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Raise your hand if you’d rather watch a video to learn something new than read about it.

Go ahead — you’re not alone. 59% of executives say they’d rather watch a video than read text, too. And really, that number makes sense — we are a society of video streamers. (I mean, hello, Netflix.)

But if you’re not sure how to run a live stream event on social media, fear not. We’re here to make sure you don’t just hit the “Live” button on Facebook and stare at the camera like a deer in headlights. Instead, we’ve come up with a comprehensive checklist to help you plan your first — or next — live stream. 

How Live Streaming Works

Live streaming is a way to broadcast your events to an online audience. It’s a digital alternative to something like selling tickets to an in-person event and allows you to reach people near and far with live video.

Brands use live streaming for a few different reasons, but according to a Brandlive survey, 74% of businesses used it to engage with their consumer base. So instead of being the proverbial “man behind the curtain,” you’re allowing viewers to put a face (or faces) to your organization’s name, all in real time.

Live streaming can be used for a number of different event types, as well. Everyone from the White House to fashion houses to chefs have live-streamed videos of economy briefings, runway shows, and cooking demos, respectively. Here at HubSpot, we’ve used it for things like interviews with thought leaders. So feel free to be creative — just make sure you’ve got your bases covered.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Live Streaming

When you’re ready to start learning how to live stream successfully, follow these steps:

1. Plan your live stream like you would any other event.

Think about some of the most popular talk shows. Can you imagine if the guests, sets, lighting, and schedules for something like “The Tonight Show” weren’t planned in advance? To say the least, it might be chaotic.

You’ll want to put the same thought and due diligence into your live stream that you’d put into an in-person event of its kind. And you’ll want to have your goals in mind as you begin to make those plans; those will dictate a lot of the logistics.

Who

Knowing your target audience will determine a few pieces of the planning process. If it includes an international population, that should factor into the date and time of your stream — be sure to think about time zones or holidays that might not be top-of-mind in your home country.

What

Then, think of what category your live stream falls into, and create a title for your event. In case you don’t find any of the above examples fitting to your business, we’ve got some ideas for ways businesses can use live videos.

HubSpot’s Social Media Marketing Manager, Chelsea Hunersen, stresses the importance of thoroughly researching the topic of your live stream in advance.

“Decide important points or stats to hit,” she says. And if you’re going to feature guests, “designate a moderator/host who can make sure these points are hit and can wrap up the conversation if necessary.”

Where

The platform you use (which we’ll get to in a bit) can also be dependent on who you want to view the stream. Different audiences use different channels, so you’ll want to pick the one that’s most likely to draw the crowd you want.

Finally, pick an optimal location from which you’ll broadcast your stream. Consumers have a low tolerance for a bad stream, watching for at most 90 seconds if the connection is spotty or poor-quality, so make sure your setting is conducive to a positive viewing experience. Does it have good lighting? Is it prone to a lot of noise? Is there a chance that your dog walker will barge in yelling, “Who’s a good boy?” loud enough for the entire audience to hear? (Not that that’s happened to me.)

Think of these contingencies, then pick a streaming venue that insulates you from them.

2. Choose your platform.

Here’s where you’ll really need to have your goals in mind since different platforms can achieve different things.

YouTube Live

YouTube Live Events tend to have “two goals,” says Megan Conley, HubSpot’s Content Marketing Strategist. “Registrants and attendees.”

So, if you’re looking to boost revenue — which 75% of marketing professionals are using video to do — YouTube Live is one of the best platforms to use.

Here’s how that works. First, if you don’t have one already, you’ll need to create an account on Google, which you’ll then use to create one on YouTube.

Once that’s done, you can use YouTube’s Live Streaming Events dashboard to schedule a future stream — just click on “Enable live streaming,” if you haven’t already set it up.

YouTube requires a 24-hour buffer between the time that you enable live streaming and your first live. Once that 24-hour period is up, all you have to do is log into your YouTube Studio.

Then, click the “Create” button in the top right corner.

This will prompt a drop-down that asks you to choose between uploading a video or going live. Choose “Go live.”

YouTube will then prompt you to complete some basic info such as its title and what age group the video is made for. You’ll also need to decide if you’re going live right away or scheduling it for a certain time. 

After that, you’ll need to indicate if you want your event to be public or private — here’s where you’ll decide how you want to use your live stream to generate leads.

The Unlisted option accomplishes two things:

1. I’ll be able to generate a link that attendees will get only after they fill out a registration form.
2. It won’t stream directly onto my YouTube page.

Once you’re done, click “Next” You will be asked to smile to take a thumbnail, so make sure you’re camera-ready. From there, you have the option to “Go Live” or “Share” your content.

Click “Share,” and that will generate your event’s URL. As I mentioned above, you can keep that behind a landing page where attendees fill out a form to register.

Conley says that, generally, this type of live stream is embedded on a thank-you page behind a landing page form. 

If you use the HubSpot COS, all you’ll need is the link, and the system will generate the embed code for you.

Just click “insert media,” paste the link you copied from YouTube, and you’re done.

If embedding isn’t an option, you can still just put a link there — the embed code just creates a seamless design that you can place right on your thank-you page. Either way, be sure to use the thank-you page as a place to remind your attendees of the date and time of the event.

There’s also the option to make your YouTube Live Event completely open to the public. That’s a good option, Conley says, for a major event that you “want anyone and everyone to be able to find.” But if you make your stream public, she points out, make sure you use the event to promote gated content you want your audience to download.

“An image CTA would do,” she notes, as would holding up clearly printed short links throughout the stream (Make sure you have those printed out in advance!). In the image above, you’ll also see that you can add a message to your video — you can mention your gated content there, too. 

Facebook

Facebook Live has been making quite a few headlines lately, and businesses stand to benefit from it — Facebook Live videos produce 6 times as many interactions as traditional videos.

Even without pre-registration, you can definitely promote streams on this platform in advance, which we’ll touch on later. In the meantime, if you haven’t used it before, check out my colleague Lindsay Kolowich’s overview of Facebook Live.

The interface for Facebook has recently changed, so you’ll have an easier time live streaming from your mobile Facebook app. 

Depending on your device, you may see the “Live” option right under the Composer when you open the app. Alternatively, you may need to click “Create Post” at the top of your News Feed, then select the three horizontal dots in the Composer. 

You’ll have a chance to write a comment about your video. Once you’ve done that, you can select “Go Live” in the bottom left corner. 

Instagram Live

You can also live stream on Instagram. With Instagram Live, a functionality in the Instagram Stories feature, you’re able to broadcast video streams and save the replay to your Stories. Users are able to engage through likes and comments during the stream. 

This is a great platform for live streaming since Instagram Stories are used by 500 million users per day, and one-third of most-viewed Stories are from businesses. 

Keep in mind that you cannot post to Instagram from your browser, so open the mobile Instagram app to begin your live stream. Then, select the camera icon in the top left corner next to the Instagram logo. 

At the bottom of the camera viewer is a menu that scrolls horizontally. Select “Live.”

The shutter button will change to a broadcast icon. This will immediately take you live if you tap it, so make sure you’re camera ready. 

Twitter Live

Twitter’s advantage is that you can easily share and promote content to a large audience, even if you don’t have a large following. In addition, hot topics spread more quickly than other media outlets. 

If you want to hit the ground running and generate buzz, Twitter is a great choice. However, you cannot go live on Twitter from your browser, so open the mobile Twitter app when you’re ready to start your broadcast. 

Once there, open the Tweet composer by clicking the button with the feather and plus sign. 

Select the camera icon. 

At the bottom of the camera viewer is the choice between “Capture” and “Live.” Choose “Live.” 

The shutter button will be replaced with a button that says “Go Live.” This will immediately take you live, so make sure that you have everything set up before pressing it. 

TikTok

Since 2018, TikTok has had major buzz as the newest big player in the social media game as a platform for short-form videos. While TikTok’s audience trends younger with 41% of users between 16-24 years old, more people and brands are taking to the platform, as evidenced by its place as the fourth most downloaded app in 2018. 

One big drawback is that you can only go live on TikTok if you have 1,000 followers. For accounts where this isn’t a problem, here’s how to broadcast live: 

Open your TikTok mobile app and select the plus sign at the bottom of the screen. 

Then, enter the title of your stream and select “start.” 

It’s that easy!

The live streaming options certainly don’t end there. Major brands have also used platforms like Periscope, Livestream, and Twitch. They all have their own sets of features and advantages, so definitely take the time to look into which one best suits your needs.

3. Choose your equipment.

When it comes to the actual hardware required for your live stream, some of it is fairly intuitive: A camera is pretty standard, for example, or a device with one installed (like a laptop or phone).

But if you do use your phone, Conley says, be sure to use a tripod. “There’s nothing worse than recording a Facebook Live and having your arm start to fall asleep five minutes into the recording,” she advises. “Use a phone tripod to give your live streaming a professional look.”

Consider how professional you want your sound quality to be, too. Your camera might have its own microphone, but if your setting is more prone to noise, body mics might not be a bad idea, either.

And when you’re using an external camera, says Hunersen, you’ll also need some sort of encoding software (Facebook has a great step-by-step guide to that). That’s what converts the camera footage into a format that your streaming platform understands and can broadcast to viewers. The software you use might depend on your budget, but to get started, check out this one from Adobe.

Also, think about setting up a professional backdrop, like one with your logo. That can help to brand your videos and give them some visual consistency, which is a particularly good practice if you plan to do a lot of live streaming in the future.

Want to take that a step further? “Set up a makeshift studio in your office to speed up the prep time for all of your future recordings,” Conley says. “A beautiful, branded backdrop could be just what your Facebook Live needs to help grab the attention of someone quickly scrolling through their News Feed.”

4. Promote your live stream.

Congratulations! You’ve now completed a lot of the major planning and setup for your live stream. Now, how do you get people to watch it?

As we’ve covered, using a landing page is a good way to get enrollment on a platform like Hangouts On Air (or, as of September 12th, YouTube Live). Here’s an example of how we recently used one at HubSpot:

There’s a clear CTA here — “View The Video” — which, when clicked, takes the visitor to a registration form. (And check out this rundown of which channels drive the best conversion rates — it’s got some tips on getting people to your landing page in the first place.)

Once someone fills out the form on your landing page, it should lead them to a thank-you page, where you can share some promotional information about the live stream.

HubSpot’s Co-Marketing Demand Generation Manager, Christine White, suggests creating a “Next Steps” section here with actionable items like “add this event to your calendar” and “check back here on [the date of your event]” to remind viewers that’s where they’ll go to view the live stream.

And once you have contact information for your registrants, Conley reminds us, “you can email the people on that list on the day of, and remind them when it’s going to go live.”

But to promote your Facebook Live stream, says Conley, “It’s really about doing a social image and spreading the word that you are going live at a specific time.”

Don’t rule out using social media to promote live streams on other platforms, too. Some of them, like YouTube, allow you to link your social accounts and push content in multiple places. And if your guests are active on social media, leverage that by including links to their handles in any related content, and ask them to promote the event with their own networks.

5. Do a dry run.

There’s a reason why we do dress rehearsals. When I was in a high school show choir — a humiliating but factual piece of history — it was to make sure I didn’t trip over my dance partner in high-heeled tap shoes.

In the world of live streaming, though, we do dry runs to avoid more technical, but equally embarrassing, missteps. Improv can be hilarious, but not when it means you’re verbally unprepared or your equipment stops working and you don’t have a backup plan.

6. Prep any guest speakers.

Is there anything worse than a moment of awkward, dumbfounded silence?

As part of your dry run, make sure your guests are prepared for any questions they might be asked. Don’t over-rehearse, but do what you can to prevent catching them off-guard.

“It may help to give some questions in advance to a potential guest,” says Hunersen, “but save some follow-up or in-depth questions for on-air, so that you’re able to let them be both prepared and react in the moment.”

7. Test your audio and internet connection.

You might want people to talk about your live stream, but not if all they’re going to say is, “We can’t hear you.” Make sure all of your audio equipment is working both during your dry run and on the day of the stream. Having an extra microphone and batteries on hand probably won’t hurt, either.

Make sure your network can handle a live stream, too. If you’re streaming high quality video, for example, you’ll need both a wire connection and a 3G/4G wireless connection, according to Cleeng.

In other words, make sure your WiFi is working, but also, “grab an ethernet cord,” says Conley. “One thing you can’t help is if your internet connection unexpectedly goes out.”

We know — even the sound of “ethernet” seems terribly old school. But if your WiFi suddenly drops, you’ll be glad you busted that cord out of storage.

8. Set up social media monitoring.

One great thing about live streaming is your audience’s ability to join the conversation and comment in real time. 

Juliana Nicholson, Sr. Marketing Manager at HubSpot, advises to “Have a plan for audience engagement. Know when and how you plan to incorporate audience feedback and Q&As and then clearly communicate that information to your attendees.” This will make it so much easier to encourage participation.

But that’s not all you should do with regard to engagement. If you’ve watched any Facebook Live feed, you’ve seen that the comments roll in fast. So while it’s awesome to invite and answer viewer questions, it can be overwhelming, especially if you personalize your responses.

That’s why it’s a great idea to dedicate someone to monitoring social media, comments, and questions during the live feed.

That task can be made a bit easier with something like a branded hashtag created specifically for this live stream. For platforms with built-in comment feeds, for example, you can ask your viewers to preface any questions with it — that can help qualify what needs to be answered.

You could even take that a step further and use the hashtag throughout the planning process, making sure to include it on your landing page, thank-you page, and promotional messages leading up to the event. That helps to create buzz around the live stream. And if you use HubSpot’s Social Inbox, here’s a great place to take advantage of its monitoring feature, which lets you prioritize and reply to social messages based on things like keywords or hashtags. 

After Your Live Stream

It’s always nice to follow up with your attendees after your live stream has ended. Thank them for their time, give them a head’s up about your next event, and invite them to download a piece of relevant content. If you’ve followed these steps, you’ve probably done a great job of using your live stream to generate leads, so keep up the momentum and nurture them. 

Like many of the people who work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Back then, email was the age of most college graduates, AT&T launched the first banner ad, and the CRM industry was just starting to thrive.

Needless to say, marketing has evolved at breakneck speed since then, sprouting many more types of marketing. Some are definitely more effective and relevant than others, so read on to learn about the top types of marketing around today.

The Ultimate List of Types of Marketing

1. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on any kind of channel that has been around since before the advent of the internet. Because information wasn’t as easily accessible and readily available, the majority of traditional marketing relied on outbound tactics such as print, television ads, and billboards.

2. Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing refers to intrusive promotion such as print ads, TV ads, cold calling, and email blasts. This marketing method is called “outbound” since the brand is pushing their message out to all consumers to spread awareness — whether they are in need of it or not.

3. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. The majority of inbound marketing tactics fall under digital marketing as consumers are empowered to do research online as they progress through their own buyer’s journey (more on that later).

The focus for inbound is on creating valuable experiences that have a positive impact on people and your business to pull prospects and customers to your website with relevant and helpful content. Once they arrive, you engage with them using conversational tools like email and chat and by promising continued value. Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.

4. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing, leveraging technology that didn’t exist traditionally to reach audiences in new ways. This type of marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. We’ve broken some of these down in more detail below.

5. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, includes all activities in the effort of ensuring your business’s products or services are visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in a certain keyword, SEM enables your business to appear as a top result for that search query. The two types of SEM include search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored SERPs.

To get started with SEO, you must familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and produce content for search engines to index.

To get started with pay-per-click SEM, you must work with the search engine you’re looking to purchase placements with. Google Ads is a popular choice. There are also ads management tools to make creating and managing PPC campaigns a breeze.

6. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a key instrument in inbound and digital marketing because content is what allows audiences as well as search engines, such as Google, to find the information they need on the web. By definition, it involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target audience. The most common components of a content marketing program are social media networks, blogs, visual content, and premium content assets, like tools, ebooks, or webinars.

With content marketing, the goal is to help your audience along their buyer’s journey. First, identify common FAQs and concerns your buyers have before they are ready to make a purchase. Then, create an editorial calendar to help you create and manage your content. It also helps to have a content management system to make publishing easy.

7. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is creating content to promote your brand and products on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Remember your audience as you create content. No one logs on to social media looking for something to purchase, so think through what types of content that is useful, informative, entertaining, and/or compelling. Your unique content should be tailored to the specific platform you share it on to help you boost your post’s reach.

