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A great business needs a great many things in order to succeed – strong leadership, a competitive advantage, and a unique vision among them. However, one element that could make or break a business is its process (or lack thereof).

A clear, repeatable process has two major hurdles to a successful implementation in a business. Number one is the development of that process, and number two is getting buy-in from stakeholders on that process. That said, the best way to overcome both of these potential roadblocks is to transparently and logically outline a process.

Many businesses use flowcharts to accomplish this task, as flowcharts:

• Visually outline a process roadmap for a full-scope understanding, and…
• Can be easily digested by employees who need to know and follow the process.

To help you create actionable flowcharts for your organization, we’ve listed the eight best flowchart templates for you to download and start using today to create a better process in any area of your business.

Let’s dive in.

What is a flowchart?

A flowchart is a visual map to help explain a process for decision making, achieving results, or projecting an outcome. Flowcharts begin at a starting point on the graphic, and as users follow through it, they will choose one of several outcomes or options until reaching the end of the process.

In business, flowcharts might be used for any of the following purposes:

• Team alignment and process
• Email nurturing
• Customer journey mapping
• Customer or employee onboarding
• A/B testing
• QA-ing work
• Career progression
• Customer support

Here are eight templates and examples of flowcharts for business – each one comes with a download link for you to start using that template right on Google Slides.

8 Flowchart Examples for Business

1. Basic Process Flowchart Template

Download this Template

The basic flowchart template is the ideal solution for those just getting started with flowcharts. The template allows its designers to specify a starting point, two potential outcomes, and then the resulting aftermath of those decisions. Due to its limitations, this flowchart template might be best suited for basic processes, like a simple A/B test.

Flowchart Example: Basic Process Flowchart

This template visualizes how a user visiting a company’s landing page could convert and become a lead.

Who should use this flowchart?

This flowchart is helpful for those looking to design an A/B test to determine the most way to get the results they’re looking for.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

The basic process flowchart is easy to use and follow and is ideal for documenting straightforward or simple processes.

2. Swim Lane Flowchart Template

Download this Template

The swim lane flowchart template is for dividing up the steps of a process into different sectors. For your business, these different sectors could be time periods, teams, employees, or work requirements.

Flowchart Example: Swim Lane Flowchart

In the example above, the swimlanes are divided by department to illustrate the process of the customer journey.

Who should use this flowchart?

Swim lane flowcharts are particularly helpful for those who oversee cross-functional processes.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

This template visualizes the different process steps that take place across multiple organizations.

3. Task Flowchart Template

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A task flowchart template is differentiated by what each shape on the flowchart represents. This format is beneficial when multiple teams’ work is intertwined throughout the process, as individuals can easily discern the tasks for which they are responsible. These responsibilities are noted in a key on the flowchart for a quick reference.

The shapes can also represent different types of action.

Flowchart Example: Landing Page Flowchart

In the example above, the different shapes represent the start of, end of, and actions taken during the process of viewing a landing page. This task flowchart example follows an “if this then that” format, showing the various outcomes that could occur when a potential customer visits a landing page.

Who should use this flowchart?

Project managers looking to keep track of various tasks and their outcomes.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

The task flowchart visually depicts how various contributions to a product support the end result. Each stakeholder can see how their tasks impact the flow of the project.

4. Complex Flowchart Template

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For a flowchart that doesn’t need gridlines or different shapes, this template is the best solution. It provides the option for multiple endpoints depending on which steps are taken through the process.

Flowchart Example: Hiring Flowchart

The above hiring visual is an example of a complex flowchart that has various events and potential outcomes.

Who should use this flowchart?

Teams looking to manage processes that could have various endpoints or projects that have multiple steps and stakeholders involved.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

Complex processes can be difficult to keep track of. This flowchart template creates an intuitive visual for multi-step processes.

5. Circular Flowchart Template

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The circular flowchart template changes things up with a different shape, but it also provides a different path structure.

Flowchart Example: Social Media Flowchart

For example, in the image above, the template can be used as a decision-making framework. Here, it’s used to help a social media manager determine which site should be used to post content on.

Who should use this flowchart?

Social media managers, product marketers, and content strategists may find this template suits their needs.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

This template has a cleaner appearance than some of the more complex templates and may be better for visual learners.

6. Linear Flowchart Template

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A linear flowchart template is a solution for when there’s really only one optimal result, and every step of the process will either lead someone to that outcome or result in the process simply ending.

Flowchart Example: Email Nurturing Flowchart

One example – highlighted above – might be for a nurture stream. In the image, the process ends whether someone signs up for an event or not.

Who should use this flowchart?

Email marketing specialists, sales teams.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

With one singular goal, this flowchart format has a clear beginning and end.

7. Tree Flowchart Template

Download this Template

A tree-style flowchart template makes the most sense for situations where there are multiple options and when each option has a clear and distinct next step.

Flowchart Example: Phone Tree Flowchart

This example depicts the various options and next steps a caller can take when contacting a business via telephone.

Who should use this flowchart?

For businesses, this flowchart would be perfect for the support department – which can use this template to map out responses from automated chat support or (as outlined above) a phone tree.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

Each action has a clear next step and a predetermined outcome.

8. Organizational Flowchart Template

Download this Template

The final flowchart businesses might want to utilize is an organizational flowchart (or org chart) template.

Flowchart Example: Organizational Flowchart

While not exactly procedural, this visualization helps those within the company quickly understand who reports to whom and who is responsible for what.

Who should use this flowchart?

This template is utilized by the heads of a company and/or a department to outline the chain of command in an area of the business. It can also be used by Human Resources teams to inform team structure and organizational decisions.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

Users can see how a team is structured at-a-glance, and can quickly determine who they need to go to for their project or to have their questions answered.

Business Flowchart Templates

Business flowchart templates are the fastest and easiest way to build flowcharts. All of the above templates are downloadable by clicking here and are completely customizable when it comes to shape, format, color, and imagery.

Download the templates for free to better illustrate and communicate processes in your company.

We’ve all had it happen to us: we try to choose an option on a website, and right before we click, the page jumps away and we end up clicking something we didn’t mean to. Doh!

Like a game of “down low, too slow”, this website behavior makes us feel slow and frustrated. Fortunately, website developers are now incentivized to improve their site experience with the release of Google’s Core Web Vitals; a set of metrics that help site owners measure and improve the user experience of their web pages.

Cumulative Layout Shift is one of these key metrics that measures the “jumpiness” of a website and how it unexpectedly moves as elements load. Let’s take a closer look at how this metric works, and how you can make sure your own website is following best practices so you rank higher on search engines and provide your users with a better experience.

What is Cumulative Layout Shift?

Cumulative Layout Shift (or CLS) is a measure of how much a webpage unexpectedly shifts during its life. For example, if a website visitor loaded a page and, while they were reading it, a banner loads and the page jumps down, that would constitute a large CLS score.

Along with Largest Contentful Paint (the amount of time it takes to load the largest piece of content) and First Input Delay (how long it takes for a page to be interactive or “clickable”), CLS is part of Google’s Core Web Vitals. Google’s web crawlers measure CLS on each page they index.

What causes Cumulative Layout Shift?

Page shifts happen when content loads at different speeds and causes the layout to change and alters what the viewer is looking at. Advertisements loading slowly, videos of unknown size suddenly appearing, or DOM elements being dynamically added are all potential causes of CLS.

The example below shows what happens when an ad banner is loaded after the rest of the webpage loads. The content is pushed down, and the user experience is negatively impacted.

Source

It can be difficult to know if your users are experiencing CLS, because not every device or environment operates in the same way. If you’re loading your website in a development environment you may have elements cached or they may be loading locally. Personalized web content based on cookies will behave differently for every visitor, especially depending on their location. Plus, mobile users can have a very different experience – a small shift on a web browser may be monumental to someone viewing the site on a small screen. Really the only way to understand your users’ experience is to measure CLS, which we’ll go over below.

Why is CLS important?

Understanding CLS is critical for two reasons: your visitors’ experience and your search engine ranking.

Your visitors have high expectations when it comes to your site’s performance. In 2020, 93% of people reported leaving a website because it didn’t load properly.

