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As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. And with marketers steadily increasing their visual content budget year over year, it seems that this visual exchange rate now carries even more weight.

In terms of visually displaying information, infographics serve as an ideal way to convey a complex idea in an interesting and manageable format. Whether it’s a comprehensive side-by-side comparison, a lengthy timeline, or robust collection of numbers and statistics, a well-designed infographic can help you make your point without fussing over a ton of words. 

The big issue is, of course, the amount of time needed to create infographics. Nearly 66% of marketers reported that both lack of time and staff resources are the biggest challenge to creating effective visual marketing, according to a report from Digiday and Chute.

That’s where we come in. We’ve created 20 fully customizable infographic templates that will give you the inspiration and foundation you need to build your own infographics — 15 templates in PowerPoint with an additional five versions in Adobe Illustrator. Here’s a sneak peak at what you can expect:

These customizable templates are easy to execute on and offer you the flexibility to experiment with different styles, layouts, colors, and fonts.

Download the full set of templates today to start creating quality infographics for your next blog post, campaign, or meeting.

Starting to notice some droopy shoulders around the office? Does your team need a bit more pep in their step? Sounds like it’s time to plan a team outing.

Team outings are a great way to facilitate bonding with your team members, reduce employee stress, and give them the chance to get to know one another outside of the office.

And, you know, they’re really fun.

Download our free guide here for tips on how to build an effective inbound marketing team.

But how do you find ideas for a great team outing? Maybe you start with a Google search for “team outing ideas” and stumble upon an article that suggests “field trips” and “professional development activities.” Sounds like a starting point, but where’s the real excitement? 

Next time you plan an outing for your team, cut the trust falls and get one of these awesome ideas on the calendar instead.

Company Team Outing Ideas

1) Volunteer

Giving time to support a good cause isn’t just good for the soul; it’s also a great way for your team members to bond. Place-based volunteering ideas include things like volunteering at a local soup kitchen, helping build a Habitat for Humanity house, or delivering gifts to children’s hospitals during the holidays. Skill-based volunteering is a cool way to stretch your employees’ expertise: It’s when your team volunteers their time and uses their professional skills — anything from marketing to app development to writing — to help a nonprofit.

Try VolunteerMatch.org for either type of volunteering opportunities, and Catchafire.org for skill-based volunteering opportunities.

Image Credit: VolunteerSpot

2) Mystery Dinner

Mystery dinners are one of the most beloved traditions here at HubSpot. On a single night, you send a group of folks from different teams within your company to dinner somewhere in your city (or at someone’s house). The dinner is hosted by one of your company’s leaders and paid for by the company. These dinners allow random groups of people from the same company to spend an evening chock full of good food and conversation together. 

What makes them a mystery dinner? The only thing participants should know about the dinner ahead of time is the date and time. Then, on the afternoon the dinner is supposed to take place, send each group an email with the name of the restaurant they’re going to and who they’ll be going with so they can arrange transportation together. Optional: Give every dinner host the name of a restaurant or bar to invite everyone to congregate at once the dinners are over.

3) Room Escape Games

Here’s a great bonding activity that requires leadership skills, teamwork, logic, and patience. Room escape games — Escape the Room, Puzzle Break, AdventureRooms, etc. — have become a wildly popular team-building exercise for groups around the globe. (Want to find one close to your office? Check out this directory for Escape the Room.)

Here’s how it works: A group of people get “locked” in a room for one hour. During that one hour, they have to find hidden objects, solve puzzles, and figure out clues to locate the key that will set them free. And it’s not easy: Only 20% of players actually make it out before the hour is up.

Image Credit: Escape the Room St. Louis

4) Kayaking/Canoeing

Nothing says “let’s work together” quite like trying not to end up in the water. Want to take advantage of the outdoors? Grab a paddle and head down to the closest river for a great spring or summer outing.

Many public rivers and ponds have boat houses where you can rent kayaks and canoes — and you can encourage folks to rent multi-person ones and pair up with people they don’t usually work with.

5) Trampoline Parks

Hey, who says trampolines are just for kids? Take your team to a trampoline park for some jumping fun and a chance to work off the day’s stress. Many cities have local places with trampoline activities — if you’re in the Boston area, check out Skyzone for trampoline dodgeball and basketball games.

Image Credit: Mustbeart

6) Karaoke Night

What better way to get your employees to break out of their shells than to have them get up and sing some karaoke? You can even have a contest for best group karaoke performance. Bonus points if there are feather boas and cowboy hats involved. This works best for a more extroverted group, so if your team isn’t into strutting their stuff on stage, consider an idea on this list that caters more toward their personalities.