In order to make publishing content across platforms easy, there are a number of social media tools out there such as  that simplify the process.

8. Video Marketing

Video marketing is a type of content marketing that involves using video as a medium. The idea is to create videos and upload them to your website, YouTube, and social media to boost brand awareness, generate conversions, and close deals. Some video marketing apps even allow you to analyze, nurture, and score leads based on their activity.

9. Voice Marketing

Voice marketing is leveraging smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to educate people and answer questions about their topics of interest. Optimizing your website for voice search is very similar to optimizing for organic search, but beyond that, you can also get inventive by creating a Google action or Alexa skill.

10. Email Marketing

Email marketing involves sending educational or entertaining content and promotional messages to people who willingly subscribe to your receive messages from you. The primary goal is to deepen your relationship with the customer or prospect by sending marketing messages personalized to them. Pushing that idea further, you can also use email marketing to nurture leads with content that moves them along the buyer’s journey.

Depending on your location, you must stay compliant with GDPR, the CAN-SPAM Act, and other regulations governing email. At their core, they boil down to responsible commercial email sending: Only send to people who are expecting messages from you (i.e. they’ve opted in), make it easy for them to opt out, and be transparent about who you are when you do make contact. 

With that in mind, the first thing you’ll need to do is strategize how you’ll build your email list — the database of contacts you can send email to. The most common mechanism is through lead capture forms on your website. Then, you’ll need email marketing software and a CRM to send, track, and monitor the effectiveness of your emails. To push your email strategy further and maximize productivity, you may also want to look into email automation software that sends emails based on triggering criteria.

To learn the ins and outs of email marketing, you can take the free email marketing course from HubSpot academy.

11. Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing is the ability to have 1:1 personal conversations across multiple channels, meeting customers how, when, and where they want. It is more than just live chat, extending to phone calls, texts, Facebook Messenger, email, Slack, and more.

When you’re getting started, you’ll first identify which channels your audience is on. The challenge, though, is being able to manage multiple channels without slow response times, internal miscommunication, or productivity loss. That’s why it’s important to use conversational marketing tools, such as a unified inbox, to streamline your efforts.

12. Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing is a viral marketing strategy that leverages refreshingly creative content, interactive events, and community influencers to generate word-of-mouth marketing and anticipation for the product or service the brand is about to launch.

Buzz marketing works best when you reach out to influencers early and have a plan in place to generate suspense and perhaps even mystery. To track your buzz marketing efforts, it’s best to use social listening software to keep a pulse on how your audience is responding.

13. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is designed to tap into an existing community of engaged followers on social media. Influencers are considered experts in their niches. These individuals have a large influence over an audience you might be trying to reach and can be helpful marketing to those buyers.

To get started with influencer marketing, you must first create your influencer marketing strategy and define what type of influencer you’re targeting (their niche). Then, you’ll want to create a list of criteria that would make an influencer in that niche a good fit with you, considering things such as the size of their audience, how active that audience is, and the vibe on their profile. 

From there, you can find influencers and reach out to them by: 

• Manually searching on social media
• Using an influencer marketing platform
• Hiring an agency to do the influencer research and outreach for you

From there, you’ll want to understand that the influencer is the one who knows their audience the best, so maintain a good relationship with that individual and allow them some creative freedom with how they handle your promotion.

14. Acquisition Marketing

While all types of marketing is geared toward acquiring customers, the majority of types have broader and softer goals such as improving brand awareness or driving traffic. In contrast, acquisition marketing is laser-focused on acquiring customers. 

Acquisition marketing is an umbrella type of marketing that employs the tactics and strategies of other types of marketing but focuses on how to turn those marketing benefits into revenue. Ultimately, the focus is on lead generation from the results you get driving website traffic from inbound marketing, including content, social media, and search engine marketing.

Once you have website traffic, you must turn that traffic into leads and, eventually, sales. That’s where acquisition marketing comes in. Acquisition marketing may involve a number of tactics to turn a website into a lead generation engine, including offering freemium products, launching education hubs, tightening the copywriting on the site, conversion rate optimization, and lead optimization. It may even include a lead optimization and nurturing strategy to facilitate the hand-off between marketing and sales.

15. Contextual Marketing

Contextual marketing is targeting online users with different ads on websites and social media networks based on their online browsing behavior. The number one way to make contextual marketing efforts powerful is through personalization. A CRM combined with powerful marketing tools such as smart CTAs can make a website seem more like a “choose your own adventure” story, allowing the user to find the right information and take the right actions more effectively.

Contextual marketing takes strategy and planning, so start off on the right foot by accessing HubSpot’s free contextual marketing course.

16. Personalized Marketing

The goal here is to be thought-provoking and generate discussion so that your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment. 

In order to begin brand marketing, you need to deeply understand your buyer persona and what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what makes you unique from competitors. This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you fodder for storytelling campaigns.

17. Brand Marketing

Brand marketing is shaping your brand’s public perception and forging an emotional connection with your target audience through storytelling, creativity, humor, and inspiration.

The goal here is to be thought-provoking and generate discussion so that your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment. 

In order to begin brand marketing, you need to deeply understand your buyer persona and what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what makes you unique from competitors. This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you fodder for storytelling campaigns.

18. Stealth Marketing

Stealth marketing is when a brand hires actors or celebrities or uses pseudonyms to promote their product or service without consumers realizing they’re being marketed to. Some examples of stealth marketing are hiring actors to subtly promote products to the public, sockpuppeting, paying influencers to post about a product or service without disclosing that it’s actually an ad, creating fake viral videos, and product placement in movies.

19. Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing is placing bold, clever brand activations in high-traffic physical locations to reach audiences in a creative and cost-effective way, grow brand awareness, and spread the word about your brand. Examples of guerilla marketing include altering outdoor urban environments, targeting indoor locations such as train stops, and promoting during a live event without permission from the sponsors.

20. Native Marketing

Native marketing is when brands pay reputable publishers to collaborate in the creative process of crafting a sponsored article or video that covers one of the publisher’s main topics and looks like a regular piece of content on their website. They also pay these publishers to distribute this sponsored content to their massive audience through social media and their website. In sum, when brands pay for a publisher’s native advertising services, they can leverage their editorial expertise and reach to help their brand tell captivating stories to a bigger and better viewership.

In order to benefit from native marketing, you’ll need to either reach out to media publications yourself or go through a native advert network that helps find and facilitate ad placement.

21. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when an online retailer rewards a website with a commission for each customer they refer through their promotion of one of the online retailers’ products. The website, often called an affiliate, will only get paid when their promotion generates a sale.

If you already have marketing assets that are performing, such as a website that generates traffic or an engaged network on social media or elsewhere, affiliate marketing is a great way to further leverage those assets. Choose a product or brand that closely aligns with what you sell (but does not compete with you) and promote it to your audience.

22. Partner Marketing

Partner marketing is attracting new partners to sell your product or service to another pool of customers. For example, a HubSpot, we have an agency partner program where inbound marketing agencies sell our product to their clients, and we give our partners a cut of the revenue.

23. Product Marketing

Product marketing is bringing a product to market and driving demand for it. This includes deciding the product’s positioning and messaging, launching the product, and ensuring salespeople and customers understand its benefits and features. This can be done through many of the marketing methods discussed in this article but with a focus on the product rather than an organization as a whole.

24. Account-based Marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a hyper-focused marketing strategy where teams treat an individual prospect or customer like its very own market. Marketing teams create content, host events, and launch entire campaigns dedicated to the people associated with that account, rather than the industry as a whole.

The advantage of this is having personalized campaigns for your ideal client. Here’s how you can start: 

1. Identify key accounts. 
2. Create messaging based on issues that matter to those accounts. 
3. Learn how to put that messaging in action with HubSpot’s introductory ABM lesson. 
4. Find ABM software that can enable your efforts.

25. Customer Marketing

In contrast to acquisition marketing where the focus is on acquiring new customers, customer marketing is focusing on retaining your existing customers, delighting them with your product or service and customer service, and turning them into advocates for your brand who can spread the word about your brand. This is a great strategy because the cost of acquisition is much higher than what it takes to retain or upsell existing customers.

Customer marketing relies on constant improvement of the customer experience — or the impression you leave with a customer after you’ve provided service. Simple ways to improve the customer experience — and, as a result, tap into customer marketing — is by eliminating friction in the customer service process, providing ways for them to self-service such as through online knowledge bases, and using customer service software to manage and improve customer communication.

26. Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing is customers’ recommendations of a brand, which is the most trusted form of marketing today. To create as much word of mouth marketing as possible, you need to stay laser-focused on developing the best product or service possible and providing top-notch customer service. In other words, you need to serve your customers’ needs before your own. Only then will your customers turn into a loyal, passionate tribe that will recommend your brand to their friends and family.

27. Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is a type of customer marketing that focuses on cultivating deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers to ensure long-term brand loyalty. Relationship marketing is not focused on short-term wins or sales transactions. Instead, it’s focused on creating brand evangelists that become promoters for the long-haul.

The key to doing this is by focusing on delighting your customers who are already satisfied with your brand. Start by using customer feedback software to run a Net Promoter Score (NPS) campaign to help you find out who those customers are. Then, come up with ways to turn those happy customers into raving fans. From there, you can request that they leave a testimonial, participate in a case study, or help you achieve your customer delight goals in some other way.

28. User-generated Marketing

User-generated marketing is when businesses ask the public for ideas, information, and opinions on social media or run contests to help them craft better marketing material, like a logo, jingle, or commercial.

29. Campus Marketing

Campus marketing is hiring college students to become campus ambassadors for your brand. They usually market your products or services to other students by setting up booths around campus or hosting giveaways.

30. Proximity Marketing

Proximity marketing is when brands use Beacons, which are Bluetooth devices that send alerts to people’s smartphones based on their proximity to one of their stores, to promote discounts to any customer who walks by one of their stores and has their app. Beacons can also pinpoint people’s locations in a store and send them deals on the products and brands that are in the same section as them.

31. Event Marketing

Event marketing is planning, organizing, and executing an event for the purpose of promoting a brand, product, or service. Events can take place in-person or online, and companies can either host an event, attend as an exhibitor, or participate as a sponsor. Many organizations leverage their unique experience in the industry to provide present helpful informational sessions in exchange for the cost of admission and the brand positioning that results after being seen by attendees as an authority on the topic. Alternatively, or in conjunction with that strategy, there may be a pitch at the end of the event to prompt interested attendees to make a purchase.

32. Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing encompasses in-person events, experiences, and interactions that forge lasting emotional connections between a brand and its target audience. Experiential marketing takes event marketing just one step further with the goal of making the experience magical for attendees, providing something they can take with them after the event is over — other than just information, of course. 

At HubSpot, we do our best to make our INBOUND conference an immersive experience that extends beyond breakout sessions by including networking opportunities, entertainment, parties and happy hours, food truck lunches, and other immersive experiences. Instead of a conference, INBOUND becomes a celebration.

33. Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing is an innovative type of marketing where your audience can interact with engaging visuals or videos within your content. This new form of marketing unleashes your creativity and, in turn, allows you to tell more gripping stories, crowning it as one of the best ways to capture your audience’s attention. Examples of interactive marketing include immersive video and interactive infographics.

34. Global Marketing

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

35. Multicultural Marketing

Multicultural marketing is devising and executing a marketing campaign that targets people of different ethnicities and cultures within a brand’s overarching audience. Not only does it help you relate to and resonate with minority groups, but it also recognizes their ethnicities and cultures and helps majority groups realize that most countries are melting pots and not dominated by one main ethnicity or culture.

36. Informative Marketing

Informative marketing is a kind of marketing that refers primarily to the type of message your marketing gets across, focusing more on the facts and less on emotions. This marketing tactic highlights how your product’s features and benefits solve your customers’ problems and can even compare your product to your competitors’ product. Although this type of marketing relies on facts and figures to trigger a desired action, it’s usually framed in a compelling way.

37. Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing blends neuroscience and marketing to help brands gauge the emotional resonance of their current and future marketing campaigns. To do this, companies like Immersion Neuroscience and Spark Neuro have developed technology that can gauge certain neurochemical and physiological responses, which both signal emotional engagement while consuming marketing content.

38. Persuasive Marketing

Persuasive marketing focuses more on the emotions and less on the facts. It aims to make an audience feel something, associate those emotions with a brand, and trigger a desired action.

39. Cause Marketing

Cause marketing is a type of corporate social responsibility that aims to simultaneously improve society and boost a brand’s awareness by promoting and supporting a charitable cause.

Sheryl Green, author of Do Good to Do Better, a book on cause marketing, describes this scenario: “There’s nothing fun about selling widgets … [so] Susan is about to discover the power of Cause Marketing. She pledges 1% of her gross sales to support her local food bank. She spends her Saturday mornings at soup kitchens serving the homeless. She has donation boxes set up in her employee break rooms and gives comp time to her employees who want to volunteer. And, she has switched her commercials from a description of the widget making process to a story about how her employees give back to the community and how they’ve served over 6000 meals in the last year. Susan is no longer selling widgets… now she’s selling warm fuzzies.”

All of this is because Susan, the fictitious owner of the widget company, chose to marry her business with her desire to support the community. 

Cause marketing begins by answering three questions: 

1. What causes do I care most about? 
2. How can I leverage my company’s position to support those causes?
3. How can I tell my prospects and customers about my efforts so that they can get involved? 

That last question benefits both your business and the cause/charity you’re supporting.

40. Controversial Marketing

Controversial marketing doesn’t aim to polarize an audience. It’s an attention-grabbing technique for stating an opinion, and brands use it to spark productive conversations about certain moral values. In recent years, any stance taken on sensitive social issues can be considered controversial marketing. While you may turn off potential customers who disagree with you, your audience who agrees with you will be more committed to your brand and more likely to promote your message as it aligns with their world view.

41. Field Marketing

Field marketing is creating sales enablement content like case studies, product overviews, competitor comparisons, and more to help sales close their prospects into customers during the last stage of the buyer’s journey.

There’s no right or wrong way to do marketing — as long as it’s effective for connecting with your desired audience. Many companies use one, a few, or multiple types of marketing to promote their message across campaigns and other efforts. 

Ultimately, you’ll want to choose what works best for your buyers, niche, budget, and resources. It’s up to you to be on top of current trends and leverage that knowledge as you create your marketing plan.

So… you want to redesign your website. Maybe you just finished a brand overhaul or your product was recently updated. Whatever your reason, a redesign can be a huge success — or a total flop. It can also be a long and tedious undertaking, which is why every redesign needs to start with a clear vision and/or problem to solve.

The better you are at defining that vision at the very beginning, the more successful your redesign will be — and the smoother the entire process will be as well.

Whether you’re working with an agency, redesigning your site in-house, or proposing a redesign to company stakeholders, this guide will help you strategize your website redesign and ensure it turns out to be a huge success — not a total flop.

Many organizations opt to redesign their website to welcome more traffic as their business grows and scales; others invest in a website redesign as part of a larger rebranding initiative. Regardless of why your company is interested in a website redesign, the project itself is a massive undertaking. Not to mention an important one to get right considering the critical role your website plays in your marketing and brand image.

In fact, 80% of consumers say the experience your company provides is as important as the products or services you sell — including the experience they have with your website.

How Often Should You Redesign Your Website?

According to Business 2 Community, the average lifespan for a website is 1.5 to 2.5 years. Because design trends change and technology advances, this is the average amount of time that a redesign will feel “fresh” and competitive. However, that time frame is only a benchmark, so you will need to determine what works best for your organization. 

The following factors will determine how often you should redesign your website: 

• How often your brand or goals change. When you’re itching for a new site, first ask yourself, “Does this website still represent who we are as a company?”
• How much budget you allot to design and development. Ask yourself, “Can a site design wait, or do I have reasons to use the budget on our site now?”
• How long your website stays functional and fast. Step into your customers’ shoes and see if you can navigate the site well and find everything you want to find without encountering errors or long page load times.
• The performance of your website. Ask yourself, “Is this site converting a reasonable amount of traffic? Do people stay on the page for a reasonable amount of time, or do they bounce?”
• Changes in the industry. For example, when Google announced that it would be changing to mobile-first indexing, it necessitated that sites be mobile-friendly, or they’d lose organic traffic from Google.

Your website is where visitors and customers go when they want to ask questions, read content, or purchase products or services. For that reason, it’s best to be extra prepared when committing to a website redesign.

