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What are kids looking at when they spend hours a day on their phones? As an education marketer – you want to make sure some of that attention is coming your school’s way. With the wealth of school content available to students, you can be sure some schools are getting prospective students’ time, so some of it should be yours, right?

How do you attract those eyes to your school’s website and blog? You start with creating personas of the people you want to attract. 

A persona is the fundamental building block of inbound marketing. It’s a fictional representation of your ideal “customer.” Each persona presents the background, needs, concerns, motivations, and goals of a specific segment of the population you want to be reading your school’s blog. If you want to attract your personas to your blog, you need to know who they are, and what interests them.

In this post, we take you through the process how to develop and use your personas to develop content meaningful to the students you want to enroll. 

Research Your Ideal Student Personas 

No matter how well we think we know our market, actively researching them always reveals valuable, actionable information. Building a persona must start with research.

You’ll gather information in seven categories designed to elicit valuable insight into what the persona cares about, where they find information, and what motivates their behavior. Use our Persona Profile Checklist as your starting point to customize questions relevant to selecting a school.

For example, investigating the persona’s “role” is the first category of questions. Instead of asking “What’s your job role?” You might ask “What’s your role in life? Are you a student? A parent?” Or, instead of asking “Who do you report to?” You can ask “Who mentors you? Who do you ask for advice?”

When you create your checklist, be sure to cover each of the seven categories. They’re all important to gaining a complete picture.

You’ll gather the information from three main areas:

• Talking to people
• Digital metrics
• Online sources

Talking to People

Always a good choice. You can survey and interview current and past students. Do you want to increase the proportion of students who opt for early decision enrollment? Then talk to some current early decision students. You might also consider reaching out to students accepted to the school, but who chose not to enroll. 

Admissions officers will also be great sources of information. When you talk with them, ask what concerns and hesitations they hear most often, and from whom. What are the most common questions prospective students ask? What are the drivers influencing decisions where to apply? 

Digital Metrics

Review your website, blog and FAQs. What pages get the most visits? What pages do visitors spend the most time on? Which have high bounce rates? What blog posts have the highest comment activity or share rate? Gather these digital metrics to get a sense of what content has traction and which content is getting ignored. What do they tell you about visitors’ interests and concerns? What sources are feeding your traffic? What searches are bringing people to your site?

Online Sources

While digital metrics offer quantitative information, here you’ll investigate qualitative sources. Read through blog comments. Not just on your school’s blog, but other related sites where prospects talk about the school selection and application process. Research social media as well. Use relevant hashtags to find the “meaty” discussions.

This research is useful for more than answering the questions on your profile checklist. It’s a great place to source content ideas and blog topics. Even better – you’ll see exactly how your prospects are talking about these issues, what language they use, which you can use in your content development.

Analyze Your Persona Research

Analyze your research for patterns, trends and commonalities. Your persona is a fictional representation of real people. You don’t want to focus too much on any one actual person as no individual can be representative of the group.

As you look for trends in their goals, concerns and their watering holes, pay special attention to the “why” behind each of these decisions. When you get a sense of their motivations behind their actions, you can build a highly impactful persona.

Analysis is the stage where you should start to see different personas emerging. Clearly, students and parents have different priorities and watering holes. What did you learn talking with the early admission students? Are there clear identifying trends among this group that isn’t present with the general admission students?

This is also the stage where you’ll start to identify negative personas. A negative person is the profile of who you don’t want as a student, or who will never be a student, so you don’t waste resources marketing to them. You can read more about creating a negative persona here.

Writing Up Your Personas

Start with creating a bullet list of relevant points under each research category, such as demographics and goals. You’ll include some actual quotes from interviewees or that you read online. You’ll also add some insights gleaned during analysis, such as what identifies a person as fitting this persona and what messages resonate with them. HubSpot has created a persona template you can use.

Once you have your bullet lists, you want to write the persona’s story. That’s right. A narrative that presents the persona in the context of their “life.” Here’s a simple 5-chapter format for writing up a persona story:

• Chapter 1: Describe their life role and demographic background.
• Chapter 2: What does their typical day look like?
• Chapter 3: What are their challenges and pain points?
• Chapter 4: Where do they go for information?
• Chapter 5: What are their common objections or hesitations when making a selection? 

It’s a very short story (not a book). Don’t worry. Give each chapter two to five sentences built around the bullet points you’ve already listed.

Complete your story by adding a photo of your persona. Remember – a persona is a fictional representation, not a real person. So select a stock photo of someone or a scene that represents the persona.

Putting Your Student Personas to Use

On a practical level, marketing and admissions should use personas to direct your content and prospect nurturing strategies. This approach ensures that you’re allocating your resources where they’ll provide the greatest return. 

First, select your primary persona. You probably have a few personas, but select the one whose attention will have the greatest impact on your goals. Gear more of your content to this persona. Do some keyword research based on the search habits of this persona. Design your blog tags and labels around the terms they use.

Through your earlier research, you’ve uncovered what topics interest them, the language they use to talk about it, and what sites and magazines they’re already reading. Use all of this information to create blog topics and headlines they’ll be compelled to read.

Last, don’t neglect your personas. Refine them on an on-going basis to make sure they remain accurate. As new issues or interests engage your prospects, you want to address them to keep your blog fresh and relevant.

The sheer volume of sales you experience during the holiday season could put you in a very different situation during tax season next year. There are several considerations you’ll have to keep in mind, such as an increase in revenue, locations where you or other staff members work, and potential exemptions. These tips won’t make up for advice from an accountant, but these are some things to keep in mind when dealing with sales tax.

