competitor’s content, consider the following questions:

• How accurate is their content?
• Are spelling or grammar errors present?
• How in-depth does their content go? (Is it at the introductory level that just scratches the surface or does it include more advanced topics with high-level ideas?)
• What tone do they use?
• Is the content structured for readability? (Are they using bullet points, bold headings, and numbered lists?)
• Is their content free and available to anyone or do their readers need to opt-in?
• Who is writing their content? (In-house team? One person? Multiple contributors?)
• Is there a visible byline or bio attached to their articles?

As you continue to scan the content, pay attention to the photos and imagery your competitors are using.

Do you quickly scroll past generic stock photos or are you impressed by custom illustrations and images? If they’re using stock photos, do they at least have overlays of text quotes or calls-to-action that are specific to their business?

If their photos are custom, are they sourced from outside graphic professionals or do they appear to be done in-house?

When you have a solid understanding of your competitor’s content marketing strategy, it’s time to find out if it’s truly working for them.

8. Learn what technology stack your competitors’ use.

Understanding what types of technology your competitors’ use can be critical for helping your own company reduce friction and increase momentum within your organization.

For instance, perhaps you’ve seen positive reviews about a competitor’s customer service — as you’re conducting research, you learn the customer uses powerful customer service software you haven’t been taking advantage of. This information should arm you with the opportunity to outperform your competitors’ processes.

To figure out which software your competitors’ use, type the company’s URL into Built With, an effective tool for unveiling what technology your competitors’ site runs on, along with third-party plugins ranging from analytics systems to CRMs.

Alternatively, you might consider looking at competitors’ job listings, particularly for engineer or web developer roles. The job listing will likely mention which tools a candidate needs to be familiar with — a creative way to gain intel into the technology your competitors’ use.

9. Analyze the level of engagement on your competitor’s content.

To gauge how engaging your competitor’s content is to their readers, you’ll need to see how their target audience responds to what they’re posting.

Check the average number of comments, shares, and likes on your competitor’s content and find out if:

• Certain topics resonate better than others
• The comments are negative, positive, or a mix
• People are tweeting about specific topics more than others
• Readers respond better to Facebook updates about certain content
• Don’t forget to note if your competitor categorizes their content using tags, and if they have social media follow and share buttons attached to each piece of content.

10. Observe how they promote their marketing content.

From engagement, you’ll move right along to your competitor’s content promotion strategy.

• Keyword density in the copy itself
• Image ALT text tags
• Use of internal linking

The following questions can also help you prioritize and focus on what to pay attention to:

• Which keywords are your competitors focusing on that you still haven’t tapped into?
• What content of theirs is highly shared and linked to? How does your content compare?
• Which social media platforms are your target audience using?
• What other sites are linking back to your competitor’s site, but not yours?
• Who else is sharing what your competitors are publishing?
• Who is referring traffic to your competitor’s site?
• For the keywords you want to focus on, what is the difficulty level? There are several free (and paid) tools that will give you a comprehensive evaluation of your competitor’s search engine optimization.

11. Look at their social media presence, strategies, and go-to platforms

The last area you’ll want to evaluate when it comes to marketing is your competitor’s social media presence and engagement rates.

How does your competition drive engagement with their brand through social media? Do you see social sharing buttons with each article? Does your competitor have links to their social media channels in the header, footer, or somewhere else? Are these clearly visible? Do they use calls-to-action with these buttons?

If your competitors are using a social network that you may not be on, it’s worth learning more about how that platform may be able to help your business, too. To determine if a new social media platform is worth your time, check your competitor’s engagement rates on those sites. First, visit the following sites to see if your competition has an account on these platforms:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Pinterest

Then, take note of the following quantitative items from each platform:

• Number of fans/followers
• Posting frequency and consistency
• Content engagement (Are users leaving comments or sharing their posts?)
• Content virality (How many shares, repins, and retweets do their posts get?)

With the same critical eye you used to gauge your competition’s content marketing strategy, take a fine-toothed comb to analyze their social media strategy.

What kind of content are they posting? Are they more focused on driving people to landing pages, resulting in new leads? Or are they posting visual content to promote engagement and brand awareness?

How much of this content is original? Do they share curated content from other sources? Are these sources regular contributors? What is the overall tone of the content?