Jumpy websites that load in pieces or with unexpected behavior will cause your visitors to find another website to browse. And if they do stick around, a high CLS score is likely to cause usability problems like choosing the wrong option, checking out too early, or missing parts of your website altogether.

This problem is only exacerbated by the large number of internet users who are browsing on their smartphones. When viewing your site on a small screen, any jumps and layout shifts on the website are certain to have a big impact on mobile user experience.

Optimizing your site and reducing your cumulative layout shift is essential to providing customers with a good experience.

Secondly, Google ranks sites based on their page performance. A better user experience results in a higher search ranking. If your page doesn’t meet the standards that Google lays out in their Core Web Vitals guidelines, your site will be penalized.

Google doesn’t want to direct people to sites that don’t perform well. Aligning with CLS best practices can help your website move up the rankings. And since 68% of online experiences start with a search, making sure your site shows up on the search results page is important to generating inbound traffic.

How do you measure Cumulative Layout Shift?

The good news is that you don’t have to measure CLS yourself because Google makes it really easy to analyze your page performance with their PageSpeed Insights tool, or in the Chrome browser using Lighthouse Tools.

To analyze performance in PageSpeed Insights:

1. Enter a website URL into Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
2. Click ‘Analyze.’
3. Check your performance. You can review both mobile and desktop performance, which you can switch between using the top left corner navigation.

The page analyzed below shows a good cumulative layout shift score of 0.001.

To analyze performance using Lighthouse tools:

1. Open up the website you want to analyze in Chrome.
2. Navigate to Developer Tools by clicking the three dots in the top right corner of the browser window, choosing “More Tools” and then “Developer Tools.”
3. When the console opens, choose “Lighthouse” from the options along the top.
4. Click “Generate Report.”

The page below shows a CLS of 0.109, or “needs improvement.”

Lighthouse provides a detailed audit of what contributed to that score. To review the audit, scroll down and choose “Show audits relevant to CLS.”

More About Impact Fraction and Distance Fraction

Two terms you might see when researching CLS are “impact fraction” and “distance fraction.” These are the two variables that Google uses to calculate CLS.

layout shift score = impact fraction x distance fraction

Impact fraction relates to the size of the unstable element in comparison to the viewport. Distance fraction is the amount the unstable element moves as a ratio of the viewport.

So a high CLS would consist of a large element moving a long distance. A small CLS would be the result of a small element moving only a small distance.

CLS is the largest “burst” or group of layout shift scores that occur during a session window. Essentially, if a bunch of shifts happen within a five-second window, this would be considered disruptive and result in a large CLS score.

What is a good CLS score?

A good cumulative layout score is anything less than 0.1. The reports from PageInsights or Lighthouse tools will automatically flag any poor scores, as well as provide advice on how to optimize the page for better performance.

Source

How To Improve Cumulative Layout Shift

There are a few best practices that website owners can follow to improve their CLS score:

1. Use a CMS (content management system).

Especially one that integrates with Google Lighthouse or other diagnostic tools. This will make sure that you’re designing with best practices in mind, and flag any issues before you launch your site.

2. Specify size attributes for images and videos.

Rather than letting them set their own height and width, dictate size attributes for your media. By setting these attributes, you’re telling the browser how much space to set aside, even if the image isn’t loaded yet.

3. Understand how ads can influence your layout.

Google Publisher Tag offers extensive guidance about how to reserve space for ads.

Load new content below the viewport. Loading content above what the user is viewing will often cause a page to shift.

4. Use transitions and animation to provide context around page changes.

For example, a “Read more” link that scrolls the user down the page would not impact CLS because it’s an expected layout shift.

A Note On Expected Vs Unexpected Layout Shift

CLS only takes into account unexpected changes. If the layout changes because of a user-initiated action, there is no impact on CLS. This is a helpful tool to use when you don’t need to load everything all at once. Instead, offer users the opportunity to choose which elements they want to view through “read more” links or “expand topic” accordions within your page.

Offer A Better User Experience With CLS Optimization

Paying attention to CLS not only provides a better user experience, but it also boosts your search result rankings. It’s a win-win.

To meet Google’s standards for CLS, start by using a diagnostic tool to measure your website’s current performance. Take into account the basic guidelines outlined above, and keep layout shifts top of mind when designing your website, especially around transitions and content additions. With these few simple considerations, you’ll see better results across the board.

There are many businesses out there that operate with a mindset of “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it.” Unfortunately, this type of close-minded thinking can lead to a great deal of waste.

Tasks may be unnecessary to achieve the final goal, processes may be repeated multiple times when one would be sufficient, employees may be wasting time on superfluous responsibilities, and materials may be wasted during manufacturing.

When this occurs within an organization, employee satisfaction decreases so turnover increases, quality suffers so customer satisfaction and retention is decreased, and one look at the books will likely indicate the company is hemorrhaging money.

You might think that this type of operational inefficiency only occurs in large corporations and organizations, however, it’s just as prevalent in small-to-medium-sized businesses and can be seen throughout every department.

Efficiency is the name of the game for successful businesses, and you’re about to learn one of the best ways to turn your business into a lean, mean, money-making machine.

Lean Process Improvement

What is lean process improvement?

Lean process improvement is a concept originally developed by Toyota to decrease the amount of time it took from receiving an order to delivering it. While lean process improvement is often discussed in a production environment, the concept can be applied to service, healthcare, technology, and even government.

Consider a marketing department that has multiple people working on the same project but not communicating. Rather than each handling a specific aspect of the campaign, several people tackle the same task while other activities go unhandled.

It’s not a traditional production environment, however, the team could benefit from creating an easy-to-follow process that looks at the desired end product and finds the simplest route to get there.

The whole idea behind this way of thinking is that when you look at the big picture, you can find ways to eliminate waste, whether that’s financial, physical, time, or employee energy that could be spent elsewhere. This concept may take a while to implement, and that’s okay. It’s not meant to be a short-term solution, but rather a change to the entire mindset and culture of a business.

What are the benefits of lean process improvement?

Businesses that incorporate lean process improvement see a variety of benefits from this shift. These include:

• Less waste
• Less inventory
• Increased productivity
• Better quality
• Happier customers
• Fewer costs
• More profits

It makes perfect sense that when you remove the redundancy, streamline processes, and create less waste, your bottom line will increase. When your customers receive their product faster and with less hassle, you’ll have happier customers who return and recommend you to others. With more customers, your bottom line increases once again.

If you’d like to see this type of improvement in your organization, read on to learn lean process improvement steps.

How do I incorporate lean process improvement into my business?

You guessed it … there’s a process to lean process improvement. There’s actually a series of nine steps you’ll need to implement to create this level of efficiency in your organization. Let’s take a closer look at lean process improvement steps.

1. Review the process you want to improve.

This step is essential because if you don’t know what you need to work on, you won’t know where to focus your efforts. In order to do that, you need to talk to employees on the front line.

The biggest mistake companies make during this process is implementing changes without ever speaking to the people who do the job day in and day out. Interview your frontline workers, and ask them what’s not working well in their daily routine.

2. Identify what improvements need to be made.

Once you’ve identified what needs to be fixed, it’s time to involve your team once again. There’s a very good chance that they already know how to fix the problem and just haven’t been able to implement it because of a “That’s-how-we’ve-always-done-it” mindset.

3. Implement the suggested changes.

How will you put the changes into action? Create a plan so everyone involved understands and buys into the process. This is the best way to ensure organization-wide success.

4. Monitor how the changes are impacting your efficiency.

While it would be great if your first attempt at execution was a success, the reality is that once the process is tested in the field, it will need to be further refined. The only way to do this is through constant monitoring and reevaluating. As new issues appear, you can address them and make the necessary changes.

5. Identify what activities add value.

Throughout these steps, you’ll be assessing every single action and every aspect of your process. During this time, you must evaluate every single activity to determine whether it adds value to your process, or detracts. If an activity is deemed unnecessary, it should be removed and the process tested without it.

6. Limit risk.

Production and often business, in general, is inherently risky. This time should be used to identify any risky activities or aspects that are part of the current process and eliminate or simplify these tasks. This may involve automating an activity or simply changing the way in which it’s executed.