Know Where You’re Selling

There are so many different taxes you’ll be responsible for this holiday season, from federal all the way down to city and even specific districts. If you don’t know where your customers are buying, you might miss one of the sales tax responsibilities on your list. It is up to you to know the specific districts where your buyers live, and that means you can’t just go on ZIP codes. Postal routes are changed all the time, but that doesn’t mean your districts change, too. Those ZIP codes don’t even specify certain cities, so you can’t rely on them in any way.

Know What You’re Selling

Did you know some products might carry different tax regulations than others? For instance, if you sell foods, some might be taxed in certain states while not at all taxed in others. Then, in some states, some of those foods will be taxable while others are tax-exempt. Do you have any idea which products within your ecommerce company require a sales tax in the various locations where they’re available for purchase?

Know If Prepayment Is Required

Some districts actually require prepayment, especially if large tax amounts occur often. This may also mean you’ll be on a different filing schedule than regular returns. Because you might be located in more than one jurisdiction, you’ll have to keep prepayment schedules and regular schedules straight or suffer the audits.

Know Your Nexus

This is the trickiest of all the tips, because you may not have any idea where your nexus is. Did you know it’s possible to have more than one? That’s why so many ecommerce companies end up in trouble. For the most part, you’re subject to the laws where your ecommerce company resides. However, you could have more than one nexus if you’ve opened a new office, if a large part of your staff resides in another area, and even if your products are manufactured in another area. 

Know Your Automation Options

Now, keeping up with all of these things is a full-time job, unless you have some way to automate the process. There are some ecommerce platforms that take care of the process for you. These automated programs will take into account where the business is being done, where the buyer lives, and all the requirements of the various districts and locations that apply. This greatly reduces the stress, work, and record keeping that you’ll need to do, while also minimizing your risk of an audit.

Now, have you considered your tax situation for the coming year? It’s not too late to get your taxes in order for the holiday season so that your books are balanced in 2016.

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

For all the fear surrounding ad blocking, there are still a lot of people watching ads. 

Consider Geico’s Unskippable pre-roll ad: It currently has more than 8.1 million views on YouTube. Or look to Android’s ad featuring unlikely animal friends: It became the most shared ad of all time, with more than 6.4 million shares. 

Whether inspired by an innovation in technology or simply using the corner of a building to tell a story, this year’s best in advertising made us pay attention — and even a little jealous. Check out some of our favorites below:

10 Inspiring & Creative Ads From 2015 

1) Comcast Xfinity | Emily’s Oz

A 7-year-old blind girl describes what her version of the Land of Oz looks like — and it’s absolutely magical.

2) Nike | Short a Guy 

This fast-paced ad is a fun break from the overwhelming number of famous athlete-focused spots this year.

3) John Lewis Home Insurance | Tiny Dancer

One tiny ballerina can cause a lot of harm to your home.

4) Atlantic Group | 37 Days

Is it possible to grow a garden in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth?

5) Women’s Aid & Ocean Outdoor | Look at Me

By using facial recognition technology, the cuts and bruises on the woman’s face healed when passersby looked at the digital billboard. 

6) Geico | Unskippable Ads

These ads made headlines for cleverly using the YouTube pre-roll ad format, which you can skip after five seconds.

7) Honda | The Other Side

Viewers could hold down the “R” key to switch back and forth between two ads, revealing the double life of one Honda Civic driver.

8) Shiseido | High School Girl?

This surprising ad makes perfect use of the product while also addressing gender norms. 

9) Android | Friends Furever

This was the most shared ad of the year thanks to the adorableness of unlikely animal pals. 

10) Depaul | There’s Another Side to the Story

If you only read one side of this ad, you’re missing the real story.

(View larger image.)

What were your favorite ads of the year? Let us know in the comments below!

When the time finally comes to tackle a website redesign, it’s difficult to contain the excitement. There are so many things you just can’t wait to have put into place! Then come the first steps to making it all happen.

Excitement turns to fear and trepidation as you try to craft a plan and put together the resources to turn all of your lofty ideas into reality. Suddenly it begins to seem more and more like a home construction project: lots of advice from many sources; warnings about rip-offs, scams and slick tactics; choices for things that could go into, on and throughout your new website; decisions about who should do what, how long it should take, and how much it should cost. Finally, you’re lost in so many details that you’re not sure where to start.

Here are the most common red flags that your website redesign is not on the path to providing value and what you can do to avoid them.    

1) Lack of strategic direction

Just like a home construction project, getting the blueprint wrong throws the final outcome into question. The worst part is you might not even realize anything is wrong until the construction team is long gone. In order for a website to have business value, it must be designed based on your business goals.

The high level goal is always the general notion of “getting more business”.  Unfortunately, if that’s all that comes to the planning table, you could go live with a beautiful website that really does nothing toward meeting your business goals even though the site looks exactly the way you pictured  it. 

Providing strategic direction for your website should not be an easy step, so the first indication of trouble is trotting out a quick laundry list of all the bells and whistles you’ve dreamed of having on your website to stand as your plan. Instead, you should start with putting your business goals at the heart of your planning.  

Your new website should be firmly rooted in driving business objectives. A good approach for this is to take your list of wants and incorporate them in a way that aligns with your business goals, the needs of the ideal site visitors and the technical realm of SEO.  You’ll need a workhorse vision where your website is built to play an active role in your sales and marketing efforts rather than operating as an elaborate, fancy brochure. 