How does your competition interact with its followers? How frequently do their followers interact with their content?

After you collect this data, generate an overall grade for the quality of your competitor’s content. This will help you compare the rest of your competitors using a similar grading scale.

12. Perform a SWOT Analysis to learn their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

As you evaluate each component in your competitor analysis (business, sales, and marketing), get into the habit of performing a simplified SWOT analysis at the same time.

This means you’ll take note of your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats any time you assess an overall grade.

Some questions to get you started include:

• What is your competitor doing well? (Products, content marketing, social
• Where does your competitor have the advantage over your brand?
• What is the weakest area for your competitor?
• Where does your brand have the advantage over your competitor?
• What could they do better with?
• In what areas would you consider this competitor a threat?
• Are there opportunities in the market that your competitor has identified?

You’ll be able to compare their weaknesses against your strengths and vice versa. By doing this, you can better position your company, and you’ll start to uncover areas for improvement within your own brand.

 

Competitive Product Analysis

Product analysis drills down to discover key differences and similarities in products that share the same general market. This type of analysis if you have a competitor selling products in a similar market niche to your own – you want to make sure that wherever possible, you aren’t losing market share to the competition.

Leveraging the example above, we can drill down and discover some of the key differentiators in product offerings.

Step 1: Assess your current product pricing.

The first step in any product analysis is to assess current pricing.

Nintendo offers three models of its Switch console: The smaller lite version is priced at $199, the standard version is $299, and the new OLED version is $349.

Sony, meanwhile, offers two versions of its Playstation 5 console: The standard edition costs $499 and the digital version, which doesn’t include a disc drive, is $399.

Step 2: Compare key features

Next is a comparison of key features. In the case of our console example, this means comparing features like processing power, memory, and hard drive space.

Feature	PS5 Standard	Nintendo Switch
Hard drive space	825 GB	32 GB
RAM	16 GB	4 GB
USB ports	4 ports	1 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0
Ethernet connection	Gigabit	None

Step 3: Pinpoint differentiators

With basic features compared, it’s time to dive deeper with differentiators. While a glance at the chart above seems to indicate that the PS5 is outperforming its competition, this data only tells part of the story.

Here’s why: The big selling point of the standard and OLED Switch models is that they can be played as either handheld consoles or docked with a base station connected to a TV. What’s more, this “switching” happens seamlessly, allowing players to play whenever, wherever.

The Playstation offering, meanwhile, has leaned into market-exclusive games that are only available on its system to help differentiate them from their competitors.

Step 4: Identify market gaps

The last step in a competitive product analysis is looking for gaps in the market that could help your company get ahead. When it comes to the console market, one potential opportunity gaining traction is the delivery of games via cloud-based services rather than physical hardware. Companies like Nvidia and Google have already made inroads in this space and if they can overcome issues with bandwidth and latency, it could change the market at scale.

Competitive Analysis Example

How do you stack up against the competition? Where are you similar, and what sets you apart? This is the goal of competitive analysis. By understanding where your brand and competitors overlap and diverge, you’re better positioned to make strategic decisions that can help grow your brand.

Of course, it’s one thing to understand the benefits of competitive analysis, and it’s another to actually carry out an analysis that yields actionable results. Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered with a quick example.

Sony vs. Nintendo: Not all fun and games

Let’s take a look at popular gaming system companies Sony and Nintendo. Sony’s newest offering – the Playstation 5 – recently hit the market but has been plagued by supply shortages. Nintendo’s Switch console, meanwhile, has been around for several years but remains a consistent seller, especially among teens and children. This scenario is familiar for many companies on both sides of the coin; some have introduced new products designed to compete with established market leaders, while others are looking to ensure that reliable sales don’t fall.

Using some of the steps listed above, here’s a quick competitive analysis example.

1. Determine who your competitors are.

In our example, it’s Sony vs Nintendo, but it’s also worth considering Microsoft’s Xbox, which occupies the same general market vertical. This is critical for effective analysis; even if you’re focused on specific competitors and how they compare, it’s worth considering other similar market offerings.

2. Determine what products your competitors offer.

Playstation offers two PS5 versions, digital and standard, at different price points, while Nintendo offers three versions of its console. Both companies also sell peripherals – for example, Sony sells virtual reality (VR) add-ons while Nintendo sells gaming peripherals such as steering wheels, tennis rackets, and differing controller configurations.