7. Standardize the process.

As you create and refine the process, document your progress thoroughly. This allows the process to be repeated, properly, by other employees or depending on the specific process, by other teams or departments in your organization.

8. Ensure compliance.

While lean process improvement should be a company-wide shift in culture, your industry or governing body may have specific metrics, procedures, and standardized measurements that you must adhere to. Compliance may not be sacrificed in the name of efficiency.

9. Improve the customer experience.

In determining the success of a lean process improvement plan, Marketers consider the customer experience to be “the moment of truth.” Ultimately, whatever improvements you make during production or service must trickle down to positively impact the customer.

Lean Process Improvement Tools

As you embark on this journey, there are a number of tools available to you. These tools can help you organize your thoughts, identify issues, and implement your plan. The following are just some of the tools you can look to for support.

Just like any other tool, the one you choose must be the right one for the current job. If you start out with one and don’t find that it meets your needs, consider trying another.

• Why Analysis: By asking “Why?” repeatedly, you can identify the root cause of the challenges you’re experiencing.
• Ishikawa Diagram: Also known as a “Fishbone diagram” or “cause-and-effect diagram”, it allows you to examine a problem from multiple angles, including measurements, materials, people, methods, machines, and environment.
• Affinity Diagram: This works great in the early stages of lean implementation as it can help sort and organize large amounts of data. Identify the value you bring to the customer and then uncover problems with your existing processes.
• FMEA Analysis (failure mode and effects): Catching issues before they get out of hand can help you eliminate waste and save money. This tool allows you to examine your flow and identify problems early on.
• 5S Dashboard: This approach can help you organize your workspace for maximum efficiency. While the original tool has five S’ based on Japanese terms, many businesses have added a 6th practice. These stand for:
  • Sort
  • Set in order
  • Shine
  • Standardize
  • Sustain
  • Safety
• Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) Cycle: Create continuous improvement by repeatedly analyzing a problem, testing a hypothesis, reviewing, and then analyzing the results, and finally, putting the plan into action once it’s successful.

Lean Process Improvement Techniques

There are a number of approaches that have been created to assist in lean process improvement. Just like the tools, it’s important to find the right technique for your project and your organization. For example:

Six Sigma (DMAIC Model)

With a goal of reducing the variation in processes, Six Sigma works to increase both external and internal customer satisfaction by standardizing workflow. The DMAIC Roadmap stands for:

1. Define
2. Measure
3. Analyze
4. Improve
5. Control

Kanban

These boards allow you to visualize your workflow and use value stream mapping to break down your workflows into stages. Having a visual representation of your workflow, and all the activities that make it up, can assist you in identifying inefficiencies.

Sharing this board with your entire team allows anyone to stop the process when a problem occurs. Now, it becomes everyone’s job to find a solution.

WIP Limits

Within Kanban boards exist a concept known as WIP Limits or “Work in Progress Limits”. Every stage in a Kanban board workflow is represented by a column. WIP limits force you to stay under a maximum number of work items for each stage. This can be per person, per work stage, or for the entire project.

Having these limits in place ensures that current tasks are finished before new ones are started, and helps to complete activities faster.

Final Thoughts on Lean Process Improvement

Now that you understand how important lean process improvement is to a successful, efficient organization, it’s a good time to reiterate that this is an ongoing process. If you attempt to overhaul your entire organization overnight, you will undoubtedly fail and most likely make things worse than when you started.

Identify the biggest sources of inefficiency in your organization and target these first, one at a time, until you’ve created a well-functioning business.

Finally, remember that your most valuable assets are the employees getting their hands dirty every day. Attempting to identify problems and create solutions without getting their input is akin to driving blind when you could simply open your eyes.

As a marketer, a big part of your job is to convert qualified website visitors into leads. Simple enough.

More specifically, inbound marketing requires you to create remarkable content they’ll want to trade their contact information for. From there, those leads turn into opportunities, who turn into customers and even promoters.

Clearly, conversions are a big deal. So how can you optimize yours? By creating conversion paths optimized to most effectively convert your ideal visitors into leads.

While not all conversion paths are identical and depend on the type of business they’re for, they have a few common attributes: a landing page, a call-to-action, a content offer or end point, and a thank you page.

• Landing page: A landing page is a specific page on your website designed to collect a visitor’s contact information in exchange for a resource, like a course, ebook, or other product.
• Call-to-action: A call-to-action is a section on a webpage or advertisement that persuades the visitor to act or do something. These can take the form of buttons prompting website visitors to sign up, subscribe, or buy a product.
• Thank you page: The thank you page shows your visitors that you appreciate them for taking a desired action. For example, a thank you page might appear after a visitor has signed up for a newsletter or filled out a form.
• End point: This may be in the form of a content offer, which is any material or resource given to a visitor in exchange for their contact information, completing the conversion path. These materials could be guides, ebooks, courses or other products. For e-commerce, instead of a content offer, a conversion path may end in a purchase.

In order to convert into a lead, a visitor sees a content offer of interest to them (or product in the case of e-commerce), clicks on the call-to-action button to access that content, and is then taken to a landing page. On that landing page, the visitor can provide their information on a form in exchange for access to the offer itself. Upon submitting that form, the now-lead is taken to a thank you page where they receive the offer.

Voila! Conversion path complete.

By designing and implementing the right conversion paths, you can most effectively move website visitors through the buyer’s journey and help them become customers and promoters.

Conversion Path Example

Let’s say you’ve been lured to the landing page above after searching online for tips for preventing frizzy hair.

You’re then prompted by a CTA (pictured below) that invites sign up for their email list in exchange for 10% of their products.

You decide you’d like to try one of their satin-lined caps to fight frizz and take them up on the offer.

A thank you page pops up once you’ve filled out the form giving instructions on how to access your discount code. Once you get the code from your email, you use it to purchase one of their caps. Ta-da! The conversion path is complete.

What makes a good conversion path?

Well as you might have guessed, you need content, a call-to-action, a landing page, and a thank you page. But with so many conversion paths out there on the internet for your potential customers to explore, it’s more important than ever to create the RIGHT paths — paths that your ideal customers are drawn to and most effectively convert the right visitors into leads.

What are the steps to creating a conversion path?

Let’s explore the key items you need in your inbound toolkit to create effective conversion paths that turn casual visitors into customers.

1. Attract your target audience with context-appropriate content.

Content is the fuel that powers effective inbound strategies—and it’s what you’ll use to convert those website visitors into leads. The good news is that content is everywhere! Content is what your website pages are filled with, what goes into your emails, and what’s hosted on your blog — your website pages, emails, and blog are just vehicles to deliver that content.

Although content is in no short supply, in order for it to act as your inbound rocket fuel, you need to create the right content. As you can probably guess, the right content is optimized to appeal specifically to your buyer personas. It should focus on the challenges they’re trying to overcome and the goals they’re looking to hit. Most of all, it should be relevant and interesting to them.

But here’s the kicker — it’s not enough to just create persona-specific content. That content needs to be relevant to your persona based on where they are in the buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey is the active research process your personas go through leading up to making a purchase — and specific content is more relevant to your personas at different stages of that journey. This is where the “context” piece comes in: It’s not enough to just create content for your personas. You have to make sure that content is relevant to what they’re interested in and hoping to learn more about.

Most visitors to your site are still at the very beginning stages of that journey — they might not even know what your product does or how it can help them. All they may know is that they have a problem or there’s an opportunity at hand. So, the content that will most appeal to your personas when they’re first visiting your website and converting a lead will generally be high-level and educational in nature.

In order to be an effective tool in your conversion path toolkit, make sure you have remarkable content tailored to your buyer personas and where they are in the buyer’s journey.

2. Create landing pages that speak to your personas.

After you’ve developed a remarkable content offer that speaks to both who your personas are and where they are in the buyer’s journey, the next step is to leverage that piece of content to convert website visitors into leads. That’s where landing pages come in.

Landing pages are specialized website pages whose sole purpose is to collect visitors’ contact information in exchange for something of value to them. Landing pages contain forms that potential leads must fill out and submit before getting access to your remarkable content offer. And like that offer, great landing pages must also be tailored to both who your personas are and where they are in the buyer’s journey.