You may spend more time building your website redesign strategy than you will on the redesign itself. If you’re wondering what should go into your website redesign strategy, start with the steps below.

Let’s unpack eight critical steps to take when redesigning your website.

1. Benchmark your current performance metrics.

Before you begin planning your website redesign, document your current performance metrics. This will give you a good idea of where your current website stands and what metrics you can improve upon through your redesign.

Analyze your existing website’s monthly performance in the following areas. The importance and relevance of each may vary depending on your website redesign goals, but it’s helpful to pull each metric before you dive into your redesign.

• Number of visits, visitors, and unique visitors
• Bounce rate
• Time on site
• Top-performing keywords in terms of rank, traffic, and lead generation
• Number of inbound linking domains
• Total new leads and form submissions
• Total sales generated (in dollars)
• Total pages indexed
• Total pages that receive traffic

If you don’t have access to this information, I recommend adding tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics for better tracking and visibility into your website’s performance.

Furthermore, make note of which tools you used to measure each of these benchmarks in the past. Ideally, you’ll want to use those same tools when collecting your post-redesign metrics. Otherwise, you’ll be comparing apples to oranges.

2. Determine your website redesign goals.

What’s the “why” behind your website redesign? When considering a redesign, there should always be a good reason behind it.

If you’re answering with “well, it’s been a while since we’ve done one” or “my competitor just did a redesign,” those reasons aren’t good enough on their own.

Remember: It’s not just about how your site looks, but rather how it works. Be crystal clear about why you’re doing a website redesign, and tie those goals to measurable results.

Then communicate your goals with your team, designer, and/or agency. Consider the following data-driven objectives for your own website:

• To increase the number of visits and visitors (both are important as one visitor could visit more than once)
• To reduce bounce rate
• To increase time on site
• To improve domain authority
• To increase the total new leads and form submissions
• To increase the total sales generated
• To enhance current SEO rankings for important keywords

Many of these goals are dependent on one another. For example, in order to generate more conversions, you may also need to increase traffic while decreasing your site’s bounce rate.

Also, take a look at the metrics you pulled out in step one. Are there any metrics you can improve upon with your new website? Perhaps you use your old website metrics to inspire new goals, too.

3. Define your branding and messaging.

Before crafting your new website design and content, be crystal clear about your desired branding, messaging, and unique value proposition. Doing so will ensure consistency across your entire website.

Anyone who visits your website for the first time should immediately understand what you do, how it may benefit them, and why they should stay on your site and not flee to your competitors’.

Think about whether you plan to change your branding and/or messaging, or if it will stay the same. If you plan to change it, what about it needs to change? Keep these changes top-of-mind as you redesign your website.

Download this free workbook for guidance and templates to simplify your next website redesign project.

As you develop your messaging, use clear, concise language. Avoid using industry jargon that may alienate parts of your audience and make you sound more like a business-babbling robot than a human.

Consider the following example of how we could describe HubSpot in a “gobbledygook” way:

HubSpot helps companies across multiple countries reduce churn by backfilling the sales pipeline with highly qualified traffic that generates leads that convert into customers with high lifetime value. We achieve this by providing leading-edge software that integrates all marketing channels for a synergistic view of the data that determines and prioritizes high-value marketing activities.

Say what? Let’s translate that into the way people actually speak:

HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing software helps more than 6,000 businesses in 45 countries attract leads and convert them into customers. A pioneer in inbound marketing, HubSpot aims to help its customers make marketing that people actually love.

Much clearer! I think visitors and potential customers would prefer the second description — don’t you?

Additionally, as you develop your branding, consider what visual aspects of your website need to be redesigned and what can stay the same. Have you created a new logo, style guide, or color palette? Make sure these are applied to your new website so it remains consistent with other parts of your brand.

4. Define your buyer persona(s).

Your website is not just about you. Actually, it’s hardly about you.

When your visitors land on your website, they’re asking themselves, “What’s in it for me? How could this help me?”

Speak to your visitors in their language by crafting your website design and content around your buyer personas.

For instance, if you’re a marketing manager at a hotel looking to bring in new business, you might target five different buyer personas: an independent business traveler, a corporate travel manager, an event planner, a vacationing family, and a couple planning their wedding reception.

Make sure you clearly identify your buyer personas so you can shape your website redesign strategy around the website visitors that matter most to you.

Check out our handy buyer personas template to help you research and create detailed buyer personas.

Is your target audience changing as part of your website redesign? Do your branding and content align with this audience? Answer these questions as you’re strategizing your website redesign.

5. Protect your search engine optimized pages.

Getting discovered online is also essential to improving your website’s metrics. If no one is able to find and visit your site, how can you increase new leads, reconversions, or sales? Here are some tips for designing your new website with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind:

Document your most search-valued pages.

Use your marketing analytics to figure out which pages receive the most traffic and inbound links, convert the most leads, and ultimately cover the most influential topics in your industry. If you plan to move any of these highly valuable pages, make sure you create the proper 301 redirects.

Create a 301 redirect strategy.

Speaking of 301 redirects, these are extremely important in terms of retaining the traffic and link value associated with a given page. Create a spreadsheet to record and map out your 301 redirects (old URLs vs. new URLs). Then hand this document over to someone technical for proper implementation.

Do your keyword research.

For every page on your newly designed website, pick one keyword/topic each page will focus on. Once you determine the keyword(s), use on-page SEO best practices to optimize your website pages. Furthermore, consider adding new content and pages to your website that address those particular keywords and topics that may be neglected on your current site.

Save time and rank higher on Google with our free on-page SEO template.

6. Analyze the competition.

While we don’t recommend obsessing over your competitors, it can help to know how you compare. First, run your website through HubSpot’s free Website Grader tool to generate a report card of how well your website is performing. You can also use this diagnostic tool to evaluate your competitors’ websites, so you’re aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

Next, take a look at your competitors’ websites, and take note of what you like — and what you don’t. This process is to help you realize what you can do better on your website. Once you conduct your competitive analysis, put together a list of action items highlighting some areas for improvement and how you can set yourself apart from your competitors.

7. Take inventory of your high-performing content.

While a redesign is a great way to improve the performance of your website, there are unfortunately countless ways in which it can hurt you. Your existing website likely contains many high-performing content assets that you’ve already built up, and losing their effectiveness because of a redesign can severely damage your marketing results.

For instance, such assets might include your:

• Most-shared or viewed content
• High-traffic pages
• Best performing or ranking keywords and associated pages
• Number of inbound links to individual pages

For example, if you end up removing a page from your site that has accumulated a high number of inbound links, you could potentially lose a lot of SEO credit, which would make it increasingly difficult for you to get found on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Keep in mind that many web designers don’t consider this step because they are neither marketers nor SEO specialists. Don’t hesitate to remind them about this, and help them along by auditing your site and providing them with a list for maintaining or updating critical pages on your site.

8. Choose the right software.

The final (but arguably most important) step of the website redesign process is choosing the right software with which to create and host your website. This software is typically called a content management system (CMS), and it’s used to develop, design, and publish your website for the world to see.

CMS software is beneficial for a few reasons. Whether you’re a novice digital marketer or a master web developer, a CMS can easily help you create a gorgeous, functional website. Choosing the right CMS depends on your business, such as what CMSs you’re already familiar with and what features your website redesign requires.

There are hundreds of CMSs to choose from, including CMS Hub — the only combined CMS and CRM. Or you can review some of the best CMS platforms to learn about your options.

Get Started on Your Website Redesign Today

Whew! Now you’re ready to plan, design, build, optimize, launch, and analyze your new website. Apply these seven steps to redesign a website that attracts more consumers, wows more visitors, and converts more customers.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The other day I decided that I wanted to buy some comfortable outfits to wear around the house.

As I was online shopping, I started to fill out my shipping information in the online form.

However, the form had a requirement that the “City” field could only be 20 characters long. Now, the city I live in is three words, and 22 characters typed out.

Having faced this problem before, I tried to shorten the city name, but my phone was autocorrecting.

Ultimately, I couldn’t get past this form on my phone. I had to go on my desktop to make the order so autocorrect wouldn’t impact the length of the city name.

Predictably, this was a frustrating user experience.

As marketers, we use online forms in our campaigns all the time. To see success, it’s important to test your online forms for user experience and conversion rate.

Below, let’s review what form testing is and how to implement it in your online form strategy.

Now that we’ve covered what forms testing is, let’s dive into the components of your online form that you should be testing.

Online Form Elements to Test

Once you’ve created an online form on your landing page, it’s important that you test it for both functionality and effectiveness.

Below, we’ve listed a few elements that you should test depending on your goal.

Functionality

• Validation: Validation is how you’ll ensure the information put on a form is accurate. For example, you can set requirements on your form for the email and phone number fields so users can only input correctly formatted emails and phone numbers. By setting up those requirements, users won’t be allowed to submit the form if there’s an error. When an error occurs, a validation message will appear and let users know what’s wrong. When you set up an online form, you need to check that the requirements and validation messages you set up are working correctly.
• Notifications: When a user submits a form, you should be notified. After setting up an online form, double check that you’re receiving notifications. Additionally, typically an online form will trigger an email or confirmation message to the user. You’ll want to test and confirm that’s working as well.
• Thank You Page: After a user submits an online form, usually they’re directed to a thank you page. This is one of the most important elements to test. Make sure that the entire process of landing page to form submission to thank you page is working seamlessly.
• Payments: If your form requires a payment, you’ll want to test and make sure your payment processor is working.
• Mobile Devices: When I went through the form submission process above, the mobile experience wasn’t working well. The issue I experienced couldn’t have been found if the company only looked at the desktop user experience. That’s why you should test your form on different devices. Make sure there aren’t any friction points in the process on your mobile device or tablets.

After you’ve tested the functionality of your form, you should begin A/B testing style choices to see what works for your audience. Below are some of the top elements you should test for effectiveness.

Effectiveness

• Design: The overall design of your form is important to consider. It should look modern and be easy to understand. You can test elements such as form length or form requirements to see what your audience responds to.
• Copy: Form copy should set the expectations. For example, is there a clear purpose and instructions? Does your CTA copy clearly express what users will receive?
• CTA: CTAs are one of the most important elements of your online form. Test and see what colors, sizes, and copy converts best.
• Requirements: When you build a form, you might want to make every element required. However, this might not work with your audience. Test what requirements or pre-filled fields work for your audience.

Now that you know how to test your forms conceptually, let’s review some best practices to consider when creating your online form.

Web Form Testing Best Practices

1. Keep form length short, if you can.

Generally, keeping your forms short is a good rule of thumb. However, it’s important to consider that there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to form building. You’ll want to test your forms to see what works best for your audience.

Kristen Baker, a marketing manager at HubSpot, says “Web forms vary in length, format, content type and appearance. They should simply fit your business’s needs and help you gather the information you want from your leads.”

2. Don’t overuse validations and requirements.

Not to be redundant, but the user experience I had when I was online shopping the other day wasn’t great.

That’s because the company was overusing requirements by limiting the characters I could use in the “City” field.

Overall, the best practice here is to not overuse requirements or validations. You should only make decisions that improve the user experience.

3. Set expectations with your CTA.

Your CTA is one of the most important elements on your landing page because some people might skip right over the form and look at the CTA first.

That’s why your copy should set expectations, while also catching the eye. Consider the color, shape, size, and copy on your button.

Ultimately, your CTA should be actionable and visually appealing.

Once you’ve built your online form, you’ll want to track your efforts. That’s why you should look at these form analytics tools to measure success.

By using form testing, you can adjust your forms on the go and make adjustments to help improve your conversions.

Say I’m in the process of developing a new waffle iron. It’s going to be capable of perfectly detecting when a waffle is golden brown no matter the volume or thickness of the batter. We’re talking about next-level waffle technology. It could be an absolute game-changer, but in this scenario, something goes horribly wrong. 

The product is rushed through development without any real guidance or objectives. And when it’s sent to the manufacturer, there’s no picture of what kind of audience will gravitate to it, how it stacks up to other waffle irons, what it’s going to do for the business, or other crucial factors that might give this waffle iron an identity in the marketplace.

If that were the case, then this once-in-a-generation feat of waffle engineering would go to waste — all because it didn’t have a solid product strategy to guide its development.

A sound product strategy can be the difference between a product being able to carve a permanent place in its market and being an absolute afterthought. It can put weight and sensibility behind a product to help it resonate with consumers as effectively as possible.

It’s the foundation for a successful product lifecycle, so if you’re interested in developing a product at any point in the future, it’s a concept worth having a picture of.

Here, we’ll get an understanding of what a product strategy is, the framework that structures it, the key elements it should address, and an example of the concept.

Product Strategy Framework

A product strategy framework is typically composed of three core components: market vision, product goals, and product initiatives.

Market Vision

Who is this product for, and what does that mean for you as a business? Those are the critical questions to answer when defining your market vision. This portion includes information about your target customers, plans on how you’ll position your product, and how it’s going to perform relative to your competition. Your market vision has to address your customer needs, the buyer personas you intend to appeal to, and how you’ll deliver a competitive offer.

Product Goals

There has to be some sort of endgame to your efforts with a product strategy. You have to work towards something. Setting goals is crucial to charting your course and keeping you on track. Goals guide your development team, allow you to keep tabs on progress, and ultimately measure success when your product has been released.

Make sure your goals are SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Make them clear-cut with a sense of urgency behind them. Also, don’t backload all your goals for the end of the project. Set individual, timely milestones along the way to ensure that your team is maintaining a solid pace and accomplishing everything that needs to be done.

Product Initiatives

Product initiatives are essentially more conceptual product goals. They’re big-picture ideas, including trends you want your product to influence. They represent the kind of impact you want to have on your business, your reputation, your status within your industry, the state of your industry, consumers’ lives, or the world at large — depending on the scale of your operation.

Product Strategy Example

In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh 12K8 — the first iteration of what would go on to become the world’s most popular brand of personal computer. The Mac was a bold step forward in the landscape of computing, and though it ultimately fell short of the goals it set initially, its product strategy is worth examining.

Market Vision

High tech marketing and product strategies through the 70s and early 80s catered primarily to hobbyists and “early adopters” — people without backgrounds in computing willing to learn about it to improve work productivity.

There wasn’t much emphasis on appealing to the common consumer — exactly who Apple made a point of trying to reach. Its market vision revolved around giving the average person access to straightforward, aesthetically appealing personal computing.

Product Goals

Apple set a series of measurable, time-oriented goals for the Macintosh — specifically when it came to sales. Apple estimated the Mac would sell 50,000 units in its first 100 days — a target it hit with relative ease. However, those early sales proved to be misleading, and the Mac 12K8 didn’t come close to hitting its long term sales goals.

Though that might be the case, the fact remains that Apple set specific goals about its preferred sales figures to ultimately gauge the success of its product strategy.

Product Initiatives

Apple released the original Macintosh with the tagline, “The computer for the rest of us.” It was easily operable with an accessible graphical user interface, among several other approachable, straightforward features.

The original Mac was designed, positioned, and marketed as a machine that would shape the future of personal computing. It was going to make the concept more accessible for the general population, beyond hobbyists and traditional PC users. That was Macintosh’s product initiative — to democratize personal computing. And for what it’s worth, Apple nailed it.

Key Product Strategy Elements

An effective product strategy revolves, in large part, around four key elements: honing in on a customer segment, understanding the competition, ironing out the business end of the strategy, and considering the macro-environment.

1. Hone in on a customer segment.

You can’t develop a product strategy without understanding who you’re trying to reach. The first step in identifying that base is determining what specific need you’re trying to address with your product. Once you identify the best need to tackle, you have to consider who that need applies to. Don’t approach the process with some fuzzy, indiscriminate picture of who’s buying — that will be inefficient and unsustainable.

Take time to develop detailed buyer personas. Touch base with who you think you can reach to see if your product will resonate with them. And be prepared to adapt to feedback from your customers as time goes on.

2. Understand the competition.

In all likelihood, your company will have competitors within your space with similar value propositions. That’s why you have to understand the options they offer, how you compare, and how you can stand out.

Successful products always have some kind of differentiating factor. Bear in mind, that’s not necessarily the same thing as your product’s key benefit. Your competition is your competition because your products serve a fundamentally similar purpose. So how do you go about tracking that factor down?

Generally speaking, your differentiating factor will be a matter of better service, better quality, or lower prices. But how do you settle on one? Well, you can run different ideas by that customer base you’ve landed on. They’re as reliable a source of inspiration as you’ll find. Also, keep tabs on your competitors. See how they’re trying to set themselves apart and try to find a lucrative niche that still has space.