3. Research your competitors’ sales tactics and results.

When it comes to sales tactics and marketing, Sony and Nintendo have very different approaches.

In part thanks to the recent semiconductor shortage, Sony has driven up demand via scarcity – very low volumes of PS5 consoles remain available. Nintendo, meanwhile, has adopted a broader approach by targeting families as their primary customer base. This effort is bolstered by the Switch Lite product line, which is smaller and less expensive, making it a popular choice for children.

The numbers tell the tale: Through September 2021, Nintendo sold 14.3 million consoles, while Sony sold 7.8 million.

4. Take a look at your competitors’ pricing, as well as any perks they offer.

Sony has the higher price point: Their standard PS5 sells for $499, while Nintendo’s most expensive offering comes in at $349. Both offer robust digital marketplaces and the ability to easily download new games or services.

Here, the key differentiators are flexibility and fidelity. The Switch is flexible – users can dock it with their television and play it like a standard console, or pick it up and take it anywhere as a handheld gaming system. The PS5, meanwhile, has superior graphics hardware and processing power for gamers who want the highest-fidelity experience.

5. Analyze how your competitors market their products.

If you compare the marketing efforts of Nintendo and Sony, the difference is immediately apparent: Sony’s ads feature realistic in-game footage and speak to the exclusive nature of their game titles; the company has managed to secure deals with several high-profile game developers for exclusive access to new and existing IPs.

Nintendo, meanwhile, uses brightly-lit ads showing happy families playing together or children using their smaller Switches while traveling.

6. Analyze the level of engagement on your competitor’s content.

Engagement helps drive sales and encourage repeat purchases. While there are several ways to measure engagement, social media is one of the most straightforward: In general, more followers equates to more engagement and greater market impact.

When it comes to our example, Sony enjoys a significant lead over Nintendo: While the official Playstation Facebook page has 38 million followers, Nintendo has just 5 million.

Competitive Analysis Templates

Competitive analysis is complex, especially when you’re assessing multiple companies and products simultaneously. To help streamline the process, we’ve created 10 free templates that make it possible to see how you stack up against the competition – and what you can do to increase market share.

Let’s break down our SWOT analysis template. Here’s what it looks like:

Download Free Templates

Strengths – Identify your strengths. These may include specific pieces of intellectual property, products that are unique to the market, or a workforce that outperforms the competition.

Weaknesses – Here, it’s worth considering potential issues around pricing, leadership, staff turnover, and new competitors in the market.

Opportunities – This part of the SWOT analysis can focus on new market niches, evolving consumer preferences, or new technologies being developed by your company.

Threats – These might include new taxes or regulations on existing products or an increasing number of similar products in the same market space that could negatively affect your overall share.

How Does Your Business Stack Up?

Before you accurately compare your competition, you need to establish a baseline. This also helps when it comes time to perform a SWOT analysis.

Take an objective look at your business, sales, and marketing reports through the same metrics you use to evaluate your competition.

Record this information just like you would with a competitor and use this as your baseline to compare across the board.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published prior to July 2018 but has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s common for people to visit websites without converting — maybe they’re conducting product research, educating themselves on your brand, or weighing out the advantages of your product versus one of a competitor.

All of these actions are normal but they’re not always ideal for your business — you want those visitors to stay on your site and convert (e.g. provide their contact details, sign up for your newsletter, or make a purchase).

One way to help accomplish this — and avoid customers coming and going without converting — is with the help of exit intent pop ups.

In other words, exit intent pop ups know when one of your visitors is about to leave your website — they serve a visitor a valuable offer/ message that’s designed to keep them on the page (and, hopefully, influence them enough to convert). 

How do exit intent pop ups work?

Imagine a visitor is on your ecommerce site — they’re browsing your product line. They then decide they want to exit the web page they’re on and they move their cursor out of the frame/ boundaries of your website. But a pop up appears with an offer (e.g. coupon code, free ebook, free trial, etc.) that they stay on the page to read. They click your CTA and convert in the way you intended them to.

So, exit intent pop ups make it possible to retain visitors on your site for longer periods of time, increase conversions, decrease cart abandonment rates, grow your email subscriber list, and more. 