Image Credit: derekgavey

7) Something Embarrassingly Touristy

Embrace your city! Pick a hot tourist destination and go as a team. You can even do a Segway tour. (Fanny packs: optional.) It’ll be fun to laugh at how silly it feels to be a tourist in your own city, and you might even learn something new.

Image Credit: Wikimedia

8) Kart Racing

Nothing like a little competition to bond a group together. An adrenaline-pumping event like kart racing is a great way to get employees to interact with one another in a totally new and fun way. Just make sure everyone pays attention during the safety lecture.

9) Laser Tag

Another great way to get your adrenaline pumping? A good old game of laser tag. Not only is it great fun, it’s also an opportunity for employees to exercise their strategy and logic skills, as well as teamwork skills. Bonus: Make teams ahead of time and have people dress up.

10) Painting Class

If you’re looking for a slightly more relaxing activity, take a group painting class. Paint Nite hosts painting classes by local artists at various bars throughout major cities for painting on canvases, wine glasses (like in the picture below), and so on. It’s a great way to let your team members unwind, catch up over some drinks, and express their creativity.

11) Cooking Class

In the mood for something a little more… culinary? Change up the usual outing to a bar or your local restaurant, and try a cooking class. Through a service such as Kitchensurfing you can hire a professional chef to come cook a fancy meal for you in your home or office kitchen. Between the multiple courses prepared before your eyes, your team will have plenty of time to strike up conversation and enjoy the delicious aromas.

Image Credit: Kitchensurfing

12) Sports Game

Round up the team and head out to a sports game. What a fantastic way to rev up team spirit while combining both competition and camaraderie.

Image Credit: Wikimedia

Team-Building Activities, Games, and Exercises for Work

13) Scavenger Hunt

Find a beautiful day, break everyone out into groups, and have a scavenger hunt around the city. You can organize one yourself, or use an app like Stray Boots. Your team will feel nice and refreshed after some fresh air and fun challenges. Be sure to take lots of silly pictures — you can even have a slideshow when everyone regroups at the end.

14) Cook-Off

Here’s a culinary team-building activity that could end in dessert or disaster — in a fun way. Creating new dishes together requires creativity and will require everyone to put their team and leadership skills into action. Divide your team into smaller teams, pick a food category, and challenge each team to whip up something delicious. The category could be anything from ice cream to salsa to pizza. 

One fun twist you could add? Pick a single ingredient that all teams must use, like maple syrup or Oreos. Or, have each team get creative with the shape of their food — you can make pizzas into almost any shape.

Image Credit: Teambonding.com

15) Improv Workshop

Comedy and improv events are fun, interactive experiences that’ll have your employees roaring with laughter while teaching them useful communication and soft skills, like focus and trust. Depending on your budget, you could do anything from simply playing improv games with your employees to bringing in professionals to run competitive, fast-paced activities.

Image Credit: Al-Jazeera

16) Board Game Tournament

Here’s one way to spark your team members’ competitive sides without having to leave the office. Organize a team-wide board game tournament. Especially if your team is pretty big, it may be easiest to pick a single game, and then have people sign up for specific time slots where they’re free to leave their desks and spend some time playing the game. Some great games with reasonable play times include Boggle, Jenga, or even games using good ol’ playing cards. Don’t forget to incentivize with prizes for first, second, and third place. 

Image Credit: Glassdoor

17) Professional Development Workshop

Want to encourage your employees to bond while providing them with an opportunity to learn and further their career? Offer a shared learning experience either at your office or at an off-site workshop or conference. The activity could be specifically related to your employees’ jobs, or it could be something more broad, like a negotiation or leadership skills workshop.

Now you’re ready to show your team a great time while increasing their happiness and creating a great company culture. And hey, you might just be the “cool boss” now. How cool would that be?

What are your favorite creative team outing ideas? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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

 
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No matter what industry you’re in, the first weeks of January always feel like a big storm has hit and passed. In a few weeks, your year is going to start ramping up again, and 2016 will start to feel like a routine. Big projects will start to take off, and you’ll miss those ‘moments between the lines’ that you’ve loved for brainstorming, tinkering, and exploring.

Remember that downtime is cyclic: it won’t last forever. As you begin to ramp up for the new year, don’t look solely at major changes you can make at your company. Focus also on housekeeping, and find subtle ways to accomplish the things that you’ve otherwise been putting off. Many times, these smaller improvements can snowball into larger projects or initiatives.

Here are a few ideas to get you started with both large and small changes for your publication:

1) Get Your Lists in Shape

No matter how engaged your email list might be, your performance benchmarks could still be better. Why? Over time, email lists become clogged machines. Once-active subscribers lose interest, your value proposition starts being relevant, and audiences stop paying attention to your messaging.