In order to most effectively convert website visitors into leads, your landing pages must present the benefits of your offer that are most relevant to the particular problem your persona is experiencing — and discuss the aspects of that problem that are most important to where your persona is in the buyer’s journey.

Imagine, for example, you work at a pet store and have created an ebook on raising a puppy. Someone who’s at the beginning of the buyer’s journey probably won’t be too interested in downloading your ebook if your landing page talks all about how your ebook contains the best techniques for housebreaking. Instead, an effective landing page for this persona might highlight how your ebook discusses how to choose the right dog breed for you.

Great landing pages focus on both who your personas are and where they are in the buyer’s journey.

3. Use attention-grabbing calls-to-action.

While having a remarkable content offer and great landing page are key to creating a successful conversion path, your website visitors need a way to actually access that landing page in the first place. That’s where calls-to-action come in.

Calls-to-action or CTAs, are buttons you can embed throughout your website that advertise your content offers. When a visitor clicks on one of these calls-to-action, they’ll be taken to your landing page. In effect, every call-to-action you have on your website is the beginning of a conversion path.

To create calls-to-action that get those clicks and act as key steps within your conversion paths, you must ensure that the message displayed on your call-to-action aligns with the message on your landing page — and the content itself.

Great calls-to-action should be just that: action-oriented. Since their main objective is to garner clicks and direct people to landing pages, ensure that they’re click-worthy by using actionable language and colors that help them stand out from the rest of your website.

4. Close the deal with optimized thank you pages.

If a call-to-action is the beginning of a conversion path, a thank you page marks its end. Thank you pages are the final item you need in your inbound toolkit to lead your website visitors down a conversion path to become, well, a lead.

Thank you pages are specialized website pages from which your now-leads can download the offer promised by your call-to-action and landing page. They’re also an opportunity to move people further along in the buyer’s journey, by including things like additional calls-to-action that complement the offer you’ve just provided your lead.

Improving the Mobile Conversion Path Experience

Designing for mobile is no longer optional, it’s a must. According to a 2020 report from Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA, formerly Groupe Spécial Mobile), nearly half the world’s population uses a mobile device to access the internet. By the end of 2019, 3.8 billion people were mobile internet users, an increase of 250 million users from the previous year.

With those numbers in mind, there’s a good chance visitors will access your website from their phone or tablet versus a desktop. If you want to create an effective conversion path, It’s imperative to consider the mobile user experience. Follow these steps to create a mobile conversion path that sets visitors up for success.

• Start with a responsive design: A responsive design adapts to both desktop and mobile devices by rendering the display differently based on screen size. Visitors won’t have to pinch or zoom in while browsing your website via mobile, which leads to a better user experience. Additionally, having a responsive design signals to Google that your site is mobile-friendly, which will help improve your rankings in search results for mobile users.
• Nix cluttered landing pages: When it comes to smaller screens, minimalism is a virtue. Having long-form, relevant content, images and video may translate well on desktop, but can be too busy for mobile devices. Avoid unnecessary text, images, and features that may make it difficult for visitors to find the information they’re looking for. Visitors can’t become leads if they can’t navigate your website. Consider the information most relevant to your audience, and leave out the rest.
• Keep CTAs to a minimum: As noted above, with smaller screens you’ll want to take extra care with how that real estate is allocated. Opt for one (or a few), clear call-to-action button as the main focus that your potential customers can easily find. Keep sign-up forms short, only asking for the information you absolutely need. Avoid burying the call-to-action at the bottom of the page after several paragraphs of text. In most cases, mobile users will not scroll down to the end of the page to see it.

As people become increasingly attached to their phones, taking the mobile user experience into account will improve your chances of converting more leads.

Conversion paths are invaluable in inbound marketing as they convert website visitors into leads. When done right, an effective conversion path can move leads beyond an initial conversion, ultimately turning them into customers.

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

There’s nothing worse than an ad that keeps popping up for something you’d never buy. About 39% of internet users agree, feeling that online ads aren’t relevant to them. So it’s no wonder that one in four people will leverage some sort of ad blocker in 2021.

An ad blocker is software that’s meant to improve a user’s online experience by removing or changing digital ads. It’s designed to make browsing simpler, so you don’t have a giant flashing ad taking up half the screen while you research customers and spy on a competitor’s latest product launch.

Still, digital advertising is on the rise.

Global digital ad spend is expected to exceed $455 billion this year, which means an increase in the number of banner, display, and news feed ads. This barrage is pushing more internet users toward ad blocking tools so they can shop and scroll in peace. To truly understand ad blocking statistics, it’s important to have a grasp on the digital ad landscape.

But how many people are actually using ad blockers? And what are their reasons for getting rid of ads? This list of ad blocking statistics will answer those questions and more.

Whether you’re looking for tips to attract customers or wondering how to boost clicks, you can find the stats you need to understand your audience and make your next campaign a hit.

Digital Advertising Statistics

1. Global digital ad spend is expected to exceed $455 billion this year. (Statista, 2021)

2. The internet is considered the most important medium for advertisers and accounts for 51% of total media ad spend in 2020. (Statista, 2021)

3. The average internet user spends six hours and 55 minutes on the internet each day. (Hootsuite, 2021)

4. Researching products and brands ranks 7th on the list of reasons why global internet users go online. (Hootsuite, 2021)

5. Digital advertising revenue is projected to grow by 15.4% in 2021. (Statista, 2021)

6. Global digital ad spend increased 12.7% ($43 billion) from 2019-2020. (Hootsuite, 2021)

7. In 2021, paid search ad spend increased 8.4% between Q1 and Q2. In the same timeframe, paid ad clicks decreased by 7.6%. (Hootsuite, 2021)

8. In a study about how advertising influences customer perception, 41% of respondents said that an ad placed around relevant content sparked a positive brand perception. (Statista, 2020)

9. 63% of internet users in the U.S. said they have a negative attitude towards ads in online videos, and about 47% of people said the same about website ads. (
Statista, 2021)

Source

10. In a 2020 survey conducted in the U.S., almost 50% of online users had a negative attitude toward website ads when asked how they felt about digital advertising. (Statista, 2021)

11. 35% of people feel marketing and advertising meets their needs. (Merkle, 2020)

Ad Blocker Stats to Know

12. Approximately one in four internet users will leverage some sort of ad blocker in 2021. (eMarketer, 2021)

13. In the last quarter of 2019, there were 763.5 million ad blocker users worldwide. (Statista, 2019)

14. 37.5% of global internet users block online advertising with an ad blocker tool. (Hootsuite, 2021)

15. About 26% of internet users in the U.S. blocked advertising on their devices in 2019, which meant one-quarter of paid advertising messages never reached their audiences. (Statista, 2019)

16. 20% of online sessions are blocked with an ad blocker tool. (AudienceProject, 2020)

17. More people are whitelisting websites in their ad blockers, allowing the ads to stay active. 54% of people in the U.S. whitelisted sites in 2020, up from 40% in 2018. (AudienceProject, 2020)

18. Most ad blocking happens on desktops and laptops, as it’s more difficult to block ads within smartphones apps. (eMarketer, 2019)

19. Ad blocker monetization strategies are on the rise. Acceptable Ads, software that turns ad blockers into ad filters to display relevant content, reached about 200 million users around the world in 2020. (Statista, 2021)

20. 56 of the top 100 U.S. publishers used at least one ad block monetization strategy. (Statista, 2019)

21. 47% of internet users in the U.S. used ad blockers on their desktops in 2020, down from 49% in 2017. (Statista, 2020)

Source 

Desktop ad block usage rate in the United States from 2017 to 2020

22. Over 44% of ad block users from the U.S. said they were more willing to support sites that are Better Ads-certified than sites that were not Better Ads-certified. (Statista, 2020)

23. By the end of 2020, there were approximately 586 million monthly active users of mobile ad blocking browsers worldwide. (Statista, 2020)

Reasons for Ad Blockers

24. The top reasons why internet users around the world use ad blockers: (Hootsuite, 2021)

• Over 61% of people say there are too many ads.
• Nearly 54% of people say ads get in the way.
• 40% of people want to stop any inappropriate content from popping up.
• 39% of people believe ads aren’t relevant to them.
• Over 38% of people block ads to protect their privacy.
• 33% of people use ad blockers to improve device performance.
• Nearly 27% of users block ads to prevent companies from collecting personal data.