What about exit intent pop ups on mobile sites?

Your target audience is bound to browse your site via mobile device. But if exit intent pop ups work by tracking cursor movements, then how does this strategy work on mobile devices? 

Exit intent pop ups will often appear on mobile devices after one of two actions are completed by visitors. 

1) A visitor scrolls down your web page at a normal pace, but then rapidly scrolls back up to the page. 

2) A visitor presses the “Back” button on the screen. 

How to Implement Exit Intent Pop Ups

The easiest way to implement exit intent overlays on your web pages is with the help of a tool specifically designed to do just that.

Let’s take a look at the features and benefits you can get out of one of these tools by looking at an example.

Exit Intent Pop Up Software: HubSpot Exit Intent Forms

Price: Free forever, $45/mo (Starter), $800/mo (Professional), $3,200 (Enterprise)

HubSpot’s Exit Intent Forms track visitor mouse movements and clicks on your website and then display your form when visitors appear to be leaving. In addition to showing your customized exit intent form, HubSpot can send automated emails (e.g. cart abandonment) and re-engagement campaigns or content.

Implementing exit intent forms with HubSpot is simple and quick — you simply embed your exit intent messaging on your website. HubSpot also allows you to customize your message, theme, and pop up timing.

With HubSpot, you can also:

• Customize your exit intent form’s location, branding, and messaging.
• Trigger email campaigns once visitors leave your website to reengage them.
• Integrate with your other systems for marketing, forms, and meeting scheduling without the need for additional development (e.g. Zapier, Shopify, WordPress, etc.).

Other tools on the market to help with exit intent pop ups are Optinmonster, Sleeknote, and Informizely.

Why would you use an exit intent pop up?

When they’re used and shared on the right web pages at the right time, exit intent pop ups are an effective strategy for increasing revenue. This is because they help you lower cart abandonment and increase retainment, form submissions, and subscriptions on your website.

To better understand how exit intent pop ups work, put yourself in the shoes of your website visitors for a moment. Imagine you’re browsing a website with a specific product that you like and/or believe can help you resolve a challenge you’re facing.

But you then say to yourself, “Ehh, I’ll think about it and come back to this later.”

You move your cursor to the top of the screen to exit the page. But suddenly, a pop up appears on the screen — it’s a coupon for 20% off your first purchase.

You’re likely going to consider applying that coupon code and purchasing the product now, right?

Exit intent pop ups work by providing customers and website visitors with the value that they wouldn’t otherwise have had on the landing, web, or ecommerce page.

An important piece of information to note is that exit intent pop ups should be used when people haven’t already taken action — this feels redundant and impersonal to your visitors.

For instance, if someone already clicked your CTA to subscribe to your newsletter — which shares discount codes and information about product deals — then you shouldn’t show them an exit intent pop up with that offer.

Exit Intent Popup Examples

In this section, we’ll review some of the best exit intent pop up examples.

Best Exit Intent Pop Up Examples

Here are some of the best exit intent pop up examples for lead generation to inspire and guide your exit intent pop up creation.

1. Cart Abandonment Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it’s effective: This cart abandonment exit intent pop up is effective because it appears on the page the moment someone who has an item in their cart moves their mouse towards the “exit” button on the screen.

Not only does it remind visitors that they are leaving items in their shopping cart, but it also asks for feedback about why the visitor is deciding to move forward without making a purchase.

This is unique and powerful because it shows visitors that the company cares about them on a personal level — they want to know their opinions, challenges, feedback.

These are the types of customer experiences that leave a good impression on visitors and leads even if they don’t complete a purchase. You’re offering them a personal experience that may lead them to come back in the future or promote your business among their networks by word-of-mouth.

2. Email/ Newsletter Subscription Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it’s effective: The moment you scroll back to the top of the page and move your mouse out of Omsom web page’s framework, a bright exit intent pop up appears with a form so visitors can sign up for the Omsom newsletter.

The pop up is well-timed, on-brand and eye-catching (even for someone who has the intention of leaving the page), and clearly states the value a lead will get out of submitting the form (getting the latest brand information, recipes, tips, and “hot takes”).

3. Discount on Purchase Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it’s effective: If you go to leave the Elaluz landing page an offer appears on the screen with a 15% off discount. Whether a visitor was thinking about moving forward with a purchase at that moment in time, the coupon is enticing for anyone on the site.