3. Iron out the business end.

Ultimately, a product is a means to an end, and that end is generally monetary. A product strategy will let shareholders know how they’ll see a return on their investment. It will detail — in-depth — how you plan to monetize your efforts.

What is your business model? If your product is web-based, will you generate revenue through selling ad-space? What about a subscription model? If your product is a consumer good, what kind of retailers will carry it? Or will it be sold exclusively online?

A business isn’t a business if it has no interest in making money. Putting out a product with no concept of how customers will be able to buy it makes for an ineffective, borderline-pointless product strategy.

4. Consider the macro-environment.

The macro-environment is the sum of the major external factors well beyond your control that influence your company. They’re the political, economic, social, and cultural forces that can sway the context in which you do business and how your customers might view your product.

Though they’re not entirely predictable, your product strategy has to take them into consideration. That could mean being mindful of new technology that might shape your market, different markets you might be able to appeal to going forward, or the ways your customers’ needs, interests, and behaviors might shift over time.

Product Positioning

The concept of product positioning revolves around how customers view your product — the space in their minds your product is going to occupy. It’s essentially the process of determining how to best communicate the useful, compelling attributes of your product to your target audience to shape a specific perception.

How you intend to position your product is often summarized in something known as a “positioning statement” — a concise statement that explains how your product suits your ideal buyer persona. It’s meant to be used as an internal tool to align marketing efforts with the brand and value proposition. It goes like this:

For [target customer] who has [need statement], [Product/brand name] is a [market category] that [key benefit statement/compelling reason to buy]. Unlike [primary competitor alternatives], the product [unique differentiation statement].

The statement for video-sharing social media platform TikTok this statement could read:

For mobile users, predominantly aged 13 to 24, who are looking for a consistent stream of straightforward, engaging content, TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that never stops running videos tailored to their specific preferences. Unlike Instagram or YouTube, TikTok automatically plays new content nonstop — all in keeping with what users have demonstrated they like to see.

Companies generally leverage tactics and resources like market research and focus groups to inform their ideal product positioning strategies. These strategies allow businesses to understand how their target audiences can best be reached. With that information at hand, companies can determine the best ways to convey their products’ benefits to resonate with those consumers.

Product positioning often informs a company’s marketing efforts. That means tailoring certain aspects of a product’s presentation and messaging to suit the needs and wants of that audience. This can often involve adjustments to aspects like packaging or display.

Successful product development needs guidance. It doesn’t figure itself out as it goes, and businesses can’t afford to wing it. A product strategy sets the tone for the process. It sets development in motion and keeps it on track.

Product strategy is a matter of defining a product’s purpose. One of its most important functions is establishing the why of a product. And without that, it’s very difficult for product teams to know where to start and how to proceed.

As a marketer, social media is undeniably important – in fact, in 2020, three-quarters (74%) of all global marketers now invest in social media marketing.

Social media can help you engage with new audiences, increase brand awareness, handle customer service inquiries, and even increase sales. (As an avid Instagram user, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve “Swiped Up to Purchase” on a link from a popular influencer.)

But there’s plenty of risk involved with social media, as well. Among other things, a bad social media post could spiral into a full-blown PR crisis or get your business into legal trouble.

Fortunately, there is a tactic you can use to ensure your social media strategy is safe, consistent, and scalable as your company grows and different employees get access to your social media accounts: a social media policy.

Let’s explore how these five companies created effective social media policies to inspire your own, today. Just remember, there isn’t just one ‘right’ policy for every company. Pick and choose what you like from these five companies to help get you started, and tailor it to fit your culture and business objectives.

But first, let’s dive into a few benefits of a social media policy.

Benefits to a Corporate Social Media Policy

You might be worried about providing too many strict rules on your social media strategy. Will it diminish the authenticity you’re hoping to evoke in your posts, or take too much creative freedom away from your employees?

Fortunately, if done correctly, a social media policy won’t ruin the creative freedom you’re hoping to protect. If anything, it will enable your employees to feel more comfortable amplifying your social media messages on their own channels, knowing each post is fully aligned with your business’s values and tone.

Here are a few major benefits to creating a corporate social media policy:

• Maintain consistency of brand voice, tone, and messaging across social channels
• Prevent a PR crisis as a result of a potentially offensive post
• Enable employees to handle legal and regulatory issues with sensitivity
• Protect data privacy of customers and stakeholders
• Have effective responses at-the-ready for crises or data breaches, if they do occur
• Instill confidence in your employees’ to use their own creativity when creating and posting branded content, as long as they align with the corporate policies
• Ensure each new employee will have the tools to create a positive, consistent, and valuable brand message across social channels

Now that we’ve covered that, let’s dive into five businesses that got social media policy right.

1. Best Buy

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Best Buy has a social media policy in place that preemptively addresses privacy concerns that could arise using social media.

Here are some highlights of Best Buy’s social media policy:

• The company does not want information shared that isn’t meant to be public. Common sense? I’d think so, but it can’t hurt to formally reiterate.
• Tweeters cannot share Best Buy logos and other items related to the company. Does this seem overly cautious? I guess that depends on the industry you are in. For a big brand like Best Buy, it’s understandable.
• Best Buy wants each employee to differentiate themselves and state their tweets and posts are theirs — and theirs alone — and not associated with Best Buy. This ensures, if an unscrupulous employee crosses a line, Best Buy won’t experience such harsh brand backlash.
• Best Buy urges each employee (whether posting on Best Buy’s social channels or on their own channels if it relates to Best Buy) to “Honor Our Differences” and never post content that could be seen as discriminatory against any group, for any reason.

2. Walmart

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Walmart is dedicated to their social media accounts, and believe in social media as an avenue for customer service — because of this dedication, their policy regarding Twitter is reasonable and something I wish more Twitter users would follow in their daily tweeting.

Here are some of my favorite aspects of their policy:

• Walmart doesn’t discourage its employees from sharing their own opinions — however, they ask each employee to support their claims with informational sources or links, stating, “We love opinions; we love them even more when you back them up with facts.”
• They ask employees to be “polite and courteous, even if you disagree.” They’re strongly against employees using social media to discriminate, bully, or harass.
• Walmart advises its employees to “stay on topic”, and only create content that is relevant to Walmart’s community.
• Walmart asks all employees to avoid responding to customer inquiries or comments directly unless they’re part of the official Walmart social team. This is a smart move, as it ensures less confusion or ambiguity for customers who are aiming to receive customer service from a trusted official.

3. Ford Motors

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One of the oldest and most popular automotive makers, you’d expect Ford to be relatively old-fashioned when it comes to social media, but Ford’s rules are both refreshing and straightforward.

One of my personal favorites? “Awareness that what you say is permanent”. In a world largely interested in quick-likes and controversial opinions for the sake of retweets, Ford’s approach is a good reminder that what you say today matters for the future of your company’s reputation.

A couple call-outs:

• Ford tells its employees to “Mind your manners”, and treat everyone — from co-workers to suppliers to competitors — with respect.
• While Ford wants its employees to “make it clear the views expressed are yours,” it also reminds its staff that “you speak for yourself, but your actions reflect those of Ford Motor Company”. This is a good lesson: people often make judgments about an entire company’s values based on their opinion of the personnel they interact with, so it’s critical even personal employees’ accounts reflect integrity and respect.
• Ford’s policy tells its employees “the internet is a public space”, and says “no matter how obscure or secure the site to which you’re posting may seem … consider everything you post to the Internet the same as anything you would post on a physical bulletin board or submit to a newspaper.” This is important. Nowadays, posting on Instagram might seem like NBD, but it’s critical we remember anyone can see what we post (or, what we posted five years ago…). 

4. New York Times

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One of the most popular media institutions in the world, The New York Times recognizes the price for its popularity — namely, that anything their employees state on their personal accounts could come across as the official opinion of The Times.

To cultivate its social media policy, the Times collected quotes from several Times reporters — this provides additional accountability and a sense of fairness, as it demonstrates several employees’ endorsement of their policy.

Here are some sections worth reviewing:

• “In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’ journalistic reputation.” Ultimately, the Times aims to be objective, and that objectivity needs to be applied to its employees’ personal social media captions and comments, as well.
• The Times urges its employees to avoid making customer service complaints on social media, and for good reason — the media corporation acknowledges its employees might be given special consideration as a Times reporter or editor, and doesn’t feel it’s fair that their employees leverage this special treatment or tarnish another brand’s reputation.
• The Times includes an unusual request in its policy: in the name of transparency, it asks its employees to acknowledge if they’ve deleted a post or tweet with a subsequent tweet, to ensure they appear honest even if they’ve made a mistake.

5. Oracle

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This Boston-based SaaS company takes a stricter approach to its social media policy, but if you’re in the software space, it’s a good policy to review.

Here are some of the highlights of Oracle’s social media policy:

• Oracle appears to be of the ilk that using social media in the workplace is a hinderance to productivity because it could lead to too much personal use. Understandable? Yes. Too strict? Debatable. While it can be good to blur the line between personal and professional in social media, that balancing act isn’t always appropriate in regulated industries.
• Employees must establish that all opinions are their own and not Oracle’s, but at the same time, distinguish that they are indeed employees of Oracle. Contradictory? No. Blog posts can increase brand exposure, but employees must be careful with what they say and how they say it, not divulging new features, products, or confidential information.
• Oracle advises its employees avoid discussing future offerings or impending product releases due to “potential revenue recognition issues”. This is a good call-out, since unofficial promotions of product launches or additional features could confuse customers, especially if the information regarding those product launches change before official release.

Ultimately, the rules and regulations you choose to include in your policy should reflect your own brand’s values, messaging, and tone. However, hopefully you can use these examples to ensure you include statements that can help protect you against legal or regulatory disputes in the future based on an employees’ social media posts.

Additionally, aim to use your social media policy to increase your social media strategies’ effectiveness and ensure you’re creating a positive brand image on any platform on which you post.

Chances are you’ve witnessed a social media fail sometime in the past year. It usually results from a sense of urgency, or a miscommunication that ignores common sense, all for the sake of gaining attention.

It’s true: Follow just a bit of poorly-advised posting on social media, and you, too, can create your very own brand fail in a matter of minutes.

Many brands are over-concerned with posting frequency and speed, and not concerned enough with tactics that ensure quality and proper context. A single spur-of-the-moment tweet can cause irreparable damage. And even after it’s deleted, the examples below show that content on social media never truly dies — so make sure you have a plan in place that establishes clear boundaries and best practices.

As proof, here are ten of the worst social media fails you might ever come across.

11 Social Media Fails to Avoid

1. Chase’s Poem About Financial Woes

In 2019, Chase posted a #MondayMotivation tweet that aimed to encourage audiences to save money. However, it came off like the bank was teasing its audiences for bad spending habits.

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Then, the situation got worse for Chase when presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren tweeted in reply.

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2. IHOP’s April Fools Rebranding

Leading up to April Fools Day 2018, IHOP announced on social media that it was rebranding from the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) to the International House of Burgers (IHOB).

For 60 pancakin’ years, we’ve been IHOP. Now, we’re flippin’ our name to IHOb. Find out what it could b on 6.11.18. #IHOb pic.twitter.com/evSxKV3QmT

— IHOP (@IHOP)
June 4, 2018

People began tweeting criticisms for the brand while also making fun of the name. Even though the joke aimed to gain attention, it seemed like the reaction was pretty mixed and confused.

Because almost everyone knew IHOP was up to something, the joke fell flat despite its major online chatter. 

3. EA Posts the Most Downvoted Reddit Comment in History

A few years ago, Reddit gamers were discussing a pricing issue on a subreddit related to the EA game they were playing. These gamers felt like they had to spend more money on a game they’d already purchased to get to new levels. At this point, in an effort to do damage control, EA wrote a PR-like response to one of the Redditors explaining and standing by the pricing of the game.

Redditors, who were more interested in solutions rather than excuses quickly downvoted the item. It soon was sent to the bottom of this subreddit becoming the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. 

4. Massachusetts’ Bay Transit Authority Asks Audiences to Post “What They Love About It”

On Valentine’s Day this year, the MBTA launched a contest asking Twitter audiences to tweet a 60-second video about something they loved about MBTA. Those who entered the contest could win a round-trip JetBlue flight for two.

At this point in time, the MBTA has dealt with major criticism related to fair increases and ongoing rail construction. Twitter users that enjoyed complaining about the MBTA swarmed to this tweet about a number of sarcastic replies stating what they “loved” about the system. Here’s one great example:

5. Rhode Island or Iceland?

Good intentions fell flat for the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation in 2016, when it made one grave error in a $5 million promotional video — and used footage not of the great state itself, but instead, of Iceland.

The mistake went viral and gained far more attention than an Iceland-free version of the promotion would have, but it wasn’t exactly the type of publicity we imagine the bureau of tourism was hoping for.

Thanks to the social media skills of Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, you can enjoy your very own private viewing of this social media fail.

Help tell Rhode Island’s story by sharing our new brand video #weareRI https://t.co/alIIcZ2DIghttps://t.co/qh3YtF0q0s

— Gina Raimondo (@GovRaimondo)
March 29, 2016

6. Amazon Offers 10-cent Discount on PlayStation

In 2015, Amazon created #PrimeDay as its own corporate version of a Cyber Monday. Unfortunately, at that point, many of the discounts and offerings didn’t quite live up to consumer expectations — and the hashtag went viral for all the wrong reasons.

One kicker came when Amazon offered a whopping $0.10 discount on the Sony PlayStation 4 Console. It didn’t take long for #PrimeDayFail to start trending on Twitter.

Damn been waiting for the PS4 to go down 10 cents 😩 #AmazonPrimeDay pic.twitter.com/eIiThMX9IT

— lupe (@cherryyyybomb)
July 15, 2015

7. Apple’s #bendgate

Any time a brand winds up with a trending hashtag that includes the word “gate” in it, you know there’s trouble.

In 2014, Apple released the iPhone 6 with great fanfare, with one of the most aggressively highlighted features being that the phone wouldn’t bend under pressure in, say, your back pocket.

In a video that now has more than 69 million views, Unbox Therapy squashed Apple’s claims by demonstrating how easy it was to bend the iPhone 6. Once the damage was done there was no going back. A war of words promptly took place between avid Apple fans and detractors, garnering even more attention on social media. 

8. Greggs’ Turns a Fail into a Win

Robots aren’t always smarter. In 2014, a Google bot mistakenly attributed an offensive slogan to U.K.-based bakery, Greggs. Hilarity — to some, at least, ensued when Greggs’ Digital Brand Manager, Neil Knowles, turned a potential brand disaster into a monumental win.

Thanks to the clever back-and-forth between Knowles and the Google team, and the massive publicity garnered by the exchange, Google’s original error wound up being one of the best things to ever happen to Greggs.

Hey @GoogleUK, fix it and they’re yours!!! #FixGreggs pic.twitter.com/d5Ub7qtrLG

— Greggs (@GreggsOfficial)
August 19, 2014

9. Coca-Cola vs. Russia and Ukraine

If you’re going to create a huge promotion that displays a giant map of Russia, it’s generally a good idea to make sure that map is accurate. Or, better yet: When in doubt, don’t show a map.

Coca-Cola received massive backlash from Russian citizens when it posted a promotional branded image made to look like a map of Russia — which left out Crimea. In response, many consumers took to Twitter to post images of themselved pouring Coke into their toilets, leaving a trending impression.

Then, in response to the backlash, Coca-Cola published an updated map that included Crimea — which was promptly bombarded by outcries from Ukrainian citizens, due to tensions resulting from Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Lesson learned: Don’t publish original content that’s inaccurate, and has the potential to be highly (and globally) controversial.

Source: The Guardian

10. A Giraffe for Ghana Tweet from Delta

Sometimes, all it takes to avoid a social media fail is a simple Google search.

During the 2014 World Cup game between the USA and Ghana, Delta sent out a congratulatory tweet to the U.S. soccer team. The tweet included an image of the Statue of Liberty with a “2” representing the U.S. score, and a giraffe with a “1” that was meant to represent team Ghana’s score.

There was one tall problem: Ghana doesn’t have giraffes. Of course, Twitter users jumped all over that one. 