No matter what steps you take to course-correct this pattern, you can’t. Instead, you should embrace your shifting audience base and get your lists in shape. Take some basic steps to make sure that you’re working with your cleanest lists possible:

• Phase out your ‘aged’ non-engaging subscribers
• Trim down contacts who aren’t essential to your core business (i.e. trim down the fat)
• Eyeball your segments to make sure that groupings are still relevant and make sense

With your audiences returning from vacation, the beginning of the year is a great time to clean up your lists and make sure that everything is in check.

2) Commit to Sending Fewer Emails

With a new year comes new energy. You might feel many bursts of inspiration, along with a desire to fire off some new email campaigns.

Do yourself a favor and hold back: your audiences don’t share your same enthusiasm. As interested as they might be in your company, their attention spans are spread thin across the hundreds of emails that they’re receiving each day. Instead of sending more messages, make each note count more. Here’s a simple set of exercises to try:

• Rather than planning out 10 emails to send, figure out 10 creative ways to segment your lists
• Determine how to make each email more impactful among the segments that you’ve defined
• A/B test several varations of your newsletter, tweaking both headlines and body content

You might consider reaching out to your customers and subscribers and asking to conduct qualitative interviews. Start by diving deep into the efficacy of your current email campaigns. Figure out what you can do better. For maximum impact, tailor improvements to specific customer segments.

3) Put Mobile First

When it comes to your mobile strategy, the days of comfortable procrastination are over. As of May 2015, Google says that there are now more searches on mobile than on desktop devices.

Consumers are relying on mobile to find critical information, and you can’t afford to lag behind. From your email campaigns to your core browsing experience, you need to ensure a mobile responsive look and feel (at the very least). Focus on your landing pages and newsletter campaigns to start with and use website analytics data to determine where on your site you should focus next.

Mobile may be mainstream, but it’s not too late to get ahead of the curve and develop an amazing mobile experience. The beginning of 2016 is a great time to prioritize mobile as a core part of your strategic vision. 

4) Go on the Offense Against Ad Blockers

For the last several years, ad blockers have been on the rise. Publishers are well-aware of this fact: according to one report, there are now 198 million active adblock users around the world, with publishers losing tens of billions of dollars a year, as a result.

The reason for this trend is simple: consumers have spent years feeling deceived by the advertising industry, and they’re tired of it. For online audiences, time is a valuable asset, and few people want to spend their time x-ing out of unnecessary pop-up windows with irrelevant messaging.

It’s time for publishers to go on the office against ad blockers. But the trick here isn’t to fight this consumer behavior: it’s to embrace it. Instead of forcing audiences to sit through ads that they don’t want to see, focus on diversifying your revenue streams.

If you’re looking for a good resource to point you in the right direction, check out HubSpot’s 2015 Publisher Benchmarks Report. Cliff notes: the media industry is going through significant change, and it’s a great time to innovate. Print is on its way out, new tech adoption is on the rise, and publishers are exploring revenue options beyond subscriptions.

The beginning of 2016 is a great time to sit back and brainstorm alternative ways to monetize. Think about education products that you can create, webinars you can host, events that you can organize, and creative ways that your media company can deliver value to both audiences and advertisers.

Get Moving

What these New Year’s resolutions share in common is that they’re all long-term: you’ll need more than early January to implement these major audience engagement initiatives. The point is that you need to get started. Time flies, and it will be 2017 in no time.

With the close of the holiday season, retailers are breathing a sigh of relief. To help gear up for 2016, we’ve collected our most popular ecommerce posts from each month in 2015. Check out the top ecommerce articles from 2015 based off the interest of readers like you.

January: Where Social Commerce Revenue Comes From [Infographic]

Social commerce is of growing importance in ecommerce and forecasted to account for 5% of online retail revenue in 2015. This infographic digs into statistics and trends in social commerce in the U.S.

February: 5 Customer Retention Tools for Long Term Ecommerce Success

Customer retention turns one-time shoppers into loyal, repeat customers that drive more revenue. Here are five tools to boost profitability and encourage repeat business to drive a sustainable long-term business for your ecommerce company. 

March: How Often Should You Post on Social Media? Benchmarks for 9 Different Industries

The perennial question: how much should you be posting to social media as part of your marketing strategy? Compare yourself to others across your industry with this dive into the data in the 2015 Social Media Benchmarks Report.