In addition to influencing purchase behavior with the coupon code, it also requires an email address — meaning those visitors who want the code must convert whether they use the code that day or not.

4. Exclusive Offer Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it’s effective: When you go to leave Curls’ landing page, you’re shown an exit intent pop up that asks you if you’re leaving. It then succinctly tells the visitor what they’ll be getting out of submitting the form.

In addition to this exit intent pop up’s timing being effective, it’s also located in an ideal spot — it’s at the top of the page, where a visitor who’s leaving the page naturally has to move their cursor. Lastly, it’s unique because it makes the offer a surprise — visitors know they’re getting an “exclusive offer” but they don’t know exactly what that offer is which is exciting and enticing.

5. Resource Offer Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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Why it’s effective: When you’re on ActiveCampaign’s blog and you go to leave the page, an exit intent pop up appears with educational resources. It’s a free guide with six emails for your “welcome series”.

Not only is ActiveCampaign positioning itself as valuable because they have helpful information to share with their target audience, but the company is also positioning itself as a thought-leader in the industry.

Additionally, although the offer is free, visitors who want it have to submit their email address ¸— meaning, a new lead and contact for the business.

Other Ideas for Exit Intent Pop Ups

These aren’t the only five types of exit intent pop ups you can create and implement. You can offer your target audience anything you believe they’ll find valuable, whether it drives leads or not — here are some more ideas:

• Free shipping
• Contest entry
• Blog subscription
• Customer experience survey
• Course or lesson
• Customized offer of some kind based on past buying experiences
• Product demo

Increase Conversions With Exit Intent Pop Ups

Exit intent pop ups are a simple yet powerful marketing and lead generation strategy. Once you implement them, you’ll be able to retain more audience members on your website and increase conversions and revenue.

In 2020, the number of monthly active users on Facebook was 2.74 billion.

Based on that statistic alone, it goes without saying that marketers need to be on Facebook.

And they are — in fact, in 2020, there were 10 million active advertisers using Facebook to promote their products and services.

But how can you ensure you’re targeting your unique audience while also breaking through the noise of all of the other ads on Facebook?

With the help of Facebook ad software.

Facebook Ad Software

Facebook ads are an effective way of getting in front of your target audience on the platform.

In this article, we’ll review 1) what Facebook ad software is, 2) why it’s important, and 3) popular ad tools to choose from.

Benefits of Facebook Ad Software

Here are examples of the beneficial features you get from using Facebook ad software.

• Targeting and customer segmentation to help you reach your audience based on their behaviors, characteristics, and traits (e.g. location, demographics, age, past actions or purchases, languages).
• Automation to expedite the processes of creating and sharing ads, data collection, and reporting.
• Reporting to share, visualize, and analyze all of your Facebook ad and contact data.
• Customization to create ads and CTAs that help you achieve your specific goals.
• Ad creation for different points in the buyer’s journey and for new and returning leads/ customers.
• Integrations to connect your Facebook ads and data with other business, marketing, and social media tools.

By incorporating Facebook ad software in your strategy, you’ll have the ability to tap into the benefits listed above and more.

1. HubSpot Ads Software

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Managing and creating personalized Facebook ad campaigns all within your CRM/ HubSpot.

Price: Free, $45/mo Starter, $800/mo Professional, $3,200/mo Enterprise

With HubSpot Ads Software, you can use your CRM data to create and optimize customized and highly personalized ads for your target audience. Report on those ads to determine which are converting audience members into paying customers.

HubSpot offers direct integration with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and Instagram so you can easily create, share, manage, and report on your ads all through one tool. Report on the ROI of individual ad campaigns across Facebook and those additional platforms.

HubSpot also has automated lead follow-up — meaning, once your ads do what they’re supposed to (convert leads!), it automatically saves their contact details and routes those leads to the right reps on your team.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot Ads Software to manage and personalize your Facebook Ads with your CRM data.

2. Facebook Ads

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Creating ads tailored to your target audience within Facebook on a pre-determined budget.

Price: You determine the price of Facebook Ads by deciding 1) how much you want to spend on your ads or 2) the cost of each result of your ads.