You should encourage a lot of questioning from those who are helping you. Why do you want the items on your wish list? You should have valid business reasons for them before you make the decision to incorporate them.  Set a firm deadline for this exercise to make sure your project stays on track. Don’t end up stalled due to avoiding making some tough calls. You’ll likely have to cut some things you have on your wish list in order to add others that offer more value.

2) A narrow focus of ranking on page one of search engines

For many businesses, the most basic notion of having a website in the first place can be rooted in the idea of popping up on page one of Google and other search engines. The latest best practices in the SEO arena are very important and will definitely play a role in your website redesign, but it will involve more than a narrow view of whether or not your website appears on page one for a few keyword search terms.  

Currently, more than 200 factors determine whether a web page will be served up in search results.  No one can promise a rose garden of page one ranking for particular search terms and those that do are more interested in cashing your check and dashing out of the picture before you realize you aren’t getting any value. 

Instead, focus on using the specific language your marketing personas will use to research a problem that you can solve. Work to build content on your website that clearly conveys what you offer and how you can help them.  Your website content should be tailor-made to attract your perfect customer by addressing problems, demonstrating your knowledge of how to solve them and providing useful resources.

3) Lack of understanding of how websites are created

Typically, there is a web designer and a web developer involved in creating a website. A designer makes things look beautiful and a developer makes sure things work like they’re supposed to. Often, when this distinction isn’t understood, it leads to a less than stellar website because a vendor is hired who is good in one area and not the other. 

You should consider a team of professionals for the delivery of your project so you have the expertise to provide maximum value from both aspects within your project budget.  You should also expect guidance for situations when a compromise is needed to align function, beauty and budget. 

4) Unrealistic timelines

Getting it done fast may mean cutting some hefty corners. Someone who is overly eager to please you by promising your website in a very tight window of time is likely going to lead you to a poor outcome.

You’ll either get a website in short order that is a complete waste of money – since there really wasn’t time to build anything other than that – or you’ll be caught in a stall where the super low price vendor said yes to all your unrealistic demands, took your check and then took his time getting around to your job.

The ideal person for handling your project examines your wants and needs for the website before there is any commitment to a specific timeline. You should aim for an up front discussion about how much time it will take – whether you’ll like the answer or not – and the option of rolling your project out in phases. This approach allows you to get what you really need in a realistic time frame, test the value of your ideas along the way, and make adjustments according to outcomes.

5) Poorly considering who will be involved in the web design process

Having only a few people within an organization involved in guiding how the website will be done can be a path to disappointment, but on the other hand too many people can bring a project to a halt when everyone can’t come together on the decisions.

Modern websites should speak to the needs of customers and prospects in a way that inspires them to want to do business with you. Like with so many other things in life, moderation is the key.  It’s important to have those on your staff who are directly in touch with the needs of your business involved in some of the planning discussions or you could miss out on some very obvious content for your website.

Ideally, the person in charge of crafting your new website will use your business goals, input from each department (marketing, sales, customer services) as well as your best customers to uncover functionality and messaging that needs to be on your website.

6) Not having a contract or clear Scope of Work (SOW)

Avoiding having a formal contract in place may seem like a win with the notion of allowing for unbridled creativity and endless revisions. However, simply “letting things evolve” as you work through the process without defining expectations, pricing and timelines in writing is a big mistake with website projects. Since each side can have completely different visions for the outcome, a lot of disappointment can be avoided by putting some things down on paper before any work takes place. 

Reputable firms will bring paperwork to the table that provides a reasonable amount of definition but still allows the flexibility required for such a creative process.  This becomes especially important when work is going to be divided between your in-house staff and an outside vendor.  You’ll need clear definition for who is doing what to avoid confusion and unnecessary delays.

7) Failing to examine data from your current website before designing the new one

Many people aren’t well informed of the mechanisms to gather analytics for their websites much less actively pay attention to them. Scrapping your old site without taking a close look at its shortcomings reflected in this type of data could lead to a repeat of the same failures.

Find someone who can guide you in how to get this information and what to look for in the data. You’ll want to know some average figures that show how many visitors come to your website each month and some general information about how long they stay, new versus repeat visitors, etc.  Examining past performance is key to having your redesign attempt to fix problems and lead to future success.   

8) Going for WOW

We all want people to come to our website and be captured by the sheer awesomeness of it. But “going for wow” can leave you going broke when skipping over the consideration for the user expectations and experience.

It might look really flashy to have things whizzing around the homepage and popping up to surprise people but such tactics can have the opposite impact on the site visitor when it slows them down from accessing the content they expect to see.  The priority should be providing the most efficient path for your target audience to gain access to what they need when they land on your site.  

9) Not using a CMS

Sometimes simply leaving it up to the vendor for how a website will be built can lead to a site that cannot be edited or updated by anyone on your staff. A CMS (content management system) is a platform that can be used to build your website and often allow those with no knowledge of programming to make some simple updates to website pages.

When a vendor has complete control over updates even small changes can take forever – if they’re done at all – and lead to a lot of extra fees to make them. Choose a system that offers flexibility for you and your staff to make some simple adjustments to page copy or switch out pictures, calls to action etc. without having to wait in line, pay another fee or both.

10) Website limited to being updated every few years

The common method most businesses take with the company website is to invest a lot of time, attention and money once every few years to give it a nice, big facelift. The next few years are spent sweating out the time it takes to make it to the next update. 

Modern methods for website projects include a detailed plan for growth that incorporates the fluid, rapidly changing landscape and a website that is a living part of your marketing efforts. No more once and done website projects that take forever to launch and end up partially out of date almost as soon as they’re published. Instead, aim for a website that operates as a marketing vehicle that receives constant attention, aligns with your budget and changes with you as you grow.