April: Creating a Transactional Email Campaign? Check Out These 15 Excellent Examples

Transactional emails have the primary purpose to “facilitate, complete, or confirm” a transaction. Here are 15 examples of ways you can turn the end of a transaction into the beginning of the next! 

May: Dropshipping 101: What It Is and How It Can Make You a Successful Online Retailer

Our friends from Bigcommerce took a look into dropshipping and what it means for your ecommerce company, as well as examining the pros and cons.

June: 7 Creative Content Ideas for Your Ecommerce Site

Creative content in ecommerce can go a long way toward keeping buyers engaged and coming back for more. Here are seven examples for ecommerce content marketing inspiration. 

July: Amazon Prime Day: Big Hit or Big Bust?

In July, Amazon had its first ever “Prime Day,” that they promoted as being bigger than Black Friday. While there were mixed reviews, Amazon had the last laugh with higher than ever Prime sign-ups. 

August: 6 Landing Page Musts for Higher Conversion Rates

When creating a landing page, there are several things you must have. Boost your conversion rates with these six musts.

September: How to Optimize Your Welcome Emails to Increase Opens & Clickthroughs [Infographic]

Welcome emails are one of the first interactions a potential buyer has from your brand. Make sure you’re optimizing them correctly with this infographic. 

October: How to Use Instagram Photos to Boost Your Email Engagement [Infographic]

Learn how one ecommerce company increased engagement on its site by using Instagram images in its email marketing. 

November: How to Create a Holiday Marketing Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide

As Cyber Monday got closer and closer, we put together a step-by-step guide to help you create a holiday marketing campaign, with resources to get you up and running ASAP.

December: 18 Brilliant Examples of Holiday Marketing Campaigns

As the holiday season was in full swing, holiday campaigns were everywhere. We collected examples of delightful holiday marketing campaigns to help spark your own seasonal marketing campaigns.

Time for another brainstorm session …

After scratching out a list of possibilities, you turn to your computer for inspiration. Consider your go-to sources: Do you immediately navigate to your competitor’s blog? Are your bookmarks filled with favorite content from companies in your industry?

Constructive thinking doesn’t happen inside of a vacuum. Instead, our best ideas come when we take a step outside the scope of our work and seek inspiration from unlikely sources. For B2B marketers, this means that the creative spark you’re looking for might not be found directly within your industry. In fact, there’s actually a lot B2B marketers can learn by observing the approach of B2C companies.

Of course, B2B and B2C marketing have their long list of differences. With B2B marketing, the door is open to technical jargon and long, deliberate marketing funnels. Yet, B2C marketers often have more room to stretch their imagination with lofty expectations for either witty or tear-jerking campaigns.

But despite the dissimilarity between the two, there is an opportunity to surface fresh ideas to by exploring out-of-the-box examples. And with a bit of inspiration and original execution, your B2B campaigns can rival the creativity of the most buzz-worthy consumer marketing.

11 B2C Campaigns for B2B Marketers to Learn from in 2016

1) Chobani

It is easy to think that only companies with an extensive catalog of products can pull of beautiful visual marketing. But what about when you specialize in one item?

With colorful photos of kale Caesar salad, mushroom flatbread pizza, and peach cheesecake, Chobani is a great example of a brand that leverages diverse photography to highlight a single product. 

Even if you market for a niche B2B business with one main product, there are still endless possibilities for your visual marketing. As you determine a visual strategy for social media, especially Instagram, start by thinking beyond the product itself to the many ways or locations your product can be used.

2) Tesco

Based in the UK, Tesco is an international grocery store and a reliable source of information for anyone hoping to make their home run a little smoother. On their blog, Tesco Living, shoppers can find how-to articles with easy-to-follow instructions and ample pictures. Topics range from family favorite holiday recipes to summertime craft ideas for your preschooler.

By thoughtfully identifying common challenges of grocery shoppers, Tesco Living proves to be an exceptional example of helpful inbound marketing. Tesco then continues to impress by providing the solutions on a clean, easily navigable platform. 

3) Starbucks

Starbucks was an early adopter of social media and today continues to use industry-leading photos to attract customers. However, most B2B marketers can’t say they have a product as enticing as a cup of coffee to fill their social calendar. Nevertheless, marketers of any industry would value from the coffee chain’s omni-channel approach to marketing and selling.

Starbucks creates a user-friendly experience through a myriad of special features on its Facebook page, including special contests, a store locator, international links, and job postings.

To streamline the buying process even further, Starbucks created an app to simplify mobile payments and bypass lengthy lines. While it’s unrealistic that all companies should aspire to create their own native app, Starbucks shows how brands should smooth the buyer’s journey with each interaction.