Source

25. In the U.S., 44% of internet users say they use ad blockers because they don’t want their online behavior to be tracked. (Statista, 2021)

26. 71% of people use ad blockers because they find websites more manageable without banner ads (Statista, 2021)

27. 66% of internet users in the U.S. say that video ads that play automatically with sound are the most annoying ads, while 55% said the same about video ads without sound. (Statista, 2019)

Source

Most annoying types of digital ads according to internet users in the United States as of July 2019

Ad Blocker Demographic Stats

28. In a survey conducted on U.S. internet users, 33% of women respondents and 49% of male respondents were using an ad blocker by the end of 2020. (Statista, 2020)

29. 16.5% of global internet users aged 16-64 feel represented in the advertising they see. This drops to 10.6% for users in the U.S.. (Hootsuite, 2021)

30. Worldwide, 19.6% of men aged 25-34 years old feel represented in advertising — the highest of any group. But this group also is the most likely to use ad blocker tools, with 43% using some sort of ad blocking software. (Hootsuite, 2021)

31. 10% of men and women aged 55-64 years old feel represented in advertising—the lowest percentage of any age group — yet this group is the least likely to use tools to block online ads. (Hootsuite, 2021)

32. Approximately 73 million people in the U.S. had installed some form of ad blocker software, plugin, or brower by 2019. (Statista, 2019)

33. 60% of US adults aged 18-24 use desktop or laptop ad blockers, compared to 18% that block ads on smartphones. (eMarketer, 2021)

Source

34. China has the highest percentage of people using an ad blocker tool at 46%. Ghana has the least amount of people using ad blockers at almost 13%. (Hootsuite, 2021)

35. Nearly 30% of women aged 55-64 use ad blockers, the lowest percentage of any other age or gender group around the world. (Hootsuite, 2021)

36. Almost 44% of men aged 25-34 years old use ad blockers, the highest percentage of any other age or gender group. (Hootsuite, 2021)

37. 10% of people using ad blockers in the U.S. pay for the technology. (AudienceProject, 2020)

Source

38. 45% of internet users between the ages of 15 to 25 use an ad blocker. The same is true for 42% of respondents aged 26 and 33 years, as well as people aged 46 to 55 years. (Statista, 2021)

39. People with a higher income are more likely to feel like personalization is invasive and didn’t want to share their personal information, no matter the benefit they received. (Merkle, 2020)

40. 86% of internet users in the U.S. knew what ad blockers were when asked. (
Statista, 2020)

Apply Your Ad Blocker Knowledge

Ad blockers aren’t going anywhere, so it’s good to reference these ad blocker statistics as you set up your next campaign. With the right information on ad blocker usage, you can understand who’s most likely to click and how to best reach your audience.

Creating an email newsletter is one of the most effective ways to provide value to your customers, drive them to buy more products, and encourage them to keep engaging with your brand. Overall, newsletters are a staple in any high-performing email marketing strategy.

If you want to make sure you won’t miss any steps when making a newsletter, keep reading. We’ve pulled together a comprehensive checklist for anyone looking to send an email newsletter.

How to Create an Email Newsletter

When starting an email newsletter, you’re juggling a lot of balls in the air at once.

You have to worry about proofreading the copy, creating compelling calls-to-action, designing the email to work for multiple inboxes and devices, avoiding any spam triggers, and brainstorming clickable subject lines — all while staying within the confines of email law (yes, there is such a thing).

Oh, and if you mess up any part of your email, there’s no undoing it once you send it to your subscribers.

If you’re sending newsletters, bookmark the following steps in your browser, or print it out and hang it up next to you. You don’t want to miss out on these crucial steps.

Ready to get started? Here are the steps you should take to create the best email newsletter for your business or personal goals.

Step 1: Choose an email newsletter tool.

First things first: Choose an email newsletter tool that fits your budget, goals, and technical skills.

HubSpot offers one of the best email marketing tools you can use to send optimized, well-designed newsletters. It’s part of Marketing Hub, which is marketing automation software for small-to-enterprise businesses. The email newsletter tool is easy to learn to use — there’s virtually no learning curve, especially if you have experience using drag-and-drop page editors on a content management system.

Even if you’ve never touched a drag-and-drop editor before, HubSpot’s email marketing tool is intuitive to learn. And you can start for free. We highly recommend starting to build your newsletter using HubSpot’s free tool, and to illustrate, we’ll include screenshots as we progress from step to step.

Step 2: Figure out your newsletter’s goal.

Learn the types of newsletters you can send in our free email newsletter guide.

Before you start drafting a single word, make sure you’re fully aware of the newsletter’s goal and how it fits into your larger content strategy. (Have one in place? Skip to the next section.)

Is your newsletter supposed to drive more traffic to your blog? Help you generate leads? Get more email contacts? Send traffic to your website? Or promote new products and services? Figure out your goal and let the rest of your decisions flow from it.

You should also note some key performance indicators for each of these goals. Keep in mind that your KPIs should go beyond “how many people opened it.” Instead, it should be more closely tied to your overall business goals. Your email’s open rate can give you an indication of the newsletter’s performance, but it shouldn’t be the only number you care about each month. Here are some email marketing metrics to consider.

Step 3: Choose a template and gather your content.

Once you have a goal for your newsletter, it’s time to choose a template and find content for it. I’d recommend looking into pre-made templates if you’re not familiar with designing emails — it can save you a lot of heartache down the road. If you’re using HubSpot, you’ll have access to pre-made templates in the email tool.

Depending on how early you set your newsletter’s goal and how often you plan on sending this newsletter, you could be able to actively or passively find content in the time between two email sends. Active means you’re going on the hunt for content that’ll solve a specific goal. Passive means that you’ll randomly stumble on it when browsing for other content, but realize it could fit in nicely.

When I put together newsletters, I tended to do a lot of active searching … but I could’ve saved myself a lot of time if I were passive. Since I knew a newsletter needed to be sent each month, bookmarking links throughout the month would’ve been a great timesaver. Instead, I usually spent several hours clicking the “Back” button on my blog, hunting for content.

However you like to gather content is up to you, but great places to look for content are your company’s blog, social media accounts, lead-generation offers, internal newsletters, and training documents.

Featured Resource: Email Newsletter Lookbook

Need inspiration on what content to include in your newsletter? HubSpot’s Email Newsletter Lookbook highlights some of the best email newsletters across industries to help your email newsletter planning.

Step 4: Personalize your template.

A template is a great starting point, but now it’s time to personalize it. Using a template will give you an idea of how your newsletter will look before writing copy. That way, you’ll know exactly how much space you have to promote a piece of content — there are a few things more frustrating than trying to squeeze copy into too tight a space.

Your template doesn’t have to be flashy or anything. Even newsletters with minimal text and color formatting will look great. The design just needs to make it easy for your recipients to read, scan, and click elements of the email. This means it should be mobile-friendly, too. According to data from Litmus, 41.6% of people open their email on a mobile device — around 25% higher than email opens on desktop.

In Marketing Hub, you can begin adjusting your template by clicking into elements and editing the specifications on the left-hand panel. If you want to get some inspiration for great email newsletter design, check out this post.

Step 5: Set your email newsletter size.

Unfortunately, email newsletters don’t size themselves when you send them to subscribers. But because everyone opens their email on their device and email service of choice, how are you supposed to know what size or resolution they should be?

Most providers will default your email newsletter size to 600px wide, with email body padding another 30px wide on all sides. And when this happens, the content inside your newsletter might not survive the adjustment. Therefore, it’s important to ensure your newsletter design fits inside that universal 600px width.

What about height? Ultimately, your email can be as high (or, rather, as long) as you want it to be without the email client distorting its design. However, people are much less likely to click through to your website if the email goes on forever — and email clients with sensitive spam filters might take notice as well. As a general rule, try not to make your email recipients scroll for more than a second before reaching the end of it.