PHOTO: Delta Airlines thinks there are giraffes in Ghana. There aren’t. http://t.co/9VsWsCfQSe pic.twitter.com/pGMJ6p0ljA

— theScore (@theScore)
June 17, 2014

Just remember: It’s always best to take extra time to conduct some easy research, and avoid social media gaffes — no pun intended — like this one.

Avoiding Social Media Disasters

You might have noticed a pattern in some of the “fail” examples. Twitter is not to be trifled with. Once something goes viral it lives on forever. The best way to avoid a social media brand fail is to establish a meticulous social media management approach. This allows you to control the types of content you post and the messaging your brand communicates with.

Regardless of how small your audience is or how innocent something might seem, there’s always a reason to quality-check before posting.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in September 2017 but was updated for comprehensiveness in February 2020.

Acquisition marketing campaigns are critical to bring in new customers and revenue. At HubSpot, we run these campaigns quarterly.

Despite the rapid cadence, every quarter we work to create new, remarkable ways of reaching, informing, and converting our audience.

I wrote this post to share with you how we crafted our latest acquisition campaign to hit and exceed our acquisition targets.

Establishing the Campaign

The beginning of our Q1 2020 Acquisition Campaign started with a blinking cursor. As we brainstormed how to start our research, we had a few inputs to work with.

First, we knew our target audience consisted of marketing managers, as we were re-launching our Marketing Hub Enterprise product that month.

We knew that reports were a content type that worked well for us in the past. We saw our 2019 Instagram Engagement Report and a 2020 Social Media Report successfully attract new audiences.

At the very least, it was a motion that our audience was familiar with, which meant there was less of a barrier to show the value.

Additionally, seasonality played a large role in our planning. We wanted to build content to support marketers planning their strategies for the upcoming year.

With the combination of 1) a target audience, 2) an understanding of high-performing content types, 3) timing, and 4) our additional user research, we wanted to create a remarkable go-to resource for marketing managers building their strategies for the year.

Thus, the idea for “Not Another State of Marketing Report” was born.

In this article, I’ll talk through the report surveys and content, the web experience, the promotion, and the results. Hopefully, it gives you a peek behind the curtain and some inspiration for future campaigns.

Running the Surveys and Creating the Report Content

The first and most important thing about the content of this report was to start collecting survey data for analysis and visualization.

Working with our team at HubSpot Research, we ran our first survey in November/December of 2019 that went out to 3,400 global marketers.

After we sent out the survey, we talked about what might differentiate this content from other reports we had released in the past. While the data was valuable, we knew that data can be dull without human context or insights.

So, we brought in the humans.

Our first criterion for selecting our experts was their subject matter expertise. We had come up with a list of topics we wanted the report to cover (from SEO strategy to content marketing strategy and more) and wanted our experts to have deep and specific knowledge about the topic we chose them to represent.

Our second criterion was seniority. We were crafting a report for higher-level marketing managers, directors, and VPs, so we wanted our experts to have a similar level of seniority.

We are fortunate enough to work with a lot of brilliant marketers at HubSpot, so eight of our experts were internal. The other two, Cynthia Price (VP of Marketing at Litmus) and Ellie Mirman (CMO at Crayon) were generous enough to offer their time when we asked them to share their expertise with us.

We interviewed each of our experts for about an hour, took detailed notes, and recorded the interview. We then sent the notes and recordings to a talented team of writers who transcribed the notes into a ghostwritten draft. Our team edited the drafts and sent them to the authors for their edits and final approval. We also shared the survey data with them to gather their commentary about the data points.

We decided to leave these articles ungated on the web experience, so we optimized them for organic search with extensive keyword research. We’ve seen some exciting results from that play — generating over 15,000 backlinks in the first two months and taking the number three result for the search term “state of marketing”.

When we received the initial survey data, we were thrilled by the results — but knew we needed to take it one step further. So, we ran an additional survey in January to a North American database of marketers.

At this point, with the additional survey data and expert commentary, we sourced some quotes from experts across the industry. We ended up with a great group of contributors from Dropbox, Twilio, and more.

When all was said and done, we had 19,000 words worth of insights and 70+ data points.

Designing and Developing the Web Experience

Differentiating this campaign didn’t stop at the expert insights. We wanted to create an immersive web experience to pair with the report PDF.

The result was a fully custom web experience with a homepage, nine child pages for each article, and custom interactive form that follows the user in a non-intrusive banner. It was designed by an incredible lead designer, and built from the ground up by three developers. (It’s better seen than described, so I’ll leave you with this.)

We were curious about what kind of conversion rates this custom web experience could drive.

To date, the homepage of the report is converting at around 35%. This metric is calculated as the ratio of views vs. submission and is measured in HubSpot’s own HubSpot portal.

We’re really excited about that conversion rate, but we’ve noticed that it doesn’t stay as high throughout each page of the web experience.

For example, on a sample article page, we noticed the conversion rate was about 5%. The leading theory right now is that people are downloading the offer when they land on the homepage, and then they explore the rest of the experience after downloading, so they aren’t converting on the offer pages.

Overall, though, we’re very proud of how the web experience turned out and think it’s a strong differentiator. After all, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content doesn’t look pretty on the page.

How We Promoted the Campaign

When it came time for promotion, we had to decide on three things: the story we wanted to tell, our creative promotional assets, and the channels we wanted to pursue.

1. The Story

The literal offer that we were marketing was a report. However, the emotion that we wanted to portray was confidence. This was the story we wanted to report and campaign to tell.

For some marketing managers, feeling confident about a strategy can prove difficult. Are other people in the industry doing this? How will I know if it will work?

Data can help ease those concerns, as can long-form articles from deep subject matter experts.

So, we wrote 20 headlines around that concept. This was a good exercise because, although most of them ended up unused, we found this process sharpened our writing “muscle”.

One of the early headlines we landed on was, “A report for marketers who use data to outperform their goals.”

2. Our Creative Assets

The design of this campaign was important to us. We wanted it to feel cohesive across the web experience, the PDF offer itself, and our promotional efforts.

So, under the guidance of our lead designer, we put together a detailed brief for a freelancer, and he came up with some beautiful stuff.

Our learning here is that cohesive design across all campaign assets makes the campaign feel larger than life.

3. Promotional Channels

On the Global Campaigns Team here, we like to bucket our promotion into three categories:

• Paid : What channels can we activate that we have to put direct dollars into?
• Owned: What organic channels and established HubSpot audiences can we leverage?
• Earned: What are some additional free promotion and placements (e.g. organic SEO) can we leverage?

For our paid channels, we chose to focus on Facebook Ads (historically the lowest CPL for us) and LinkedIn Ads (typically more expensive but more effective targeting for the audience we wanted to attract). For this channel, we built a more standard landing page to drive conversions.

For our owned channels, we activated our brand channels (social media, email, etc.), our solutions partner channels, our customer channels, our HubSpot Academy Channels, and Sales Channels (our BDRs used the report as a conversation starter). We also asked our authors to promote it on their personal social networks, and we gave them personalized assets to make that promotion remarkable.

For our earned channels, we focused heavily on the organic SEO value of our ungated articles, the promotion from our partners in the report (Litmus and Crayon), and media placement in marketing publications.

Tracking and Analyzing the Results

This campaign was quickly successful: We hit 100% of our net new lead goal in 16 days and 150% of the goal in just over one month.

As of April 21st, there are 15,800 backlinks to the report. We are ranking for over 350 organic keywords and secured the #1 result for the search term “state of marketing.”

The custom homepage is converting at over 30%, and the paid landing page is converting at 25%.

About 50% (48%) of the net new leads for the campaign came from paid social media. We are hoping to see that percentage decrease as organic traffic continues to gain traction.

There were a lot of factors to our success, but we’ve identified the following as the main ones:

1. Spend time in the strategic planning process. It’s tempting to rush a campaign out the door, but a well thought out strategy goes a long way. Use qualitative, quantitative, and search data to inform the direction you choose.
2. Think about how you can contribute to a conversation that’s already being had in a new way. There are a lot of State of Marketing Reports out there. We focused on providing that same value but took it a step further.
3. Help your creative team by giving them strong creative guidelines. This makes the design more cohesive and powerful in the end.
4. Identify at least three channels you can activate for promotion. You should prioritize the ones that will most help you with your goal. Since we were looking to attract a new audience, our paid channels made the most sense to invest in.
5. Double down on the details of your content. If someone is willing to give their information for your content, you better make sure it delivers on value.

Best of luck with your future campaigns!

The economic impact of COVID-19 is undeniable. Businesses all across the globe are learning how to adapt to these new circumstances and we’re all learning how to operate in a “new normal” that’s constantly changing.

That’s why we’ll be publishing week-over-week trend data for core business metrics like website traffic, email send and open rates, sales engagements, close rates and more. We hope to establish useful benchmarks to measure your business against, and serve as an early indicator of when short- or long-term adjustments may be needed in your strategy.

While this post focuses on the highlights of last week, you can explore all the data we’re publishing here.

About the Data

• These insights are based on aggregated data from over 70,000 HubSpot customers globally.
• The dataset includes weekly trend data for core business metrics in 2020, focusing on changes occurring during and after March 2020.*
• The data from HubSpot’s customer base reflects benchmarks for companies that have invested in an online presence and use inbound as a key part of their growth strategy. This data

*The spread of COVID-19 has had a different timeline in different regions, so we are using the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 as our “official” start date.

NOTE: Because the data is aggregated from HubSpot customers’ businesses, please keep in mind that individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, may differ based on their own markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage, and/or other factors.

What We’re Seeing

After multiple weeks of decline, last week saw a positive uptick in the number of deals created in HubSpot CRM as all global regions reported a rise. This is an important metric for business owners as deal creation is an indicator of future revenue. While this metric is still down 21% compared to pre-COVID levels, this week was a small victory after seeing negative results over the past several weeks.

Deals marked closed-won rebounded as well after experiencing a significant decline the week of April 6. This indicates that while sales teams are still figuring out the most effective ways to engage consumers, they’re starting to show signs of recovery after hitting roadblocks in mid-March. This metric is still down 28% from pre-COVID levels, so we’ll keep a close eye on it to see if a positive trend emerges moving forward.

Another bright spot for sales teams last week was email. Both sales sequence send and response rates increased week over week with response rates rising 8%. While it’s too early to call this a definitive upward trend, it’s a promising sight after a few weeks of continuous decline.

Consumers are still engaging with marketing channels as open rates continued to rise last week. In fact, open rates were 25% higher than averages taken during pre-COVID levels. Marketing teams are finding new ways to interact with customers and email appears to be an effective medium for attracting qualified leads. Even though send rates and contact creation dipped slightly, engagement continues to be high as people seem particularly responsive to email marketing.

Similar to email, live chat is another channel that consumers are favoring when interacting with businesses. Last week, chats initiated in the HubSpot CRM increased 7% across all global regions. This is a nice rebound from the week of April 6 as chat volume continues to rise far above pre-COVID averages.

To add more context to this data, we added an employee-size breakdown based on the number of employees that each HubSpot customer has. Similar to previous weeks, business-size doesn’t seem to play a major role as companies of all sizes seem to be equally affected by this environment. While we’d anticipate larger businesses would be better equipped to handle these challenges, nothing in our data definitively confirms this.

If you’d like to see more of what we’re measuring, you can explore the entire dataset here.

How Metrics Changed in April

The number of deals created and deals closed-won increased.

After a drop the previous week, deals created and deals closed rebounded with a stronger performance during the week of April 13. Deals created increased by 9% and deals closed increased by 13%. This is a notable jump from the week of April 6 when deals closed reach its lowest weekly volume this year.

After the dip during Easter weekend, deal creation is up in every region. LATAM and APAC had the highest increases with 33% and 11%, NORTHAM with 5%, and EMEA saw the smallest increase at 1%.

Both sales email volume and response rates increased.

Sales email volume continues to reach historic highs as total sequence sends rose again last week. Total sequence sends increased by 2% and are trending 50-60% higher than they were during pre-COVID levels.

The good news is response rates are up as well. Response rates rose to 2.3%, which is an 8% boost from the previous week.

While sales email volume is still higher than pre-COVID averages, response rates are still catching up to those levels.

Marketing email open rates increased as volume declined slightly.

Like many people, you may be noticing a few more marketing emails in your inbox lately. Marketers are sending a lot of emails during this crisis, and the good news is that readers are opening them at record rates. Marketing email engagement rose again last week as open rates climbed to 25% higher than pre-COVID averages — roughly 5% higher than the week of April 6. And, while send volume decreased by 3% last week, it’s still trending well above pre-COVID averages.

Customer-initiated chat conversations continue to rise.

After a slight dip, chat conversations have increased 7% from the week of April 6. With the exception of that week, this marks the fifth consecutive week where chat volume has grown. In total, customer-initiated conversations have increased 9% since the week of March 9.

Website traffic and database growth has slowed, but is still at or above pre-COVID levels.

Two weeks ago, the average number of contacts added to portals dropped by 19% after dropping another 36% the week of March 30. Last week, that number stabilized with the average number of contacts decreasing by 3.2%. While this may seem like another week of decline, this number is staying on pace with the weekly averages observed in February.

Web traffic declined last week dropping 4.4% the week of April 13. Despite this dip, web traffic continues to be trending above pre-COVID levels, so we’ll look for a bounce back next week.

What This Means for Businesses

Create an educational content strategy.

The increase in marketing email open rates suggests that customers are still looking to engage with companies. While people still need to buy products, marketing teams should be adapting their strategies to focus on learning and education.

At HubSpot, our blog and HubSpot Academy sites have seen significant traffic upticks since pre-COVID levels. Traffic to our Academy site has more than doubled since March 8 and our Marketing Blog alone has experienced a 40% rise in weekly organic traffic volume during the same period.

Instead of dialing up the promotion of your products and services during a crisis, focus on nurturing the long-term relationship. Identify where you can help your customers today, without asking for anything in return.

Resources to Help

• Use this guide to develop a start-to-finish content marketing plan
• Learn how to plan a long-term content strategy with this HubSpot Academy course
• Discover more reasons why you should create a customer education program
• Get your content found on search engines with this search insights report course

Free Software to Get Started

• HubSpot for WordPress integration
• Google Search Console integration with HubSpot

Focus on inbound sales.

With database growth remaining fairly consistent with February averages and email marketing open rates rising significantly since pre-COVID levels, Inbound strategies are becoming more valuable. Marketers are still attracting qualified leads, but sales needs to adapt and pivot to fully capitalize on these opportunities.

Operationally, your business should regularly adjust its sales projections to reflect potentially extended sales cycles or lower deal size so forecasts remain accurate. Just a touch of process (or improvements to existing processes) goes a long way in creating a clear picture of your business over time.

On individual calls, encourage your team to emphasize a helpful, consultative selling approach. Certain factors, like your customers’ budget and willingness to enter sales conversations, are out of your control. Instead of cold calling your whole database, prioritize your outreach based on industry. For example:

• Industries that have been minimally impacted or those that are transforming quickly to meet the new challenges
• Industries where your solutions are particularly relevant or useful in this moment

Additionally, not every call should be an upsell. At this time, your sales team should be embracing empathy and putting your customers first. Instead of calling a customer to make a sale, check in on how they’re doing and see if you can provide any further support. 

We hope to see sales outreach trend down toward pre-COVID levels accompanied by even higher response rates in the next few weeks. This would indicate that companies are doing a better job of targeting buyers who have shown genuine interest in their products.

Resources to Help

• Read about what companies are doing to pivot due to COVID-19 
• Rework your sales projections with this guide to sales forecasting and sales forecast template
• Maintain an accurate forecast with this sales pipeline tracker

Free Software to Get Started

• HubSpot CRM is free and comes with included sales acceleration tools
• Gmail and Google Calendar integrations with HubSpot
• Zoom integration with HubSpot
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration with HubSpot

Incorporate email and live chat into your strategy.

Whether it’s for sales or marketing, email is proving to be an effective channel for customer communication. Marketing emails are experiencing particularly high open rates and sales email engagement is showing signs of recovery. While businesses should be mindful of overloading their customers’ inboxes, right now email is one of your most reliable options for customer interaction.

Another effective medium is live chat. Chat volume grew once again last week and has propelled far past pre-COVID averages. As consumers become more comfortable operating in a digital landscape, it’s expected that they’ll turn to your website’s built-in channels for support — e.g. email and live chat.

Conversational marketing offers a real-time way to answer customer questions and automates the lead routing process so your business can serve prospective and existing customers even when your team is out of the office. Additionally, chatbots can help your company meet the increase in inquiries by providing customers with lightning-fast answers, automating lead qualification, and booking meetings on behalf of your sales and service teams.