11) A free website from a friend or family member

The free website doesn’t make much of a brother-in-law deal when it ends up doing harm to your business. Avoiding the price tag of calling in a professional seems to save you money today, but costs you a fortune in the long run in missed opportunities.  By failing to invest in a website that drives leads you can nurture to become customers, the money you saved today won’t compare to the cost of lost time.

12) No comprehensive, scalable strategy for lead generation

Historically, the approach to website creation has been a loose configuration of ideas brought to the table by everyone involved in the project. The goal is simply a final consensus as to whether all involved liked the finished product. The range of complexity can be as simple as an online brochure to a giant website full of pages but neither delivers any measurable ROI.

These days the trend is to build a website that is an inbound marketing hub for your business. Every page built for a purpose with a clear call to action guiding site visitors through the buyer’s journey. The pages working in a synchronized effort to generate marketing and sales qualified leads. A definable, scalable process that can be measured and adjusted to influence the return on investment.

According to the 2015 State of Inbound Report, “inbound campaigns achieve higher ROI than outbound” regardless of company size and budget. To find success these days, a website must operate as command central for a total inbound marketing effort instead of being limited to a little more than an Internet billboard that only gets attention once every few years.  

To make sure that yours does this, carefully review the 12 points outlined here. Use them to give you a new perspective. Identify your business goals, gather up the right people, resources, and processes needed to build your website to function as a more integral part of your business.   Just like electricity to power lights and office equipment, think of your website as the source to generate leads and sales on a daily basis.  

With this approach, instead of feeling anxiety, dread and disappointment you’ll be happy with a website that is an asset delivering measurable, and much more visible return on investment. 

Marketing is a fast-moving industry by nature. Like most years, a whole lot has happened in the marketing world in 2015.

Marketing is becoming more localized and more personalized. Snapchat has exceeded many marketers’ expectations, now getting 4 billion video views per day — the same number as Facebook. We’re seeing a rise in wearable tech, which is giving marketers a ton more consumer data to work with.

It’s time to put these changes into perspective as we enter a brand new year. To help us stay ahead of the marketing trends in 2016, the folks at Microsoft and Column Five created the infographic below. Check it out to learn about the biggest trends marketers should know about as we strategize for the upcoming year.

For many, New Year’s resolutions often feel like a forced, trite way to make a change. After all, if you really wanted to change, why would you wait around for January First? You’d be better off just making sporadic changes throughout the year, right?

Well, that strategy doesn’t always pan out like we’d like it to. Waiting until you “feel ready” to change often enables you to push aside goals that are important, but not time-sensitive. 

If you’re serious about making a change, it’s important that you put specific, time-bound goals in place in order to achieve success. And the great thing about resolutions is they don’t have to just live in your personal life; they can be a powerful aid to help you grow your business, too.

If you’re looking to set resolutions for next year but are struggling with coming up with some solid, achievable ideas, keep on reading. Here are 16 resolutions you could pick for next year along with additional reading and resources to help you actually accomplish them.

16 New Year’s Resolutions for Professionals

1) Designate an electronics-free zone.

Arianna Huffington once gave this advice to attendees of HubSpot’s INBOUND13 conference, which I’ll never forget: Ban electronics from your bedroom — for the sake of your health.

“I never take devices to bed,” she said. “iPads, iPhones, Blackberries — I don’t charge them near by bed because I feel it’s imperative to be able to have uninterrupted renewal time.”

What a great idea. After all, researchers have found that artificial light from electronic devices can mess with the brain chemicals that promote sleep. And even if you do get just as much sleep as someone who didn’t look at their electronics before bed, studies have shown people who stare at a backlit screen right before bed report lower-quality sleep.

Whether it’s your bedroom or somewhere else, choose an electronics-free zone this year to help you clear your mind and focus on the people and things happening in meatspace.

Resources to Help

• Arianna Huffington’s Keynote at INBOUND13 (16:00–17:28)

2) Write something every day.

Want to become a better writer? Then you need to write. A lot. The only way to improve is to get in the habit of writing on a daily basis. Neil Patel suggests writing for at least 30 minutes every workday, skipping the weekends.

Even if you’re not a writer, pick a customer’s question and write something about it. Or write nonsense. Just try and enhance the habit of writing.

Don’t know what to write about? Here are three great tools:

• Daily Page emails you a writing prompt every morning, and you have the rest of the day to write your response. Once you’ve written your response to the prompt, you can either share it or keep it private.
• 750 Words is a tool that encourages you to write 750 words per day about anything you want. It gamifies writing by giving you points for writing at all, for writing 750 words or more, and for writing on a consistent basis. 
• Twords calls itself “the app that nudges you to write.” It notifies you when you haven’t written in a while so you can keep yourself accountable — and even gives you the option to connect with others who will help keep you accountable.

Resources to Help

• The 31 Best Tools for Improving Your Writing Skills
• 9 Things Great Writers Do Every Day 
• A Science-Backed Method for Better Writing: How to Find Your Ideal Time of Day 

3) Improve your design skills. 

You’ve probably heard all the hype about visual content already — you just haven’t buckled down to start creating some yourself.

Well, 2016 is the year to do it. As more and more content on the web becomes visual, you’re going to need to be able to create the content yourself — or, if you have a bigger budget, learn to better communicate with contractors and agencies to create it for you.

Resources to Help

• How to Use Photoshop: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photoshop 
• 29 Free Visual Design Tools for Creating Stunning Visual Content on the Web 
• The Free Templates You Need for Visual Content Design 
• Data Visualization 101: How to Design Charts and Graphs 
• The Non-Designer’s Essential Glossary of Web Design Terms

4) Master Excel.