4) Spotify

Few brands master personalization quite like Spotify. By leveraging the user’s music interests, Spotify only sends emails with content that is both relevant and rewarding — whether it’s an announcement of their favorite band releasing a new album or news of a local concert.

However, the music streaming platform shows that personalization is no longer just for email marketing. Spotify now curates Discover Weekly, a customized playlist filled with songs an individual user has yet to uncover. To close out the year, Spotify presented each user with a “Year in Music” microsite telling the story of their 2015 music habits.

As you consider how to add a human touch to your marketing campaigns, think how you can expand beyond email personalization tokens to impress your customers.

5) Herschel Supply Co.

Adventure is the theme of Herschel Supply’s visual marketing. Browse the backpack retailer’s Instagram account to find breathtaking photos of mountaintop views and chaotic city streets.

However, Herschel Supply gives marketers more than just high quality photos to envy. The majority of the brand’s visual content comes directly from their customers posting with the hashtag #WellTravelled. 

Like Herschel Supply, consider how your brand can use social media to create a community, not simply a list of followers. This way, customers become stakeholders in your marketing and voices in how your product story is told. 

6) Everlane

No matter the platform, each piece of Everlane’s content works toward the same goal: transparency. By illustrating the “how” and “why” behind what they do, Everlane breaks down the barrier between the customer and their favorite brand. For example, the fashion retailer uses Snapchat to send messages to their customers that feel honest and personal. And the brand’s Instagram account features backstage shots of the clothing production process.

If you are looking for a new approach to gain trust and loyalty from the businesses you sell to, consider how you can increase transparency as you explain sourcing and pricing on your social media and blog.

7) Taco Bell

There are few ways to illustrate your brand personality quite like including humor. But before you decide there is no room in B2B marketing to pull a joke, consider the approach of Taco Bell. On the fast food chain’s Twitter account, you’ll find a robust collection of hand-drawn doodles and goofy GIFs.

However, it’s not just Taco Bell’s young audience that allows them to execute their humor so well. Credit goes to the brand’s bold, consistent voice. Taco Bell does not test the waters with a few jokes here and there, but commits completely. Whatever you determine your brand voice to be — from witty and sarcastic to encouraging and empowering — strive for consistency.

8) Threadless

There is no doubt that Threadless knows their audience well. On the retailer’s blog, you’ll rarely catch the writers talking about their funky t-shirt designs. Instead, Threadless has created a content haven for graphic designers and illustrators with just the right touch of quirkiness and personality.

Each post is packed with images, showcasing doodles straight from the desks of their customers. Meanwhile, Threadless understands the reader’s desire for visual inspiration and keeps the copy to a minimum. Of course, this approach is not right for every brand. But the more you know your audience, the more you’ll be able to cater your content to the style your readers like best. 

9) TOMS

Visual storytelling has always been a key ingredient in the marketing success of TOMS. By sharing the stories behind their one-for-one giving model, TOMS is able to gain customers who are all-in with the company’s mission. Therefore, it’s of little surprise that their social media accounts often look more like the work of photojournalists than marketers.

So, when you already know you do something well, why not pursue it further? This is exactly what TOMS has done with the release of their latest piece of visual marketing, a virtual reality video that takes the audience alongside on a giving trip. Viewers can drag the frame or tilt their smartphone for a seamless 360-degree view of the surroundings. While visual marketing may not be your strongest asset, determine what you do best and consider how you can push the bar and build more buzz around your brand.

10) EDEKA

EDEKA reminds marketers that commercials don’t have to feel quite like commercials. In their 2015 holiday advertisement, the German supermarket tells the story of a grandfather who will do just about anything to get his busy children and grandchildren home for the holidays. If you’re looking to explore video marketing, make note of both the empathy and character development used to transform this commercial into a sharable piece of inbound content. 

Unsure how your B2B brand could use storytelling to market your product? Remember, you don’t have to bring your audience to tears. But making a human connection through storytelling could be just what your brand needs to add interest to your B2B marketing.

11) Purina

Once you pinpoint your winning campaign idea, challenge yourself to imagine all the possible formats your content could take. Consider Purina as an example. The pet food company partnered with BuzzFeed to create an adorable video sharing the first day of bonding between a man and his new puppy. But, Purina didn’t stop there. Sequels were made to continue the tale, including “Our First Poop” and “We Met a Girl.” The campaign is then wrapped up in a microsite to guide people through the adventure of raising a puppy.

As content marketing blurs the line between retailer and publisher, consider how you can expand the scope of your campaigns and experiment with new media and storytelling trends.

Looking for more examples to spark your inspiration? Check out our latest ebook: 32 Enviable Examples of Inbound Marketing.