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Use Facebook Ads to tailor ads to your target audience by first selecting your business type and goal.

Facebook makes it easy to then create, publish, and edit ads, as well as track and share their performance across any of their platforms (e.g. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, etc).

Customize ads by selecting one of the six available formats as well as the specific audience you’re going after based on their behaviors, characteristics, demographics, and more on the platform.

Stick to your ad budget on Facebook by setting a daily and/or lifetime budget and determining the amount of time your ads will run. As a result, you’ll only spend the amount you set aside on your ads.

3. Qwaya

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Ensuring your target audience sees fresh ads on Facebook using the tool’s automatic ad rotation feature.

Price: Plans starting at $149/mo

Qwaya is an ads tool for Facebook and Instagram. It allows you to identify the right audience segments for your ads with A/B testing and targeting criteria. The tool makes it easy to test ad types, ad placement, text, images, and more on Facebook.

Qwaya automatically manages your audience segments and ads for those segments¸— ads and audiences are placed in a “campaign and ad set” folder structure to keep all information organized accordingly. You can also automate the process of running your ads when your target audience is most likely to be on the platform (e.g. certain time of the day and/or week).

4. AdEspresso

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Split-testing Facebook ads and saving the most successful ads and creative elements for easy, future access.

Price: Plans starting at $49/mo (billed annually) for a $1,000/mo spend limit.

AdEspresso is an advertising platform by Hootsuite with features for ad creation and management across Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads.

By making it easy to split test all aspects of your Facebook ads (e.g. creatives, headlines, images), AdEspresso helps ensure they’ll reach and resonate with your target audience so you can increase conversions.

Once you determine which Facebook ads work best through split testing, save ads and creative elements in the tool for easy access across your team.

You can also bring your product catalog into AdEspresso to create dynamic ads for your individual products that are tailored to your audience. These relevant product ads will then be placed in front of your audience when they’re most likely to convert.

5. SocialPilot

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Using a single social media marketing platform for Facebook ads and “boosting” those ads to increase their reach.

Price: Plans starting at $25.50/ mo for 10 social media accounts and one user.

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SocialPilot is a social media engagement platform with a tool meant specifically for Facebook ads. With this tool, you can create, schedule, and manage your Facebook ads.

With audience targeting, customizable CTAs, and dynamic ad content, SocialPilot helps you create Facebook ads that generate high-quality leads.

Use the “Boost Posts” feature (paid ads offered by Facebook) to increase the reach of your ads. Once you create your ad, select your audience, and set a budget, SocialPilot will publish the ad and immediately “boost” it for you to increase reach among your target audience.

Additionally, if the platform believes you’ve scheduled an ad that would do especially well with a “boost”, SocialPilot will give you that suggestion.

6. Revealbot

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Merging multiple actions into individual automations to save you time and increase productivity when it comes to your Facebook ad strategy.

Price: Plans starting at $83/mo for maximum ad spend of $10,000/mo.

Revealbot is a Facebook ad automation and management tool. Use the drag-and-drop automation builder to establish automation for all parts of your Facebook ad strategy — you can set more than 20 actions for single automation to save you time.

Connect your external marketing and ad data to Revealbot to report on and analyze ads while maintaining a holistic view of your data.

Track and analyze ad data you care most about by creating unique and/or customized metrics and timeframes in your conditions. You can also use comparison conditions to compare and visualize metrics to better understand the performance of your ads.

7. Madgicx

Best Facebook Ads tool for: Using artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize and automate your Facebook ads.

Price: Plans starting at $49/mo for up to $1000/ mo ad spend.

Madgicx is an AI-powered, omnichannel advertising platform with a Facebook ad optimization and automation tool. Over 100 audience targeting options exist to help you develop a customized advertising strategy that covers every stage of the funnel.

Input your KPIs targets in Madgicx’s PPC tool so it automatically optimizes your account. Meanwhile, the AI-powered creative intelligence feature analyzes the performance of your ads and creatives based on a variety of data points.

As a result, you’ll have the information you need to target all of your buyer personas both effectively and efficiently.

Improve Upon your Campaign Strategy With Facebook Ad Software

Facebook ad software has the ability to help you create, optimize, and analyze your advertisements and campaigns on the platform. Begin improving upon your Facebook ad strategy by incorporating one of these tools.