Step 6: Add in your body content.

Next up: filling in the template with words and pictures. This will be the meat of your email newsletter, so spend time perfecting it. Most people keep the copy short and sweet to encourage click-throughs, though some notable newsletter take the opposite approach. This post can help you with email newsletter copy if you need it. Be sure to add in some images if they can help support your copy.

Don’t forget to edit your email thoroughly — maybe even send it on to one of your teammates for a once-over. Remember, once you send the thing, you can’t fix those embarrassing typos like you can with web content.

Step 7: Add in personalization tokens and smart content.

The best email newsletters I get feel like they’ve been written personally for me — like a friend actually took the time to put together a newsletter with things only I would like. I open them, I click on them, I share them … pretty much every time.

If you want your newsletters to feel that personal, you should do three things:

• Segment your emails and choose content that only that group of people will love.
• Add in personalization tokens. If your marketing software supports personalization, this is a really easy thing to implement that could have big results for your conversion rates. That being said, only add in a few personalization tokens — you don’t want to creep out your email recipients. In Marketing Hub, you can add personalization tokens by clicking “Personalize” in the top navigation bar.
• Also add in smart content. This is content that shows one thing to one part of your audience and one thing to another. An example would be a smart CTA — your leads would see a CTA for talking to your sales reps and your customers would see one about getting tickets to a customer-only event. Neither audience would want to see the other audience’s CTA, so smart content will show only the right CTA to the right person.

Step 8: Choose your subject line and sender name.

Your audience may like different things, but we’ve found that having a sender name from a real person increased opens and click-throughs. Try running an A/B test to see if it works for you, too. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s something recognizable so recipients aren’t confused as to why they’re receiving your email.

Subject lines are a little trickier. Lots of things can help you put together a click-worthy subject line, including brevity and an immediately actionable value proposition. That being said, some really great marketing emails have been sent with the subject “Not Cool, Guys.” Use the subject line best practices as a jumping-off point, then run your own A/B tests to see what your audience loves.

Step 9: Support your newsletter content with alt text and plain text.

At this point, you’ll have the email pretty much ready to go. While going through the steps above, I’m guessing you forgot two absolutely crucial things (I know I forget them almost every time I make an email): the alt text and plain text.

Alt text is the text that appears when a picture isn’t loaded. Since not all email providers load images properly, you have to make sure the alt text is there so your recipients know what they’re looking at. If you’re including a CTA that’s an image, your conversion rates will definitely suffer without alt text.

Some email clients also won’t display HTML properly, which is why you need to make sure your emails look great in plain text. Make sure the links are easy to click and that it’s clear what the email is about without the photos.

Step 10: Make sure you’re legally compliant.

Before you hit “Send,” be sure that your emails are all good from a legal perspective. The two biggest laws you need to worry about? CAN-SPAM and GDPR.

• CAN-SPAM requires that you have a footer in your email with your address and an easy way to unsubscribe from your emails if they don’t want to receive them anymore.
• GDPR is a similar but more comprehensive privacy law that requires (among other things) that email marketers only send newsletters to those people who have manually opted in to receive them. In other words, wherever on your website you collect email subscribers, you cannot automatically check the “opt-in” box for them if these recipients live in Europe. They must deliberately check this box themselves.

Step 11: Test different browsers and email providers.

Email providers don’t all read email code the same way — what looks fine on Gmail in Chrome might look terrible in Outlook, for example. So you need to test out emails in the most popular browsers and email providers.

If you have HubSpot, you can test emails for different providers in the tool. If you don’t, create fake email accounts on different providers’ websites and test everything manually.

Step 12: Send your email.

The moment of truth! Having made sure all your email recipients have subscribed to receive this email, and your email has all the branding and legal compliance it’s worthy of, it’s time to click send. Then, wait for the data to roll in.

Step 13: Analyze and iterate.

Fast-forward a few days: The data’s in. How did your newsletter do? What do you do next?

Check to see how your email newsletter performed on the goals you set back in step one. See which parts of your email got the most clicks, and which parts of the newsletter contributed most to your goal. If you have closed-loop analytics, measuring this all will be pretty easy.

Once you have that data, you have a direction to go in for your next email newsletter send. Whether your next send is in a day, a week, a month, or a quarter, you’ll have insights to make the next newsletter even better.

Start Creating Your Email Newsletter

Email newsletters are a critical part of any scalable email marketing strategy. With the steps above, you’ll be sure to create a winning email newsletter that will help you convert more leads and grow your business.

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

The only constant in the world of marketing is that things are always changing.

And, if you’re a marketer, business leader, or entrepreneur aiming to plan an effective 2022 strategy that puts you far ahead of your competitors, you probably want to know:

• Which trends are marketers leveraging today? And, which do they plan to start leveraging in 2022?
• Which marketing channels are they using?
• What are the top content-marketing formats?
• What challenges are they facing?
• And, most importantly, what are their plans and expectations for 2022 and beyond?

As the HubSpot Blog’s Research Analyst, I launched our Marketing Industry Survey to help fellow bloggers and readers answer the questions above — and gain further industry insights into 2022 planning.

Our Survey Sample

We surveyed 1,067 global marketers from across B2B and B2C companies from small to large employee sizes. The sample included professionals at varying experience levels from seven countries: the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, France, and Japan.

Read on to learn about some of the most interesting key findings, get strategic recommendations based on our data, and find even more blog content that dives even deeper into our research.

Which trends are marketers already leveraging today?

Influencer marketing, mobile-friendly website design, short-form video, virtual events, and experiential marketing are the top trends marketers currently leverage.

These trends will see continued growth in 2022 as most marketers will increase their investment in them or continue investing the same amount.

Let’s dive into each trend and how marketers are thinking about them moving into the next year.

1. Influencer Marketing

While influencer marketing was once less accessible to small brands that couldn’t budget a high-priced celebrity or a top-tier social media user, the growth of social media has led to an abundance of influencers with nano to macro followings.

Now, as more businesses invest in influencer marketing, they’re beginning to see solid benefits. In our survey, Influencer marketing was the most popular and most effective trend with the biggest ROI.

By working with an influencer that’s gained trust, expertise, or notability in a specific industry, brands can gain awareness, traffic, and potentially conversions from that influencer’s audience.

2. Short-Form Video

As TikTok’s virality grew in 2020 and 2021, other social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube rushed to get into the short-form video game. And, as more platforms continue to shift to prioritizing quick, fast-paced content, so have marketers.

Our Marketing Strategy Survey results show that short-form video is popular, effective, and still growing, especially among social media marketers.

In fact, 30% of social media marketers plan to invest more in short-form video than any other social media marketing strategy in 2022. Meanwhile, 33% plan to leverage short-form video for the first time in 2022.

3. Virtual Events

Virtual events are popular, effective, and will continue to be a top trend marketers leverage in 2022.

However, 17% of marketers who leverage virtual events will decrease their investment in 2022, the second-highest decrease of any trend marketers invested in during 2021. Additionally, while 31% of marketers currently leverage virtual events, just 9% of marketers plan to leverage them for the first time in 2022.

If you have virtual events planned, don’t let this research panic you. Virtual events are still the third most prominent trend marketers will invest in throughout the next year.

Additionally, the decreases noted above could signal a natural transition from virtual to hybrid or physical events as more public venues fully re-open in the next year. As an event marketer, it will be important to weigh all of your options and local mandates to determine which event type will be most effective and comfortable for your audience in the coming year.

Which trends do marketers plan to leverage for the first time in 2022?

Short-form video, social responsibility, and inbound marketing are the top trends marketers plan to leverage for the first time in 2022.

While I explained some of the appeals to short-form videos above, here’s a quick snippet about the other two trends.  

Brands Will Take More Social Responsibility

In 2020 and 2021, consumers paid more attention than ever to how companies treated their customers, audiences, employees, and the world around them. And, many companies used this time to take a stance on their values. As these brands took on more social responsibility, they found that current or new audiences shared their values and gained trust, credibility, memorability, and awareness from those consumers.