Resources to Help

• Get up to speed with this beginner’s guide to conversational marketing
• Learn how marketers are using conversational marketing in 2020
• Get your sales teams started by learning how to add live chat to your website.

Free Software to Get Started

• Free conversational marketing tools are included in HubSpot CRM
• Facebook Messenger integration with HubSpot

We hope these benchmarks provide useful context as you monitor your business’ health in the coming months. We plan to refresh these insights and add further breakdowns over time (such as by channel and company size). You can sign up to be notified of new insights as they’re available here.

When HubSpot surveyed a handful of business leaders within our customer base, we discovered that most expect to see “somewhat slower” or “much slower” growth in the next year as a result of the global pandemic and economic climate.

Data from our more-than 70,000 global customer base supports business slowdown predictions. In the first few weeks of the crisis, we saw that while sales outreach has increased, response rates and deal volume dropped to new lows. Although sales email engagement has rebounded greatly to new highs in recent days, the large and noticeable dip demonstrates the uncertainty and evolving metrics that brands are seeing right now. 

Both Sales and Marketing metrics seem to be changing rapidly. For example, overall, HubSpot researchers found that the ratio of marketing email engagements to open rates has improved since around the start of the crisis. However, this rate did see its own dips in early April, as seen in the chart below, 

Our data also revealed that
customers are researching brands more heavily online and initiating more online interactions with businesses today than they were a year ago. Between February and March, this online behavior resulted in
average monthly website traffic increasing by 13%. This interest in researching online brands might also be fueling an increase in
customer-initiated conversations with sales reps.

For a timeline of benchmark data updates and changes, click here to keep up with our latest findings.

With constantly changing benchmark data and the future economic landscape in mind, business leaders, including HubSpot customers, are trying to determine what changes they’ll need to make in the next year and beyond. 

Here are four ways that our own customers are pivoting their brand’s offerings, budgets, and strategies in light of COVID-19.

4 Pivots Companies Are Making in 2020

1. Companies are cutting down on non-essential costs.

When we spoke with HubSpot customers, most said they plan to cut down or deprioritize non-essential aspects of their business. With many non-essential processes being paused, many companies are leveraging budgets to cover customer retainment strategies and tactics that they know will still generate revenue.

“We’ve had to make a lot of budget shifts in light of COVID-19. We made a decision early on to decrease our monthly spend by 70%, which felt nearly impossible,” shares Hope Horner, CEO of Lemonlight. “We went through every line item in our general ledger and marked each one as essential or non-essential. Then, we prioritized sales and marketing because they drive demand for the rest of the business.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” Horner shares. “Overall, we remain optimistic about the plans we have in place, but without the ability to shoot new content, we’re forced to be as cautious as possible. What’s most important to us is that in 30 to 90 days when the dust settles, there’s a place for everyone to return and resume work.”

Aside from focusing on termed strategies, some businesses have also decided to move budget from physical in-person processes into digital or virtual tactics.

“We’ve been redeploying physical event spend, leaning more heavily into digital and account-based strategies,” says SurveyMonkey CMO, Leela Srinivasan.

Meanwhile, those who haven’t made cuts yet say they’re “keeping an eye” on revenue and future budgets.

“We’re grateful that so far, we haven’t had to make significant cuts to our budget,” says Gabriela Pereira, Founder of DIY MFA. “That said we are being more vigilant with our spending and we’re scrutinizing our expenses even more carefully than before.”

Pereira adds, “We’re also making strategic decisions about where we invest our resources. We’ve realized that certain back-burner projects have become more relevant given current events, so we’ve shifted our resources to make these a priority.”

Specifically, some of the common line items that business leaders say they plan to cut or have already cut include non-essential hiring, processes that don’t yield high ROI, physical events, field sales, and team support.

2. Marketers are budgeting immediate or long-term tactics.

Many HubSpot customers that we spoke to aren’t focusing on marketing projects that might generate revenue or acquisition in an uncertain H2. Instead, these business leaders are either taking a short or long-term approach.

Particularly, many brands are focusing on online resources, social media tactics, email marketing, virtual events, or digital customer retainment strategies. Many companies have also adjusted their brand messaging to ensure that they are being thoughtful and not coming off as “tone deaf” to their audience.

“We have cut down on sales and marketing activities that yield short term results,” says Matthew Pollard, CEO of Rapid Growth Coach LLC. “We have, however, doubled down on marketing and product development activities that will provide us an edge in the months after the lockdown period and the possible 18 months that will follow, which we see as the consensus for when things will return to normality.”

While Pollard’s company is focused on long-term strategies, other companies have chosen to invest in short-term marketing tactics

“Our marketing programs are short-term focused to maximize pipeline generation potential in the short term,” says Bernie Borges, Co-Founder and CMO of Vengreso. “Everything is mapped out in 30, 60 and 90-day priorities.”

Pivoting to or embracing digital strategies might be a solid choice at this time. According to our recently published benchmark data, web traffic and marketing email engagements of our customers have risen since the pandemic began.

To help marketers determine which digital strategies they should invest in right now, here’s what a few of our customers say they’re doing:

3 Tactics Marketers are Leveraging

Postponing or Virtualizing Events

Many companies that rely on events for valuable marketing and sales are looking at other opportunities. While some have decided to postpone major in-person events, some are leveraging video software and social media to run virtual events.

“Perhaps the biggest pivot is that we had planned to focus more on in-person events and programs this year,” Pereira says. “We were about to announce the launch of our inaugural live event when the first shelter in place orders started happening. To that end, we decided to postpone the live event to 2021 and pivot back to virtual and online programs, an arena that we have already dominated for some time.”

Pereira adds, “This is not to say that we are abandoning in-person programming altogether, but simply that we have shifted our timeline and we’re doubling down on programs that are more in alignment with our audience’s current needs.”

Similarly, Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder of Terminus, explained that the brand’s field events would be moving to either “LinkedIn Live or VIP Zoom meetings.”

Creating Online Resources

Creating online content that’s informative, resourceful, and responsive to current landscapes can be valuable to both current customers and potential prospects. Even if brands have shifted away from focusing on client acquisition to provide value to their current customers, new audiences might still see a company’s current informational content and potentially research the brand.

In light of the pandemic and economic climate, many of the business leaders we surveyed noted that they’re investing in or pivoting content to provide better value to customers at this time.

“The biggest shift for our marketing team was related to the content we were publishing and sharing. Overnight, nearly all of the content we had written became irrelevant or tone-deaf,” says Horner. “We had to quickly rethink our overall messaging and position to adapt to the new landscape.”

Rahul Raj, Founder and CMO of 5&Vine, explained that his team decided to invest in “more resources to support our content, social and community teams and less for strategy and digital acquisition.”

Similarly, SurveyMonkey has also been producing educational resources for their customers and audiences.

“Yesterday, I ran a webinar with my CEO and Chief People Officer to help other organizations explore ways to stay connected to their workforce in a world where everyone is working from home,” Srinivasan shares. “Before coronavirus hit, we already thought of this as the feedback economy, and world events have only made feedback more essential in running a modern business. We have a genuine desire to help.”

Adjusting Marketing Messaging

By now, many business leaders have recognized that their customers need to make difficult decisions about budgets and which projects they’ll invest in. Because of this, many of the HubSpot customers we surveyed are adjusting their brand’s messaging to relate more to what their customers are going through right now.

“We’re embracing moral leadership by acknowledging the world is different, people are hurting and ensuring we’re being of service to our clients, their customers, and the front line workers helping to keep us safe and well,” Raj says. “We’re shifting our investment from advertising to empathy, philanthropy, facilitating community connection, and inspirational content.”

Meanwhile, Pereira explains, “In terms of our messaging, we’ve shifted focus to emphasize more of the WHY — not just our own WHY as a business, but the bigger WHY for our audience.”

“As a business that provides professional education programs and information products for writers, part of our job is to remind our audience that what they are doing matters,” Pereira shares. “It’s easy for writers to feel discouraged by current events, but stories matter. Art matters.”

“Yes, we’re all focused on survival right now — and rightly so — but books, stories, poetry, these are things that make us want to survive. Right now, part of our job at DIY MFA is to keep reminding writers that their work is important,” Pereira concludes.

3. Companies are focusing on great experiences for current customers.

Aside from pivoting marketing tactics, the business leaders we spoke to are hyper-focused on improving the customer experience in order to retain the clients.

To boost the customer experience and adapt to the current landscape, those we spoke to are using tactics such as bringing company events online, discounted products or services, and investing in general customer experience improvements.

“We’re tweaking some of our product priorities and building offerings that coalesce with solving for the business fallout in front of our customers,” says Patrick Campbell, ProfitWell‘s Founder and CEO.

Campbell adds, “The positioning of our product from pure revenue growth or churn mitigation is shifting slightly to a more defensive posture to focus on helping businesses curtail losses and retain customers longer. We’re being more nuanced in our targeting within the market at large.”

How Businesses are Prioritizing Customer Experience

Discounted Products, Services, or Online Courses

As companies determine which services are too expensive for their budgets right now, some of our business leaders say their brands are offering discounts to lessen potential financial burdens and please their customers.

“Our revenue comes mostly from online programs and our team has always worked remotely, so in terms of our day-to-day operations and overall strategy, not much has changed,” Pereira explains. “At the same time, we are also very aware that for many people in our audience circumstances have turned upside down and that they will likely have to cut back on their spending. We’re shifting our focus to offer more options at lower price points to accommodate people’s tighter budgets.”

Adjusting or Creating Offerings to Help Impacted Customers or Prospects

Aside from offering discounts, some companies are also tweaking services or products they offer to be more valuable to clients impacted by the global pandemic.

“Our strategies reflect the ways in which we can add value in the current environment,” says Srinivasan. “We’re providing resources in the form of survey templates organizations can copy and deploy, regularly refreshed consumer sentiment research across several countries and discounts for educators and nonprofits.”

“We’re also reaching out to our enterprise customers more frequently, providing transparency and links to resources as well as finding out how we can support them,” Srinivasan adds.

4. Brands are empathizing with clients who need solutions — not pitches.

When it comes to marketing, sales, and service, HubSpot customers say their companies are trying to embrace empathy more than ever.

For example, sales or service reps might call clients to check in on how they’re doing rather than upselling them.

In some cases, showing empathy could even involve choosing not to pursue a lead that might be struggling at this time.

“We had to be more thoughtful when we were reaching out to prospects and opportunities,” Horner says. “We separated each industry and created an outline of the new challenges they might be facing and the solutions they might be looking for. In some industries, we quickly realized that we no longer offered solutions they need right now and we decided to send them a quick and thoughtful message but did not follow up on any sales opportunities.”

Horner adds, “In other industries, we realized their needs have likely shifted so we repositioned our approach when reaching out to them. Most importantly, we opened up most of our conversations by acknowledging the current crisis.”

Here’s an example of an email that Horner’s team might send to follow up with a customer or prospect at this time:

When it comes to empathizing with customers, Raj explains that “this is a time to be our best selves.”

“Our families, neighbors, and customers need more from us,” Raj says. “They don’t need to be sold to, they need to be heard and supported.”

“We’re all in customer support. We’re all in service to others. We always have been, but the world needs more from us now. They need us to put humanity above profitability.” Raj concludes.

Navigating New Economic Landscapes

Overall, companies are spending less time and money on audience growth, while investing more in boosting the customer experience, providing value to their target audience, and empathizing with clients and prospects that might be making incredibly difficult decisions.

To help our own customers and audiences, we’re creating and regularly updating a number of posts and resources — including this piece — to better inform businesses in this uncertain time.

For further information related to the global pandemic and its resulting economic landscape, here’s a quick list of recently published blog posts and online resources:

Benchmark Data

• Adapt 2020: An Education Series
• Marketing and Sales Benchmark Data Timeline
• Edition 3 of HubSpot’s Adapt Benchmarking Series

Resources for Small Businesses

• How Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of the U.S. Stimulus Package
• Where to Find Public and Private Small Business Funding in 2020

Disclaimer: This blog post is meant as a basic resource and not a comprehensive guide. We will regularly update it to add more information as it becomes available.

On an average day in 2020, roughly 500 million people watch Instagram Stories while 186 million people log into Snapchat.

While platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have taught us how entertaining social media Stories can be to the average person, LinkedIn’s product team is now wondering if this content can also be intriguing to business professionals.

In February, LinkedIn announced that it was beginning to internally test a new Story feature on its platform.

While LinkedIn Stories is just an experiment at this point, the online networking company says that this endeavor comes after other major social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat have succeeded and drawn in new audiences to their platforms with Stories.

“Last year, we started asking ourselves what Stories might look like in a professional context. Stories first appeared on Snapchat, with other platforms like Instagram and Facebook adopting them soon after,” Pete Davies, LinkedIn’s head of Consumer Products wrote in a blog post. “They spread for a good reason: they offer a lightweight, fun way to share an update without it having to be perfect or attached to your profile forever.”

“Does that exist in the business world? I’d hope that most of my interactions in the break room or passing people in the hall are similarly ephemeral and light,” Davies added. “The same holds true for cubicle and coffee shop banter around the world: sometimes we want a way to just make a connection, have a laugh with our colleagues and move on.”

Aside from following the lead of Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to see if Stories can be successful for its current audiences, LinkedIn’s product team is also interested in learning if Stories could help them attract and provide value to younger professionals.

“There’s an entire generation growing up with Stories as a way of speaking; they’re more comfortable starting conversations with a full-screen ephemeral format than posting updates and prefer sharing content that lives as a moment in time rather than as an item in a feed,” Davies explained.

Although this feature, which LinkedIn hopes to roll out in the coming months, might be new to professionals, it is not the first time the platform has dabbled in Stories.

In 2018, LinkedIn also launched a similar experiment called Student Voices. With this feature, students on the platform could share and watch Story formatted updates related to academia, their current projects, or thoughts related to school. Here’s a quick screenshot of what this layout looked like for students on the platform

Source

While LinkedIn has not explained what the Stories feature will look like or if it will be similar to the Student Voices feature, their announcements have led bloggers and publications to suggest that it will be similar to Story formats on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook Stories.

But, even if the format is similar and easy to pick up quickly, as a marketer, you might be wondering, “How can I leverage this new feature for LinkedIn audiences specifically?”

In this blog post, I’ll highlight a few marketing opportunities that LinkedIn Stories could provide to businesses or thought leaders on LinkedIn.

Even if LinkedIn Stories doesn’t come to fruition, you can also experiment with these tips on platforms like Instagram Stories — which have large audiences at various career levels. For each marketing opportunity discussed, I’ll give an example of how a brand has done it on another Story platform. This could give you added inspiration so you can begin executing on successful strategies if and when the feature launches.

5 Ways You Could Leverage LinkedIn Stories

1. Inform audiences about topics related to your industry.

Aside from using LinkedIn to update digital resumes and look for jobs, many people browse their LinkedIn feed for insights related to their industry.

While some brands have already tried creating Story content on Instagram and Facebook to inform followers about an industry topic, this type of niche content might be even more valuable to Linkedin users who visit the site to learn about their field.

Here’s an example of an Instagram Story where the MIT Technology Review highlights the biggest tech fails of 2019. To add to the user experience, the story also swipes up to fuller content on its website.

2. Adapt blog content to a Stories format.

Not sure where to start with a Stories feature? Consider leveraging the text-based content you already have to create a guideline for a Story.

For example, if you’ve written a listicle or step-by-step guide-styled blog posts, you can consider making each step or list item a page of your Story, By doing this, people who are interested in learning about your blog topic who don’t want to leave the app can still consume it in a mobile format.

While this tactic is a good way to promote your blog or other content, it also allows social media followers to see that your brand offers credible information to professionals within your industry.

Adapting content to Story format is a tactic commonly used by Harvard Business Review which regularly publishes Stories on Instagram and Facebook based off of their web articles:

3. Share videos or Q&As featuring thought leaders in your community.

On LinkedIn, people love to follow thought leaders. If you’ve been on the platform for a long time, there’s a good chance that you’re following at least one in your industry.

One way to pull LinkedIn viewers into Story content could be to feature a thought leader with a decent following on the platform in your Story to talk about an interesting topic. This will both allow you to bring awareness to your brand while also cross-promoting with the chosen thought leader.