It might seem like an old-school skill, but knowing how to use Excel can come in handy far more often than you think. The next time you have to create a custom report based on two data sources, track the growth of your marketing, or make a chart to prove a point to your boss, you’re going to wish you knew how to use the program. 

Resources to Help

• A Step-by-Step Guide to Building an Excel Graph
• How to Use Excel: 14 Simple Excel Shortcuts, Tips & Tricks 
• Video Series: The Essential Microsoft Excel Skills Every Marketer Should Learn
• 6 Ways Excel Can Make Your Life Easier
• 12 Excel Formulas, Features & Keyboard Shortcuts Everyone Should Know 

5) Listen to one podcast per week.

Podcasting is a thriving mini-industry. And it’s no wonder: Listening to podcasts is a great way to learn something new without it being a direct skill you are mastering. There are so many good ones out there, though, that it can be hard to know where to start. Here are a few lists of the best ones out there — they should last you a while. 

Resources to Help

• 8 of the Best Podcasts You Should Be Listening To
• The Top Business Podcasts 
• 10 of the Best Podcasts for Designers & Creatives 
• 21 of the Best Podcasts, Movies, Shows, Books & Apps to Entertain You While Traveling 
• The Growth Show: HubSpot Weekly Business Podcast

6) Hire new, awesome teammates. 

I’d venture a guess that most marketers are strapped for time and resources — which means you’ll be looking to hire new talent in the upcoming year. 

If you’re going to choose this resolution, be sure to take your time. It’s all about hiring the right candidate, not a warm body that can tweet on your company’s behalf. You need to ensure that you have a solid job description and a vigorous screening process to ultimately find a solid teammate. This process could take weeks, months, or even a full year, so get started as early as you can.

Resources to Help

• 37 Ready-to-Use Marketing Job Descriptions
• 15 of the Best Job Interview Questions to Ask Candidates (And What to Look for in Their Answers) 
• How to Structure a Marketing Team of Any Size
• The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Effective Marketers 
• How to Objectively Evaluate Your Next Job Candidate 

7) Develop a mobile strategy. (Seriously.)

The year 2015 was the year having a mobile strategy went from nice-to-have to need-to-have. For one, Google made a massive change to the way they rank websites in search: Beginning in April 2015, they began rewarding mobile-friendly sites and penalizing sites that are not mobile-friendly. Secondly, by midway through the year, more people were searching for things online using their mobile devices than using desktop computers.

Have you truly invested the resources to learn about mobile, and adapted your marketing strategy accordingly? If not, it’s time to sit down and develop a strong mobile strategy, which means overhauling your website, emails, social accounts, blog, and any other online content to be mobile-friendly. 

Resources to Help

• Mobile Search Queries Start to Surpass Desktop: Here’s What You Can Do About It 
• Google Algorithm Now Rewards Mobile-Friendly Sites: Here’s What You Need to Know 
• What Mobile Buyers Are REALLY Doing on Your Website
• How to Optimize Your Emails for Mobile: A Beginner’s Guide
• Is Your Website’s Viewport Configured for Mobile Users? Here’s How to Do It 
• How to Display Site Content Only Your Mobile Viewers Can See

8) Blog consistently.

Blogging is like working out: You’ve got to do it consistently to see great results. You can’t just publish once every few months and expect to rack up the views, lead, and customers. 

If you’re struggling to keep a tight editorial calendar, then commit to blogging consistently this year. It doesn’t matter if you decide to blog every two weeks, every week, or every day — the point here is to pick a frequency you think you can accomplish, and stick to it. Once you develop a solid, reliable cadence, then you can work on increasing the volume.

Resources to Help

• Quality vs. Quantity: A 6-Month Analysis of the Age-Old Blogging Debate 
• How Often Should Companies Blog? [New Benchmark Data] 
• The Blog Topic Generator
• Editorial Calendar Template for Excel
• How to Create a Robust Editorial Strategy for Free Using Google Calendar 

9) Don’t forget about your old content, too.

If you already have a solid publishing cadence established, you might want to take the New Year to look back at your well-performing content. Take time to identify the posts that perform best for you, and then figure out how you can squeeze even more juice out of them. Next, apply those experiments’ findings to the posts that are “second tier” — the ones that are decently successful, but could be even more so if you optimized them. 

Spending time optimizing content you’ve already created can be a great way to keep your evergreen content fresh for readers and search engines. 

Resources to Help

• Why You Need to Stop Neglecting Your Old Content
• The Blogging Tactic No One is Talking About: Optimizing the Past 
• How to Determine Which Posts to Optimize
• The Keyword-Based Conversion Optimization Methodology
• How to Update and Republish Blog Content [Tutorial] 

10) Read more external content.

The most successful people never stop learning. One of the best ways to keep up with industry news, learn from experts, get the creative juices flowing, and even become a better writer — is to read what others are writing about.

The tough thing is, there’s so much content out there, you have to be discerning to find the really good stuff. To start, three places where content quality stays high are Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, and Slate. (Don’t be afraid to pay for top-tier content, by the way. There’s a reason it costs money, and it’s often well worth it.)

You’ll want to spend time reading more niche or industry-specific content, too. Below are a few ideas. To make it easier to read them all, look for applications that let you read all your favorites all in one place, like Feedly.

Resources to Help

• 8 Great Marketing Blogs You Probably Don’t Follow (But Should) 
• ReadThink: Stories, Insights & Ideas from the Business World & Beyond 
• 4 Science-Backed Reasons to Read More (Even If You’re Busy) 

11) Run big, strategic tests.