Moving into 2022, more marketers are recognizing the importance of social responsibility. Investment in social responsibility will continue to grow from those already leveraging it and from marketers using it for the first time.

Digital Transformation Will Boost Inbound Marketing Use

As we move into 2022, consumers will be more connected to the web and digital platforms than ever. And, outbound strategies have gotten even more out of date.

To meet customers and audiences where they are, 23% of marketers will leverage inbound marketing for the first time.

To read more about short-form content, social responsibility, and other key trends analyzed in this survey, check out these posts:

• The Marketing Trends of 2022: The Ultimate Guide
• The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2022

Which marketing channels are businesses leveraging?

The top channels marketers currently use are social media, website/blog, and email marketing.

1. Social Media

Social media is the most popular and most effective marketing channel, with the highest ROI.

The use of social media will continue to grow, with 39% of those who don’t use social media planning to leverage it for the first time in 2022.

Additionally, 26% of marketers plan to invest more in social media than any other channel in 2022

In 2022, 51% of marketers who leverage social media plan to increase their investment in social media marketing, and 37% will continue investing the same amount.

The Top Social Media Platforms

1. Instagram

Instagram is the most popular social platform, just ahead of YouTube and Facebook.

However, Facebook has the biggest ROI of any platform, and 25% of social media marketers say they will invest more in it than any other platform in 2022.

2. YouTube

YouTube is No. 2 in terms of usage, but ROI lags behind Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Still, expect to see the platform continue to see marketing growth as brands continue to leverage it for its ginormous audience and growing brand opportunities.

3. TikTok

While TikTok is the No. 6 platform in terms of usage by social media marketers, 62% of those who leverage it plan to increase their investment in 2022, the highest of any social platform.

The Top Marketing Content Formats

Video content, blogs, images, and infographics are the top media formats.

1. Videos

Video leads across the board as the most popular and effective format with the highest ROI, and 30% of content marketers plan to invest in video more than any other format in 2022.

2. Blogs

Blogs are popular, effective, and have the 3rd highest ROI of any format.

The use of blogs will continue growing in 2022, with 29% of content marketers planning to leverage blogs for the first time and 10% planning to invest more in blogs than any other format.

3. Infographics.

Adoption of infographics will continue growing as 45% of content marketers currently leverage them and 38% plan to leverage them for the first time in 2022.

Additionally, 56% of content marketers who leverage infographics say it is the most effective content format they use.

4. Podcasts and Audio Content

Only one in three content marketers use podcasts or other audio content. While 51% of those who do plan to invest more in 2022, 43% plan to continue investing the same amount 

Despite low ROI reports, 53% of content marketers who leverage podcasts and other audio content say it is the most effective format they use.

5. Audio Chat Rooms

Just 14% of social media marketers leverage audio chat rooms like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, but 68% of those who do say it’s the most effective social media strategy they use, despite low ROI.

Additionally, 49% of those who already use audio chat rooms plan to increase their investment in 2022, while 47% plan to maintain their current investment next year.

More Insights From the HubSpot Blog

Has this data inspired you to build out or refine your marketing strategy in 2022? Be sure to keep following the HubSpot Blog’s data-driven content to dive deeper into current and emerging industry trends.

Next, check out this post where I give 11 recommendations for marketers based on the data above, plus survey findings that didn’t make it into this post. 

Below are a few blog posts that further break down the findings of our Marketing Industry Trends survey. We’ll continue to update this list as we publish more articles, so be sure to bookmark this page!

More Marketing Industry Trend Insights
The Marketing Trends of 2022: The Ultimate Guide	The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2022 [HubSpot Blog Data]
6 Short-Form Video Trends Marketers Need to Watch in 2022	11 Marketing Recommendations for 2022 [Based on HubSpot Blog Data]

To have winning marketing campaigns and content, you need to understand the analytics behind your strategies.

Content marketing analytics look at the metrics your team cares about most to provide insight on the health of your current strategies, progress towards goals, campaign success, and more.

 

Content Marketing Analytics

There are a number of marketing analytics tools available with customizable metrics, a variety of visualizations and dashboards, and integrations to help you measure the impact of your marketing strategy.

Let’s dive into your best options.

1. HubSpot Marketing Analytics and Dashboard Software

Source

Best content marketing analytics tool for: Measuring the performance of all your marketing campaigns and combining resulting data with your marketing software and CRM platform.

HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics and Dashboard Software makes it easy to access all data and insights from a single location in seconds.

Trigger and/or schedule touchpoints, track custom interactions that are unique to your business, and indicate when a customer is ready for another stage of the buyer’s journey with behavioral events.

Use attribution reporting to connect every customer interaction to an associated record and revenue generated. Pre-built and customizable dashboards, templates — as well as Custom Objects — visualize your data in a format that works for your team so you can easily apply it to segments, campaigns, workflows, and more.

Price

There are four Marketing Hub plans with different analytics features and flexibility ranging price from free (forever) to $3,200 per month.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics and Dashboard software to measure the performance of your marketing campaigns in one place with built-in analytics, reports, and dashboards.

2. Buffer

Source

Best content marketing analytics tool for: Understanding channel performance in detail with customizable reports.

Buffer’s content marketing analytics offers the option to build reports according to your goals. Add or remove custom metrics about the performance of numerous social media accounts. You can export those reports to share them easily.

Reports are updated daily so you can be sure you’re receiving timely data. Buffer’s analytics are designed to help you see channel performance at a detailed level on one dashboard.

The software also offers engagement metrics for each account individually. This helps you gain an intricate understanding of how customers are interacting with social content. Measure stories, posts, and hashtag performance as well as access the demographics of your audience across channels.

Price

Buffer’s Marketing Analytics product, Analyze, has two payment options with different features and flexibility that cost $35 per month or $50 per month.

3. Google Analytics

Source

Best content marketing analytics tool for: Integrating content marketing analytics seamlessly with your other Google business tools and making data-driven content marketing strategy decisions.

Google Analytics’ intuitive interface is easy to navigate and can be used to understand the performance of your content across multiple platforms. You can also choose to analyze your content marketing efforts across all of your web pages or on an individual page level.

To understand how your content marketing strategy is doing, Google Analytics offers metrics for traffic, navigation, conversion, and organic search. The tool allows you to track user-level interactions to provide insight into the ways your audience is engaging with your content.

This analytics tool also integrates with all of Google’s other business software so you can access all of your data and insights in one place.

Price

Google Analytics offers a free and a paid plan. The free plan is ideal for SMBs and you can get started using it immediately. Meanwhile, the paid plan, called Analytics 360, is ideal for enterprise-level companies and requires you to speak with a sales rep for a quote.

4. SimilarWeb

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Understanding where your website and content strategy stand in comparison to industry standards.

SimilarWeb provides traffic and engagement industry standards and tells you where your website stands among them. This information is useful for discovering how performance stacks up against the competition.

With SimilarWeb, break down your daily active users, sessions per user, use-time, and rank. Discover more information about your audience — such as repetitive behaviors or interests — to improve your acquisition strategy.

Price

SimilarWeb offers two plans, one of which is free and another that’s meant for enterprise businesses and requires you to contact a rep for a consultation.

5. Moz

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Measuring your SEO content strategy and determining which keywords you should be using.

Moz measures the impact of your search-engine-optimized content. Gain insight into how your work is ranking among others in your industry and which keywords are the most effective to use in your strategy.

Moz’s software tracks your site’s keyword rank and how visible it is over time to learn what is and isn’t performing well among audiences.

Additionally, track how competitors rank on search engine results pages (SERPS) — this allows you to spot areas for improvement and the parts of your campaign you can use to target them. To help with this, use Moz’s detailed reports to see how your content is reaching audiences and what you can do to improve.

Price

There are two main Moz solutions, Local and Pro. Both Local and Pro have different plans ranging in features, flexibility, and price. Local ranges in price from $129-299 while Pro ranges in price from $99-599 per month.

6. Hotjar

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Tracking and visualizing sessions on your website with heat maps.

Use Hotjar to track sessions on your site. Hotjar provides heat maps about how and where customers spend their time while on your website.