Here’s a great example of how HubSpot published an Instagram Story Q&A with one of its social media video editors. With this example, the thought leader not only offered marketers valuable information, but audiences were also able to interact with him by asking their burning video marketing questions.

4. Sharing videos of customer testimonials.

As each new generation becomes more mobile, so does their product research. But, despite the change of platforms, younger generations are like older age groups in that they trust recommendations more than any other type of content marketing.

As millennials become company decision-makers and Gen-Z enters the workforce, odds are that they’ll eventually be looking for a product with great reviews that’s been proven to make professional work easier. This is why filming happy customers on your Story could be a great strategy on a channel like LinkedIn or Instagram.

Here’s one screenshot from a Story featured on both Instagram and Facebook where a customer of a small Dublin-based Invisalign company discusses her tooth-straightening success story.

5. Creating interactive content related to your content or industry.

Although we don’t know what LinkedIn Stories will look like, Facebook and Instagram Stories allow interactive features such as Quiz and Poll Stickers.

If you’re able to use these types of features on LinkedIn, they could allow your viewers to engage with an industry topic or trend insights in a new way. Features, like Polls, could also help you learn more about the audience that heavily uses the Story feature.

Here’s one example of how HubSpot educated users on email etiquette with an interactive Story modeled like a quiz:

Navigating All the Social Media Stories

The biggest takeaway from LinkedIn’s Stories test isn’t necessarily that the platform is adding a new feature. This move highlights how powerful social media Stories are, and how this trend isn’t going away any time soon.

Even if LinkedIn doesn’t go through with launching this tool, this test shows that marketers and brands might want to spend more time testing out Story strategies on platforms that their audiences are frequently visiting.

From what has been reported, it seems like LinkedIn Stories will be a similar platform to Instagram and Facebook Stories features. If you’ve already leveraged those tools to market your brand, LinkedIn Stories might not be that big of a stretch for your business. When and if LinkedIn Stories does launch, it could be helpful to test certain Stories on all three platforms, while also posting a few Stories that were specifically for each network.

By testing the same Story content on multiple platforms — as well as creating experimental content that caters to just one network, you can identify examples of content that will engage all multiple Story audiences while also learning how to zone in on engaging your LinkedIn audience specifically. This could also be helpful when attempting to create a scalable Story strategy that will allow you to launch successful content on all the platforms.

To learn more about how to create social media Stories, check out this blog post on the most engaging Instagram Story formats, as well as this piece that highlights the differences between Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat Stories.

If you’re not offering your customers multiple ways to make payments online, you’re leaving money on the table.

While there’s no way to escape some transaction fees and currency fees, there are ways to reduce payment processing costs and receive payments online for free.

So, you’re probably wondering, “How can I save that money?”

You’ll have to set up an effective online payment portal with a range of payment options. This makes it as easy as possible for your customers – and your wallet.

Below, let’s review why you should use payment processing software and how to receive payments online for free.

Why Should You Use Payment Processing Software?

As a small or local business, you might be tempted to handle payments yourself via checks and direct bank transfers.

However, in this digital age, there are numerous reasons why that’s not a good idea.

Here’s a look at some of the advantages payment processing software will bring to your business.

• Convenience – Convenience is one of the main factors that influence conversion rate. The more steps a customer has to take to make a payment, the more likely they are to abandon their purchase and go elsewhere.
• Speed – Payment processors can transfer most payments between shoppers and sellers instantly. On the other hand, transfers to and from bank accounts can sometimes take 24 hours or more.
• Trust – Many payment processors are brands that are globally recognized. If a customer already uses payment software, they’re more likely to trust your payment system.
• Security – Payment processing companies add an extra layer of protection to online transactions. You can set limits, flags for activity on your account, and sometimes even a time frame to recall payments.
• Record-keeping – With payment processors, you’ll have access to your account online and can manage your contacts, recurring payments, and other account activity via desktop or mobile.

Now that we know why you should use a payment processing software, let’s look at the fees you can’t avoid, the ways you can receive online payments, and the most efficient ways businesses of all sizes handle invoicing and online payments.

1. Create a secure online payment gateway.

There are a couple of ways you can approach creating a secure online payment gateway. You can hire an outside developer or use your website development team to create a bespoke gateway. Or, you can use third-party software.

Setting up a secure gateway is essential. You’re also putting automated processes in place, which will save time on manual processing, especially as you scale your business and handle more transactions.

The more payment methods you make available within your payment portal, the wider the audience, and the easier it’ll be for your customers to send you money.

2. Facilitate credit and debit card payments.

Although it may change as mobile payments become more prevalent, using debit and credit cards is still the most popular way people pay for products and services online.

You can easily facilitate accepting card payments through established payment providers such as PayPal or Stripe. These will accept the most-used credit cards worldwide — Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

3. Set up recurring billing.

If you offer subscription plans or ongoing monthly services, the most efficient and reliable way to invoice and receive payments is via recurring billing.

Most of the major payment processing software also includes recurring billing features. For example, Growth Marketing Pro built an SEO tool that charges subscribers on a monthly basis and they used Stripe to set this up.

Sites like Paysimple also offer a suite of tools to set up custom, automated recurring billing if you already have a payment processing system in place.

Using automation is essential. It removes most human error and the stress of keeping track of invoicing and payments.

Your customers can commit to recurring payments with just a few clicks, and you won’t have to worry about manually managing your customer base.

4. Accept mobile payments.

In 2019, we saw a steep rise in the use of mobile payment apps, and it may continue through 2020.

People are more likely to have their phones on hand than their debit cards, and mobile payment apps are more convenient than ever. Mobile may become the way consumers pay for goods online in the future.

Apple Pay has quickly become one of the most popular mobile payment systems in the United States. With an estimated 30+ million users in the U.S. and more than 380 million worldwide, you’d miss out if you didn’t accept Apple Pay.

Google Pay, Venmo, and PayPal also have mobile apps with a decent market share.

5. Accept cryptocurrency payments.

If you’re okay with handling cryptocurrencies, it’s a way you can extend your reach to a broader online audience.

Sites like Bitpay provide all the tools you need to accept crypto payments online, send invoices, request payments, and receive money on-the-go through apps.

Because they’re a decentralized exchange, cryptocurrencies offer some unique benefits for businesses. You can accept payments from anywhere in the world without incurring currency exchange fees or bank handling fees. There’s also a reduced risk of fraud.

6. Use email invoicing.

Email invoicing is a proactive way to request payments. You can share a payment form through email or add a link redirecting the recipient to a payment portal.

However, there are a couple of issues with this method: Email isn’t the most reliable form of communication, and customers can have trust issues making payment via email.

Expect a failure rate, but it’s a vital part of payment processing for a lot of businesses.

7. Accept electronic checks (eChecks).

The third most popular method of paying for things online is using eChecks. To accept this payment, you’ll need a form where the user can input their information, which you can see using payment processing software.

It’s basically a way to pay by check online. It’s a quicker and more reliable way than sending a paper check through the post, so offering this to your customers will make the process run smoother.

Top Online Payment Processing Providers

Once you’ve developed a strategy for accepting payments online, you’ll need to decide which payment processing provider to use. There are hundreds of payment processing companies providing software to help businesses handle their online transactions.

Most offer a similar range of services and comparable pricing. Here are few of the largest and most well-known payment processing companies:

1. PayPal

Price: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.

PayPal was one of the first companies to enter the online payment processing space back in 1998. They’re one of the most trusted and widely recognized payment processing companies.

They also have comprehensive coverage, making PayPal a good choice for international companies. They currently operate in more than 200 countries and handle 26 currencies.

It’s free to join, and they provide all the tools you’ll need to integrate PayPal payments into your website and set up a secure payment gateway for visitors.

2. Stripe

Price: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.

Stripe entered the market in 2009. They offer a wide range of options for online businesses wanting to create custom checkouts and have useful tools for managing subscriptions and recurring payments.

Their fees are competitive, and they support all the major credit cards, mobile paying apps, wallets, and more.

3. Square

Price: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.

Square entered the payment processing space by introducing a dongle that sellers could insert into a mobile phone to accept credit card transactions.

They’ve since expanded their software to cover all the major payment processing options and have included some useful tools for online businesses as well as high-street stores.

You can even create a basic website for free and integrate all of their point-of-sale solutions at the same time. Or, they have paid options for a custom website.

4. Due Payments

Price: 2.8% per transaction.

Due Payments is an invoicing tool aimed at freelancers, individuals, and small businesses. They operate on a flat-rate payment processing model, making it easy to calculate invoicing and payment processing costs at scale.

Their app, which they call their “Digital Wallet,” makes it easy for small business owners to send and receive payments quickly and conveniently.

No matter which payment processing software you choose, the most important part is making it easy for the customer to pay. And the more ways they can pay, the more likely your customers will follow through on a purchase.

It’s no secret that more and more people are accessing the internet using their mobile devices in addition to or in place of desktop computers. In fact, there are almost 7 billion mobile users worldwide. (For reference, the world population is currently 7.7 billion. That’s a lot of mobile activity.)

But what they’re doing on those mobile devices is even more compelling for marketers like us.

40% of consumers use their mobile device to conduct research prior to making an in-person purchase. More than half routinely make purchases using their smartphones, and 55% of shoppers make mobile purchases after finding products on social media.

As a result, companies that have responsive websites generate more leads and maintain an increasing competitive advantage over companies that don’t.

But what exactly is responsive website design, how does it work, and why should you make the switch? This guide sets out to answer those questions, offer some compelling statistics, and teach you the key features of responsive design all marketers should know about. Let’s get started.

Responsive web design is no longer a suggestion — it’s a critical investment to build your brand awareness, diversify your user experience (UX), and convert more site visitors. 

It also saves your business valuable time. You can’t possibly design a separate website for each potential device your visitors may use — not to mention future technologies. Responsive web design ensures your website is compatible with all devices and screens to ensure a delightful experience … both modern-day devices and those yet to be invented.

Let’s dig more into why responsive design is so important nowadays.

Why Responsive Web Design is Important

Responsive design allows you to reach a broader, more engaged audience wherever and however they choose to browse.

More importantly, a lack of responsive web design can do the opposite — it can alienate your website from customers looking for an engaging mobile experience. In fact, research shows that you can lose up to 90% of your potential customers due to a poor mobile-friendly experience.

That’s a lot of customers — and revenue.

Let’s unpack three major benefits of responsive web design.

1. Responsive web design helps consumers discover your website.

A lot of people access Google on their mobile devices — 63%, in fact. Google also penalizes websites that don’t offer a responsive design. Its mobile-first indexing can actually impact how your website ranks and can cause it to be bumped down on search engine results pages (SERPs) in favor of websites that offer consumers a mobile-friendly design.

So, if the majority of your audience is searching on their smartphone (as the above statistic says), and your website doesn’t feature a responsive design, customers may not find your website at all.

2. Responsive web design keeps shoppers on your website longer.

Website bounce rates on smartphones are almost 40% (compared to only 27% for tablets). Also, a web page that loads in five seconds or less guarantees 70% longer viewing sessions. 

Mobile users expect quick, high-quality website experiences (so does Google) — expectations that you can meet with a responsive website design. (Use our Website Grader to see how your site performs.)

3. Responsive web design builds positive brand recognition and trust with consumers.

Finally, 57% of consumers say they’re not likely to recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile website. The same report shows that more than half of online shoppers who are disappointed by a business’s online presence are likely to think negatively about the business itself. 

Responsive website design delights online shoppers, encourages them to recommend your business, and brings them back to buy more.

How to Make a Responsive Web Design

It is possible to make your own responsive website using CSS and HTML. But this is like taking lengthy backroads when an expressway is available. In this case, the expressway would be a content management system (CMS) or a website builder. 

A CMS is a software that allows you to build your website without knowing how to code — and that includes knowing how to code for responsive design. Site builders are similar tools, but they give up some functionality offered by a CMS in exchange for ease of use and lower pricing.

Responsive web design can be achieved using either a CMS or site builder that facilitate responsive designs. Here are a few common choices.

1. CMS Hub

CMS Hub is a fully-hosted, fully-integrated CMS. It connects to your other HubSpot tools so you can present a unified marketing, sales, service, and site browsing experience for your visitors, customers, and employees.

In terms of your site building experience, CMS Hub offers pre-built website themes that are also mobile-optimized to meet your visitors and customers wherever and however they’re browsing.

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2. WordPress

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS and maintains this superlative by offering one of the most straightforward website builders — the Gutenberg editor.

WordPress offers thousands of themes and templates to start with, including numerous templates with responsive design. (Find more responsive WordPress themes here and here, too.)

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Note: Once you’ve set up a theme for your WordPress website, engage and convert your visitors with free forms, live chat, email marketing, and analytics by adding HubSpot’s WordPress plugin.

3. Squarespace

Squarespace is a popular site builder that offers gorgeous site designs and creative tools. 

Squarespace offers 60 mobile-optimized templates from which you can choose to quickly build your site. Within the Squarespace editor, you can also transition from desktop to tablet to mobile view to ensure your designs seamlessly respond to different devices.

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4. Wix

Wix is another site builder that offers free and paid website subscriptions. It provides an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, free hosting, and security features.

All Wix templates provide a mobile-optimized experience for visitors. Like Squarespace, the Wix editor allows you to see how your website looks on multiple devices.

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In addition to creating a responsive web design using one of the above CMS tools or site builders, read this blog post to learn how to optimize your website for mobile use, too. 

Responsive Web Design Best Practices

With an intuitive CMS or site builder, responsive design is easy. But even if you’re using the very best CMS, it can’t compensate for mobile-friendly content and media — that part is up to you. Let’s talk about some responsive web design best practices to help you create the most mobile-friendly web experience for your visitors and customers.

1. Don’t neglect your buttons.

What do you want site visitors to do when they land on your website? Take action, right? This could be by clicking a call-to-action (CTA) like Learn More, Download, or even Buy.

How do site visitors interact with these buttons when on your desktop site? If these CTAs pop up, scroll, or are located at the bottom of your web page, you may need to reevaluate how mobile visitors can access these.

For example, let’s say you offer a main CTA like Get HubSpot Free at the top of your desktop site where visitors can see if from every page.

When you view your mobile site, however, it doesn’t fit into the header. Instead of removing it altogether, consider moving the button or including it in your hamburger menu (the three lines in the top corner), where visitors can still see and click it.

In addition, consider the size of clickable areas on your mobile site. Unlike a desktop, where visitors can use a mouse cursor to click buttons and links, they’re using fingers to navigate your website on their smartphone or tablet.

It’s recommended that clickable elements on mobile devices be at least 48 pixels in height. This includes buttons, form fields, inline links, and menu navigation.

2. Use scalable vector graphics.

If your website includes illustrations or icons, they should be formatted as scalable vector graphics (SVGs).

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SVGs can be scaled infinitely, unlike other media formats like JPGs and PNGs. This ensures your website provides a high-quality browsing experience for users on any device. They also help your site load faster — which we’ve already discussed is a good thing for user experience and SERP rankings.

3. Make sure your images scale.

Illustrations and icons aren’t the only media type changing size on varying devices. Your images have to scale, too. 

For example, desktop websites may require images at 1200 pixels, whereas mobile websites may need those at 400 pixels. Using the larger resolution on all devices can slow down your page speed, so that approach isn’t recommended.

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Instead, consider uploading different image resolutions and designating which image you want to display on each device. This is typically achieved by assigning different “media” tags to specific “source” objects (e.g. tablet or mobile) in your website code.

Note: HubSpot enables automatic image resizing on content — yet another reason to build your responsive website on CMS Hub!

4. Consider your typography.

A font that looks gorgeous on your desktop site may not read so well on a mobile device that’s a quarter of the size. If visitors can’t read your website, they certainly won’t click on or buy anything. 

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Alternatively, revolving your website fonts around the mobile experience can leave your desktop users with ugly words that are too big and clash with your branding.

Here’s our best advice for typography on responsive web design:

• 16pt body type is the rule of thumb for desktop and mobile web content.

• Avoid uber thin fonts that fade away on smaller screens.

• Make sure all headings are clearly larger than body and subheading content.

• Use contrasting colors for your typography so it doesn’t fade into your website background colors.

5. Take advantage of device features.

While prospects and customers can’t call you over their computers, they definitely can on their smartphones. Consider changing your “Chat Now!” CTA to “Call Now!” and include your business phone number in lieu of email.

Additionally, if your business has a mobile application, prompt site visitors to open your app from your website — something they might not be able to do on their computers.