Many marketers tend to run small, haphazard tests — a subject line A/B test here, a CTA color change there. But all of these incremental tests might not really make a difference in your marketing. 

In the New Year, think about running larger, more strategic tests to get to the heart of what your audience enjoys. Challenge conventional best practices. Make big changes to your marketing. Make your experiments as statistically valid as possible. By doing bigger experiments, you’ll have a better chance of getting big results. Here’s an example of a test we conducted at HubSpot this past year on the “quality versus quantity” blogging debate.

Resources to Help

• Landing Page Best Practices You Should Still Test For Yourself
• 5 Landing Page A/B Tests (And Their Surprising Results) 
• Running an Email A/B Test? How to Determine Your Sample Size & Testing Time Frame
• 9 Real-Life Conversion Rate Optimization Tests to Try Yourself

12) Invest in better measurement. 

Ahh, marketing ROI … one of the most notoriously difficult things to measure, but also the key to unlocking career growth. So why not make it your New Year’s resolution next year? 

If you’re going to tackle this in the New Year, I’d highly suggest setting up a coffee meeting with your counterpart in Sales within the first two weeks of the year. To justify your department’s impact, you’re going to need to tie your activities to the bottom line — and your Sales team can help you do just that. Meeting early and often in the process will be key to your success.

Resources to Help

• How to Track Content ROI: A Step-by-Step Guide
• 3 Ways to Show Marketing’s Impact on Revenue
• How to Calculate Your Leads Goal for Sales & Marketing Alignment

13) Make a point of learning from your network.

Everyone knows networking is an important skill and priority. After all, it’s not what you know; it’s who you know — right? But sometimes, our busy lives cause us to push networking further and further down our priority list.

This year, don’t let networking fall by the wayside. Once a quarter, set up some time with counterparts of yours in different companies. Learn from them, tell them your best tricks, and create an equal exchange of ideas.

Resources to Help

• A 5-Step Process to Writing a Standout Networking Email 
• How to Master Non-Awkward, Effective In-Person Networking 

14) Share your skills with others.

Jumping on opportunities to share your skills with others through public speaking engagements isn’t just beneficial for your audience — it’s also a great way to present yourself as an expert, increase your visibility both online and offline, and build your personal brand. Plus, getting your name out there in the context of your job is beneficial for your company, too.

Talk with your manager about opportunities your company can get you in on, like local meet-ups or conferences. You could also get in touch with a university and offer a guest lecture — after all, there’s something very rewarding about inspiring future talent.

Resources to Help

• The Start-to-Finish Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint Presentation 
• The Uneasy Speaker’s Guide to Confident Public Speaking 
• 10 Science-Backed Tips for Rocking Your Next Public Speaking Opp 

15) Move to the next level of your career.

Regardless of what “next” means for you — changing your title, getting more responsibilities, starting your own thing — you can set out to accomplish it this year. While it may take longer than a year to fully accomplish the career goal, setting up a plan for yourself to make big, life-changing moves isn’t a bad thing. If your goal is really monstrous, try breaking it into a year-over-year plan, and using the first year plan as the basis for your resolutions. 

Resources to Help

• How to Get a Marketing Promotion
• How to Make the Most Money in Your Career
• What No One Tells You About Your Career When You’re 22

16) Prioritize sleep.

We live in a culture of competitive sleep deprivation –– and it’s getting out of hand. Getting enough sleep has a huge impact on your health, energy, productivity, and happiness, and lack of sleep is downright unnatural.

In fact, Neuroscientist Russell Foster thinks we’re being “supremely arrogant” by ignoring the importance of sleep. He told BBC, “We feel we can abandon four billion years of evolution and ignore the fact that we have evolved under a light-dark cycle. What we do as a species, perhaps uniquely, is override the clock. And long-term acting against the clock can lead to serious health problems.”

While the number of hours of sleep you need varies from person to person, most adults need a solid seven to eight hours per night. This year, include getting that seven or eight hours of sleep in as much as a way of getting healthier, happier, and more productive at work. And when you do have an inevitable sleepless night or two, build in recovery time to help make up your sleep debt.

Resources to Help

• The Science of Sleep: What Happens During the 5 Stages of Your Sleep Cycle
• 13 Ways to Be More Productive When You Sleep & Wake Up 

Which of these resolutions will you make — and actually stick to? What else would you add to the list? 

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

Thinking of adding an ecommerce layer to your media brand? If so, your mind is in the right place. With ad revenues on the decline, an online store can be a great way to deliver value to your audiences.

Just take a look at how today’s top retailers are attracting and building relationships with their audiences. Fashion brand ModCloth and art supply store Art.com achieve great success through content marketing. Why should a publisher be any different? You’ve already built up an audience, which gives you a strong platform to distribute products.

But few media companies feel comfortable entering ecommerce territory. Why? The space is new, and there are few precedents in place. You may feel like you’re venturing into unchartered territory and taking a huge risk as a result. 

Don’t let fear of the unknown scare you. Take smaller steps by following these lessons.

5 Tips to Help Your Media Company Master Ecommerce

1) Turn Your Content into Products

Not sure what types of products to sell? Just take a look at the content that you’re already creating. What’s popular among your audience base? Are there opportunities to convert short-form articles into in-depth courses, research studies, or e-books?

For inspiration, take a look at HBR’s online store. In addition to publishing free content and offering a subscription, the media leader regularly sells templates, case studies, tools, and other resources. 

The beauty of this model? The entire supply chain is digital. Distribution and fulfillment can be automated, with absolutely no need for shipping, warehouses, or physical products.

You can launch an ecommerce store with very little overhead.

2) Partner with Fellow Content Creators

Don’t have the resources to build your own products, digital or otherwise? Consider partnering up with other content creators in your industry.

Your media company has access to a powerful resource: an audience. Rather than building products from scratch, get started by launching an affiliate program. You could host a marketplace and collect a commission for all products sold.

For inspiration, take a look at The Next Web. The technology publishing giant has partnered with Teachable, a course management platform, to source and sell educational content.  TNW gets an instant library of products to sell. Course creators get access to a powerful distribution opportunity.

It’s a win-win ecommerce model with value to all sides.

3) Fit into Your Audience’s Needs

The simplest way to launch an ecommerce business is to find out what your audience cares about. Figure out what products they’re seeking out. Launch a storefront that meets these needs.

As an example, take a look at Legacy.com. The company, an online repository of obituaries, has become a leader in its space. By partnering with media hubs like The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Dallas Morning News, the company’s obituaries reach an audience of tens of millions of people in the U.S. per month. 

What’s interesting about this audience is that they’re unlikely to be receptive to advertisements. When people are in mourning, they don’t want to be thinking about their next shopping trips.

So Legacy.com has done something a little different. Rather than delivering ads, the company prompts site visitors to send flowers or give to a charity, taking a cut of every transaction. With this model in place, the company has been growing at an annual rate of 40% over five years, with ecommerce revenue matching ad revenue.

4) Consider a B2B Model

Most ecommerce businesses are consumer-facing. But B2B media companies can still develop a viable revenue stream, using similar business practices. Here’s an idea: why not develop an online store that offers business education and training?

Consider FDA News, a publisher that specializes in global compliance topics, as an example. In addition to creating helpful documentation, the company has a small ecommerce store with training and prep DVDs. 

Given the value of these programs, price points are in the thousand-dollar range–a range that makes sense for B2B buyers. With this model in place, FDA News can afford to spend more on audience acquisition and retention, as a result.

It’s an example of how an ecommerce model can create a healthier business all around, no matter the industries that you serve.

5) Create a Simple Shopping Experience

Today’s buyers are research-driven and self-directed. They’re using your content to educate themselves, discover new ideas, and find out about products. Thanks to the great articles and videos that you’re already publishing, you’ve created a steady entry point into your company’s conversion funnel.

That being said: if you’re thinking of launching an ecommerce platform, you’ll want to pay careful attention to your UX. At a minimum, you’ll want to make it easy for readers to discover your online shop. You’ll also want to make sure that your core website experience remains in tact.

To avoid confusing audiences, you’ll want the best of both worlds.

As an example, take a look at Magna Publications–a media company that specializes in the higher education industry. The company’s website has a UX that clearly separates its articles from its ecommerce products.

Make sure that this distinction is clear on your own site, so that your audiences can do your research. It should be easy to learn about your company.

Is Ecommerce Right for You?

Don’t jump the gun in answering this question. Even though you can get started with minimal overhead, you’ll need to fine-tune logistics. Both VentureBeat and Refinery29 shut down their ecommerce lines. Don’t follow in their footsteps–make a good decision early on. 

Co-marketing is a fantastic way to gain new contacts without having to wait for organic search to kick in … but it’s not always an easy job.

The challenging part of co-marketing all boils down to one thing: your partner. Can you find partners who launch campaigns with the same strategy and thoughtfulness you do? Oftentimes, it’s a struggle.

If you’re having trouble finding and evaluating co-marketing partners, keep on reading. In this post, I’ll outline 10 tips for making sure you’re entering into a healthy and prosperous co-marketing partnership.

Let’s get to it.

10 Tips to Finding the Right Co-Marketing Partner

1) Start with a list of brands you admire.  

First, create a running list of brands and influencers in your industry that you admire from a marketing standpoint.

If you’re an online wine distributor, for example, a great potential partner to include on this list would be a popular wine accessory company. Chances are, your audience would want cool wine accessories and gifts for their family and friends, and the wine accessory company would want an audience of wine lovers to buy more accessories. It’s a win-win!

A few questions to ask yourself when you’re putting this list together:

• Are there potential partners in your space who have enjoyable-to-read blogs that would provide value to your audience?
• Do you follow any brands on social media that make lovable content that also speaks to your buyer persona’s needs?
• What apps, tools, or products make your customers’ lives easier? 

Once you nail down a list of companies that are a fit for your buyer persona, it’s time to dig a lot deeper.

2) Consider competitive overlap.

It can be tough to assess the “coopetition” of a new partner. It’s common sense to not go after direct competitors, but there is a gray area where a partner’s products are differentiated enough to where you might want to engage in a co-marketing relationship.

My biggest pieces of advice when evaluating that gray area is to make sure you’re not fighting for the same keywords. If you’re an interior designer in Boston trying to grow outside of New England, for example, don’t co-market with another interior designer in Massachusetts as the keyword to find you would be “interior designer in Boston” or “interior designer in Massachusetts.” I’d opt to partner with somebody in the furniture or rug business that has a national footprint, as you can both drive traffic and leads to each other without cutting into each other’s business.

3) Dig into social media profiles.

The first thing I do to check out a new partner is visit their company’s profiles on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

While I’m there, I don’t just look at the number of followers — I also look at engagement, replies, and the type of content their social team is posting. Why? Chances are, your co-marketing content will be promoted on social media. It’s important to know the potential reach and engagement of your partners’ social accounts so you can assess how much exposure your co-branded content will get on social.