6. Test your website often.

As always, test your responsive website on different devices and browsers. Check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see how your site performs.

This handy tool by Matt Kersley will also provide a peek at your website on different sized devices. You can, of course, use your own mobile devices, too.

Responsive Web Design Templates

The best way to ensure your website has a responsive design is to start with a responsive web design template. Below are five gorgeous templates available on HubSpot Asset Marketplace that will give your site visitors a mobile-friendly browsing experience.

Get access to thousands of templates with HubSpot Marketing Professional.

1. DjanGo Responsive Design Template

Price: $200

The DjanGo template is a fully-customizable and responsive site template. Its modern, minimalist design allows visitors to focus on your site content and product information. 

2. Prodigy Responsive Design Template

Price: Free

The Prodigy template is a clean website template that reaches your audience with bright media and multiple CTAs. It automatically converts its design to fit any device used by your site visitors.

3. Quantum Responsive Design Template

Price: $75

The Quantum template is a multi-purpose theme that captures your audience with bold headings and a video background. Customize your site with a variety of page layouts and custom modules.

4. Kalahari Responsive Design Template

Price: $199

The Kalahari template is a responsive theme that offers dynamic navigation and customization at the page level. Use this template to convert your audience with bright, standout CTAs.

5. Startup Framework Responsive Design Template

Price: Free

The Startup Framework template is a unique website template with bold typography and bright graphics. Build it natively within HubSpot’s content editor and choose from thousands of icons and dozens of custom modules.

Respond to Your Audience with Responsive Design

With so many consumers shopping and browsing on their mobile devices, responsive design is an absolute must-have. Without it, you could be missing out on leads, customers, and revenue.

Use these tools, templates, and best practices to get started with responsive web design today.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

This morning, I did my usual social media scanning before getting ready for work, and as I was scrolling Facebook, I began to notice ads for companies I didn’t recall following.

For instance, I read the blog from B2B company, Drift, pretty frequently, but don’t follow the company’s Page on Facebook. Even so, I still noticed this ad:

Even though this was a surprise, I wasn’t too worried — I simply figured my web behavior had influenced the types of ads I was seeing, which in part, is true. But when I visited the company Page to follow it, I couldn’t find the ad I saw above.

That was when I became intrigued: How does an ad that appears on my main feed not show up on that company’s page?

Then, I realized what was going on: The ad I’d seen was what’s known as a dark post. Dark posts target audiences specifically for lead generation and conversion.

If you’ve never heard of a dark post for Facebook, don’t worry — we’ll cover that next.

Dark Posts: What Are They?

When talking about dark posts, there can be some confusion about what they are and what they do. For instance, they’re entirely different from dark social, and are considered sponsored ads by a lot of channels. For a clearer picture, let’s define what a dark post is.

For example, I don’t follow Squarespace on Facebook, but I still received a targeted ad from the company, likely because my trackable web behavior reflects a portion of Squarespace’s target audience:

This post looks like a regular ad I would see from pages I follow on my news feed. But, when I click to go to the company page, the ad isn’t there. Because of the fact that this ad appears on the timeline of an audience member who doesn’t follow the company’s page, and the ad itself doesn’t appear on the company page, this post is considered to be “dark.”

Dark posts are not to be confused with the term “dark social,” which is a phrase used to describe the type of traffic earned on social media that can’t be detected from social media tools.

If you want to engage with more audience members and show up on their feed with a specific ad, dark posting can be a helpful tool. You can have more control over what your target audience sees, because the content is still an ad. Additionally, you can tailor the ad’s content to introduce your brand, what it’s about, and design it specifically for lead generation.

Though dark posts generally have the same features across the board, things are slightly different for Facebook, so let’s cover what that entails.

Facebook Dark Posts, Explained

A Facebook dark post is unique from others you might see on other social media channels — they are even called a different name.

They also allow for better results for A/B testing — you can test ads out with customers who have already interacted with your brand before you send it out to new audiences.

With dark posts, you can control how many times and which audiences are seeing certain posts, so you’ll know that you won’t show converted leads ads that aren’t meant for them. They are a targeted ad, just shown differently, and to a more specific audience. The decision-making ability over the types of posts your targets are seeing is more in your control.

When you create a dark post, you can manage how the ad is seen, and if it will be scheduled for a future date, or if it will be part of a promotion inside of a larger set.

At this point, you can probably tell how dark posts may seem a little controversial — they can be interpreted by audience members as a sneaky advertisement, rather than a personalized ad experience. That’s why, in Facebook’s effort to maintain transparency, some features about dark posts (and Facebook ads across the board) have changed since their inception:

• Dark posts are labeled — Facebook dark posts will always be marked as a Sponsored post, even if it may not have a traditional ad design. Next, and most important, is that audience members can now see which posts from companies are ads on all Facebook-owned social platforms (including Instagram).
• The Ad Library — Audiences can see if they’re seeing dark posts by accessing their Ad Library. The Ad Library shows Facebook users all of the ads a company is running by typing their name in the search field. They can also filter these ads by relevance, an audience filter, activity, and reach:

There are two ways a user can access the Ad Library, and the first is by URL. If you’re logged into Facebook, you can simply type in facebook.com/ads/library, and you can begin searching. If you’re on the company’s specific Page, there will be a “Page Transparency” section in the right sidebar:

Clicking “See More” will take you to a page that shows more details about the company, such as the year it was founded and important links. At the bottom of this page, you will see a box that notes whether or not that company is running ads, and will offer an option to visit the Ad Library for that company:

This box also indicates the type of ads that company runs, which gives audience members a better idea of if they’re seeing an ad.

Now that you know about dark posts, how they interact with audiences, and what you can use them for, let’s talk about how to make them.

How to Dark Post on Facebook

To create a dark post on Facebook, you don’t need to do much that’s different from creating a different type of ad. We’re going to detail what you need to know, and offer optimization tips.

However, you’ll want to refer to another one of our posts for a more robust tutorial on how to run Facebook Ads in general.

1. Go to Ads Manager to access your posts.

First, you’re going to go to Facebook Ads Manager. If you’ve run Facebook ads before, you’re probably used to this tool. If not, think of Facebook’s Ad Manager tool as a home base for the ads you run on Facebook, and other Facebook-owned platforms.

When you access Ads Manager, you’re going to click the drop-down box at the top left, like shown below:

From there, you’re going to select the “Page Posts” option, which is the second choice under the Ads Manager subsection. You can find this subsection under “Create & Manage.”

2. Configure your dark post.

Next, you’ll be taken to the screen where your dark posts will live. If you have already published Page Posts, you’ll see them here, regardless of if they’re unpublished, published, or scheduled.

If you don’t have any Page Posts yet, your only option is to create one, so click that button to get started! You’ll see this screen after:

If you don’t see “Create Unpublished Page Post” at the top, you might’ve chosen the wrong action. Remember, Unpublished Pages are the only way to dark post on Facebook.

From here, you can fill in the details of your ad. When you choose how you want to use the post, keep in mind that the first option, “Only use this post for an ad,” won’t publish the post to your company Page, which is what you want. The second option will eventually post to your Page.

3. Select or create your audiences.

Previous users of Facebook Ads Manager can choose their already-segmented ad sets in this section. For those who are new to it, when you create a campaign, you’ll have a chance to create audience segments:

Notice how specific you can get with your audience segmentation, including age, gender, languages, location, interests, and behaviors. These options were put in place to help you reach the audiences that will connect with your messages the most.

You can access this page by going from the drop-down box to Ads Manager > Audiences > Create Audience > Custom Audiences > Facebook Page. Then you’ll be prompted to create and segment audiences:

4. Optimize your dark post.

When you’re comfortable with your post, you can optimize it. Here, we’re going to mention a few optimizing tips you can use. For an extra, deep dive look into optimizing an ad for Facebook, check out this ultimate guide for Facebook marketing.

We’re going to go over what I’ve affectionately dubbed, “The Three R’s of Quick Optimization.” They are: Run, Review, and Resize.

• Run an A/B test — First, if you’ve run A/B tests previously, review those results and think back to how you can apply those results to your new dark post. Maybe certain copy really resonated with customers, or they just liked the look of one over the others. Your existing customer base can help you choose how to reach out to new prospects.
• Review Ad metrics — Access your social media metrics software. It might just be Facebook’s analytics tool, or an outside tool, like a CRM, that offers ad management software. When you review your metrics, you can choose which features of the ad you want to maximize to get a better ROI, like adding a CTA button to increase conversion rate.
• Resize your audience — If, over the course of creating your ad, you’ve noticed that your audience should be consider, go ahead and resize and re-configure your audiences. Perhaps you’ve noticed that you want to reach a smaller audience in a different location — go for it, and create a new audience, specifically for lead generation with dark posts, or change one you’ve already created.

And with that, your dark post, or, Unpublished Page post, will be ready to take its first steps into the news feeds of leads, just waiting to be converted. Now, you know the ins and outs of a Facebook Unpublished Page post. How are you going to use them to your advantage?

When your business invests in content marketing, you improve your ability to engage your buyer personas, convert more leads, boost brand awareness, and connect with your audience. This leads me to two questions for marketers: 1) Does your company already actively invest in content marketing? 2) Will you continue — or begin — this worthwhile investment in 2020?

Keep Creating Clustered Content to Build Topic Authority

Once upon a time (in 2017), HubSpot’s blog hit a massivetraffic plateau. Our team put their heads together and, after identifying some macro trends in search and content, decided to reorganize HubSpot’s blog into topic clusters. That reorganization, along with the introduction of a search insights report, led to a 25% YoY increase in traffic and improved our search rankings for over two million keywords.

In short, the topic cluster methodology works — keep investing in it. Here’s how.

When creating topic clusters, you want to ensure that each cluster touches on all of the ways people are searching for that topic.You start with a pillar page — which I like to think of as the 10,000-foot view of a topic — about the main keyword you’re targeting. Then, your cluster (or subtopic) content should be about related yet more specific angles of that topic. All of this content, including the pillar page, is clustered through an internal linking structure.

If you’re a visual learner like I am, this illustration will help:

Google SERP for “How to Make a Gif”

Google SERP for “what is emerald green”

Gen Z enters adulthood and gains more and more purchasing power, it’s apparent that the age group is more hyper-connected to the internet than past generations.

At this point, smart marketers have begun to discover how Gen Z’s technological influence makes them different from older age groups. They’re also noticing key generational behaviors that could change the way brands market to younger audiences.

For example, Gen Z is more frugal than millennials, chooses practicality over customer experience, has less brand loyalty than past generations, and — oddly enough — prefers real-life conversation to social media chatter.

Aside from the differences above, Gen Z also consumes content differently from how older people have. For instance, Gen Z spends more time online each day than millennials. They’re also usually logged on to multiple social media channels at once, have a mobile-first mindset, and love video content.

With all these differences in mind, it’s not shocking that the way Gen Z searches and discovers content such as videos, blogs, websites, or product listings is also quite unique.

If you’re a marketer that has thrived on search engines, it could be helpful to familiarize yourself with how the up-and-coming generation aims to discover new products, events, experiences, or information online. This way, you can improve on your own optimization tactics so that your content gets put on their radar.

In this blog post, I’ll highlight a few common ways that Gen Z searches the web, how these behaviors are different from those of past generations, and how marketers can effectively meet Gen Z on the online platforms they’re searching the most.

How Gen Z Searches the Web

1. Gen Z searches long-tail keywords more frequently than older age groups.

In the header above, I wrote a full sentence instead of opting for the much simpler headline of “Gen Z and Long-Tail Keywords.”

Why did I take the time to make each subhead into a full phrase or sentence? This is because I want to optimize my content for long-tail keywords.

In the past, older generations were more likely to search content with just a keyword, like “demographics.” Now, younger age groups — especially Gen Z — are more likely to search with a full question or phrase, like, “How do I pick an audience demographic?”

Recent research from Fractl finds that Gen Z searches more long-tail keywords than any other generation. Additionally, while the average person’s search includes four words, Gen Z searches often include five or more.

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Even if you aren’t interested in targeting Gen Z just yet, you should still optimize your website and content for long-tail search keywords. While Gen Z most commonly uses this search tactic, millennials aren’t far behind.

Aside from text-based searches, Gen Z and millennials also regularly use voice assistants and smart devices. This means that when a person verbally asks questions or gives full commands to voice assistants, the AI algorithm will recognize the long-tail phrase and perform search queries for them.

At this point, long-tail is getting more and more common across the board. Optimizing your website to cater to Gen Z search queries will only help you gain traffic from all age groups as this search tactic becomes more common throughout age groups.

2. Gen Z often includes “best,” “cheap,” or “how-to” in search queries.

The Fractl study also found that Gen Zers are most likely to begin searches with the word “best.” For example, when asking for results related to the “best restaurants in Boston.” While 30% to 32% Baby Boomers and Gen Xers used the term in searches during the experiment, 56% of Gen Z used it.

The commodity of “best” searches could suggest that Gen Z is more interested than other generations in using search platforms to get recommendations or suggestions for the best possible experience.

Other phrases that Gen Z searches more than other generations include “cheap” and “how to.”

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The search rates of “best” and “cheap” are definitely in line with other research that shows how Gen Z is more frugal and heavily researches possible purchases to ensure that they get the best experience for their money.

Additionally, while past generations were accustomed to learning how to do things from books, academics, or friends, Gen Z is known for using web searches and videos to quickly find simple how-tos.

3. Most Gen Z searches occur on mobile devices.

Not shockingly, Gen Z, which is infamous for heavy smartphone use, performs most online searches on mobile devices.

While millennials also regularly perform mobile searches, Gen Z’s heavier use of mobile search, plus their interest in mobile apps, shows that marketers really need to ensure that they’re optimizing content for different devices.

Along with catering well to Gen Z and millennials, mobile content appeases search algorithms. For example, Google — which has adopted a mobile-first mindset — now rewards higher search result ranks to websites with a responsive or mobile-optimized design.

Aside from favoring websites that are mobile-optimized, Google has also taken steps to appease mobile young adult audiences with the launch of the Google Discover feature on its app. This feature analyzes your search query history and then shows you a mobile feed of photos, videos, and articles that you might be interested in. To learn more about this feature and how you can leverage it, click here.

4. The age group looks for video over other content types.

While Millennials and older generations will enter general search queries for all sorts of content types, Gen Z more aggressively searches out video content more than past age groups.

According to Think with Google, 85% of teenagers within Gen Z use YouTube to regularly find content while 80% of Gen Z says YouTube videos have successfully taught them about something.

This correlates with data that shows Gen Z prefers to learn about new things or products through video rather than text, native ads, or other content formats.

If you’re trying to capture Gen Z audiences, it would be beneficial to develop a video strategy on your website or a Gen Z-friendly social platform — such as YouTube or Instagram. In this blog post, you can find a step by step guide to creating your first marketing video.

5. Like millennials, the generation also embraces social media site searches.

As mentioned above, Generation Z is heavily connected to social media. Research shows that their favorite platforms include Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.

And although search engine optimization is still vital to your overall strategy, having a social media presence will be vital to gaining attention from Gen Z.

One of the main things Gen Z searches for on social media is brand information. In fact, recent research shows that 45% of Gen Z will search for new products on Instagram.

Aside from searching for and discovering new brands, Gen Z is also likely to continue certain aspects of the customer journey on social media platforms. For example, they might also use their favorite platforms to find reviews, unboxings, demos, or video content about a product.

At this point, if you’re not on social media, you should be — especially if you plan to reach new generations. Although a small portion of Gen Z searches might occur here, this generation spends a major amount of time on these platforms each day. Promoting your product on their favorite channels will only increase your chances of younger age groups learning more about it.

To learn more about the top social media platforms, check out this detailed guide.

Reaching Gen Z Where They’re Searching for Content

To reach Gen Z, you’ll need to continue common marketing techniques like SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing, while more aggressively embracing video content. As you aim to make your strategy more competitive, you might also want to consider experimenting with either niche or video-based social media channels — like TikTok, Instagram Stories, Reddit, or Snapchat.

To make sure your content ranks for Gen Z and others on search engines, you should also ensure that your site has a responsive design and a smooth mobile user experience.

All of the tactics mentioned above will raise Gen Z’s chances of discovering your brand on various search engines or multiple mobile-optimized platforms including Google, YouTube, or other social media platforms.

To learn more about how to cater your campaigns to Gen Z as compared to millennials, check out this comparison piece. You might also like this list of 52 stats about the generation.