When you’re looking at their social media accounts, ask yourself these questions:

• Does the partner use high-quality, relevant, and aesthetically pleasing visuals to promote their campaigns?
• Is the copy engaging and easy to digest? 
• Are people liking/favoriting and sharing posts?
• Is the partner answering questions from customers and prospects? 
• Is the partner joining conversations related to your industry? 

Try to answer all of these questions about your future partner to determine if they’re on the same page you are when it comes to social content.

Pro Tip: When you’re on Twitter, check out “Tweets & Replies” as well as “Photos & Videos” to better determine what your future new partner is up to.

4) Assess the company’s overall web and content reach.

In order to assess how much traffic your new partner could drive to a landing page, I look at their overall web presence on www.alexa.com and www.similarweb.com. These sites help me get a rough idea of traffic, bounce rates, keywords, and sources people are using to find that site, as well as the next action they take after visiting.

Alexa specifically is a great tool, as it can help you dig into where visitors click from a company’s main site. If you find most of the clicks are going to a company’s blog or resources pages, that’s a great sign for me as their audience likes that company’s content. If it’s going to a pricing page or something that’s not as top of the funnel, it signals that there is a hole in their marketing and conversion path — they may not be a great co-marketing partner right now. 

Another tool that works well for assessing a potential new partner’s reach is Buzzsumo. It allows you to find specific types of content that perform well in an industry, as well as uncovers thought leaders in that space. This handy tool ranks content by the number of social shares to provide you insight into what’s working on this company’s site. Here’s a great video on Buzzsumo’s capabilities and a look into how HubSpot’s own SEO guru Matthew Barby uses the tool.

image Source: SEMrush

5) Google the company.

To make sure you don’t start working with a partner who is on the verge of bankruptcy, Google the company and check out the first few pages to see what comes up, as well as the “News” section. 

If the latest news doesn’t shed a positive light on this potential partner, perhaps you should wait until the dust settles after a few months. If it’s too damaging, you might consider crossing them off your list of partners to reach out to.

If the latest news is about their impending IPO or recent funding and growth, however, go get ‘em! 

6) Sign up for their newsletters and subscribe to their blog.  

Sometimes the best way to find out if this company markets their brand and content well is to subscribe to their updates. A few questions to ask yourself:

• Is the content they’re promoting lovable?
• How often are they sending emails?
• Is there an unsubscribe link?
• Are their calls-to-action to landing pages and useful content, or to assets that don’t make sense?

The importance of knowing how this future partner markets to their own database is similar to how they engage on social media. Eventually, if you co-market with them, they’re going to promote via email, social media, and their website. If you like the way they are marketing to their database in helpful newsletters, interesting blog posts, and relevant content, that’s a sign this company knows what their audiences likes and how to convert them into delighted customers and evangelists. If they’re not sending any emails or the emails themselves are irrelevant, that should be a red flag on moving forward with a co-marketing partnership.

7) If applicable, check out reviews for their product or service.

In the case of the wine distributor looking to pair up with a wine accessory company, I’d check out the Amazon reviews for those accessories or Google search “[insert company name] reviews.”

If there’s a way to dig into the customer service and support of this company’s products and services, you should absolutely find out if customers like what they are purchasing as it reflects on how the brand treats their buyers. Go the extra mile and dig into customer reviews and their experiences with any potential partner, if you can.

8) Google the person you’d be working with, if you know who they are.

Do a quick search to see if this person has experience in the industry, recommendations of their work, and a positive footprint online. I don’t judge people for not having a YouTube channel on inbound marketing that has over 1,000 subscribers and hundreds of thousands of view to their videos, but I do check out their LinkedIn to see what experience they bring to the table. 

Ultimately, the person you will be working with will make or break your co-marketing campaign. I don’t discredit people or choose not to work with those who haven’t had several years of experience, but it’s nice to know whether you’re working with somebody who is an industry veteran or somebody who is starting to learn the ropes.

9) Ask your network for references.

Have any connections in common on LinkedIn? Send your common contact a message and ask if this person you’re thinking of pairing up with is recommendable. If someone you trust can’t recommend this person, that’s a red flag.

The same goes for Twitter. If you’re a dog walker looking to pair up with a local dog treat company and see you have a few friends in common on Twitter, Direct Message your common friend and ask about the dog treat company owner you’re interested in working with. Can they vouch for that person? Are they hard workers, passionate about growing their business with inbound marketing, and in tune with their buyer persona and delighting customers?

Great recommendations from your network are invaluable ways to research a potential new partner you’re trusting your brand name with.

10) Have an introductory call to make sure you’re both aligned (and you get good vibes from the person).

I’m a personal believer in first impressions being lasting impressions. Having an introductory call with a future partner is a great way to get a temperature check on their energy and enthusiasm about the co-marketing partnership. A few questions to ask yourself:

• Do they seem excited about the campaign?
• Did they come with great questions?
• Are you aligned on goals?
• Does the conversation flow well?

As a best practice, always schedule a half hour call to get to know each other before agreeing to a campaign. This will give you enough time to ensure you align goals of the campaign, as well as deliverables and the timeline of those deliverables.

I try to be as natural as I can on first-time calls. This gives the potential partner a sense of my personality and lets them know I’m excited about the potential for working with them. It loosens the vibe and allows for a more relaxed conversation, which means you can really get to know each other and your goals.

At the end of this whole process, you should have a much better idea whether this person and company will be worth partnering up with — or just a waste of time. 

What other tips do you have for finding and vetting co-marketing partners?