Hotjar’s real-time videos capture how your visitors are navigating and using your website. This allows you to hone in on the content that’s catching your customer’s eye. You can also track conversions and make inferences about which stage of the buyer’s journey customers might be entering or leaving.

Price

Hotjar offers three types of plans. There are two options for those who want a Personal plan that is either free or $39 per month. These options are ideal for personal and low-traffic websites.

The Business plans range in price from $99-$989 per month depending on the number of sessions per day you receive. Lastly, the Agency plan requires you to contact a rep to chat about a plan for your team and clients.

7. Semrush

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Tracking SEO and keyword performance across your web pages and content strategy.

Semrush is used for search engine optimization (SEO) tracking and helps you track keyword performance in your content as well as monitor brand mentions cross-platform.

Additionally, the tool tracks Google rankings and which of your web pages receive the most traffic. This is helpful because discovering what drives visitors to your site allows you to adjust the content you’re presenting accordingly.

Price

Semrush offers three plans that range in price from $119 to $449 per month.

8. Quintly

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Improving social planning by analyzing the success of your social media marketing strategy with customizable metrics.

Quintly provides you with the insight necessary to analyze your content marketing campaigns. It helps you make smarter decisions when it comes to social planning by equipping you with customizable metrics so you can better understand how your marketing strategy is working.

Quintly does a deep dive into all of your accounts to uncover metrics that matter to your teams and goals, and you can sort and share reports by team so everyone gets the information they need.

Reports can also be automated and measured by impact using Quintly’s machine learning system. Users can access the API, integrate with popular software like Google Search, and overcome data silos.

Price

Quintly’s custom plans start at $300 per month.

9. BuzzSumo

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Visualizing and analyzing real-time marketing trends to tailor content to your target audience.

View and analyze marketing trends in real-time with BuzzSumo by topic so you’re able to create content that’s likely to be relevant to your audience. Trends can also be filtered by location — this way, you’ll have an understanding of what’s popular by region.

BuzzSumo lets you customize your feed so you can get the data that matters most to you. Identify relevant keywords to include in your campaigns, access examples of content proven to be successful on BuzzSumo’s site, and use the data you obtain through the tool to discover how you can drive the most traffic to your marketing content.

Price

BuzzSumo offers four plans that range in price from $99 to $499+ per month.

10. Kissmetrics

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Discovering how your audience interacts with your website and apps and understanding their behaviors.

Kissmetrics allows you to spot a customer’s journey across multiple devices, analyze their behavior on your website, and review conversion metrics (e.g. bounce rate and time-on-site).

Kissmetrics focuses on behavioral analytics which is helpful if you want to learn about how customers react to and interact with your content. This will also provide insight into what’s most valuable to users and how to keep visitors coming back.

Price

Request a Kissmetrics demo or check out the payment plans for their two main products, one of which is meant for SaaS and one for ecommerce.

The SaaS plan comes with three payment options — those plans are $299, $499, or a custom price (based on your custom plan). Ecommerce also has three plans that cost $299, $499, or a custom price (based on your custom plan).

11. Databox

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Combining all of your marketing data to track and understand the success of your strategy in a single location and in real-time.

Databox is a business analytics and KPI dashboard platform that offers insight into the state of your business. The tool organizes all of your business data — from any source — into a single location for accessible performance tracking.

Over 70 available integrations make the process of bringing your data into the tool — as well as displaying, analyzing, and sharing it — simple.

The Goal Tracking feature allows you to track progress towards your targets by assigning and focusing on SMART goals within the tool.

Scorecards are a feature that notifies you (daily, weekly or monthly) of any updates to your KPIs. There are also other alerts you can receive the moment your data is looking off so you can efficiently resolve the issue before it gets worse.

Price

Databox offers a regular version of their product and an Agency edition. The regular version costs anywhere from free to $248 per month. As for the Agency version of Databox, there’s a free plan but if you need more flexibility, contact a rep for billing details.

12. Supermetrics

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Taking marketing data from any source and moving it into Google Sheets, Google Data Studio, Microsoft Excel, Google BigQuery, or Snowflake for analysis.

Supermetrics is a business analytics tool that you can use to pull marketing data (e.g. SEO, PPC, social media, and web analytics data) from any source and move it into Google Sheets, Google Data Studio, Microsoft Excel, Google BigQuery, or Snowflake. Use Supermetrics as a reporting, analytics, and data storage tool.

Bring your favorite metrics and dimensions into Supermetrics. Then, organize and filter your data within Supermetrics to analyze the success of your efforts and identify areas for improvement.

Price

Supermetrics offers multiple plans for all seven of their products, some of which require you to contact a rep and some of which list pricing on their unique web page.

13. Demand Sage

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Moving all of your HubSpot data into Google Sheets for easy analysis in your platform of choice.

Demand Sage is a tool used to bring all of your HubSpot data into Google Sheets. There are one-click, customizable reports to help you understand your marketing and sales success and which areas to focus your efforts. Demand Sage offers one-click data sync and one-click, flexible reports.

Within your spreadsheet, create granular, record-level reports and use the table builder to display your data with any view you’d like.

Additionally, attribution and revenue reporting connects marketing and sales data in your reports for greater internal alignment and insight into how your pipeline is working as well as what’s driving revenue.

Price

Demand Sage is free.

14. Grow.com

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Importing and transforming business data from a variety of sources and then combining that data on custom dashboards.

Grow.com is a business intelligence platform that allows you to import and transform your business’s data from a number of sources and create dashboards with the metrics that matter to you.

Once your data is imported into the platform, it keeps your most relevant data at your fingertips. Build custom metrics, bring disparate data sources together, and select from a number of chart types to visualize your data however you want to. You can also easily share metrics and dashboards with team members to ensure everyone knows where to focus their efforts.

Price

Get a free Grow.com demo and talk to a rep about the price of the right plan for your business.

15. Plecto

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Keeping your team on top of goals and targets with dashboard data visualization software.

Plecto is a dashboard data visualization platform ideal for discovering real-time insights from an unlimited number of sources you pull your data from. Filter across the sources you integrate with Plecto and display data on your dashboards with different variables as needed.

Display data with pre-built KPI dashboards in Plecto or customize your own. There are also gamification features to increase employee engagement and motivation as well as keep team members focused on their goals.

Price

Plecto offers three payment options depending on which plan you choose ranging from $200 per month, $350 per month, or a custom price (based on your Enterprise plan).

16. Adverity

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Best content marketing analytics tool for: Automating data integration across hundreds of sources.

Adverity is an intelligent marketing data analytics platform ideal for data-driven marketing. The tool automates data integration from hundreds of sources to give you a single view of marketing performance.

Adverity makes it easy to remove any data silos you may have and provide easy access to centrally-located marketing data so your team members can identify and analyze the information they need.

Adverity comes with augmented analytics, meaning it uses AI to identify trends, areas for improvement, strengths, and new insights in your data. It also automates the process of creating marketing reports and data visualizations to save you time.

Price

Contact Adverity to get a custom quote on the right plan for your business.

Performance Content

When measuring the performance of your content, you’ll need to 1) decide which performance indicators you’re going to measure, 2) track those metrics and KPIs, and 3) analyze and apply your findings. 

But first, what is performance content? 

Performance content is content that you create and optimize with a specific business goal in mind (e.g. increasing user sign ups on a web page or your Blog).

Content Performance Indicators 

Here are some common website metrics and KPIs you might choose to track in order to analyze the success of your content. 

1. Web Traffic

The amount of traffic you get on your website and individual pages.

2. Page Views

The number of page views a web page gets from visitors. 

3. Impressions

The number of times an ad or web page is displayed to an individual.

4. Sessions

A group of actions an individual website visitor takes while on a website during a specific amount of time. 

5. Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who come to your website but don’t convert in any way — rather, they leave, or bounce, from your site before taking action. 

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Keyword and search engine results page (SERP) success and performance. 

7. Engagement

The number of interactions that your visitors have with your content (e.g. comments, shares, likes, forwards, subscriptions) and how long engagement lasts across those channels and web pages. 

8. Social Media Engagement and Interactions

Depending on your social media platforms, there will be specific metrics related to engagement and interactions on a post and/or piece of content that you can analyze (views, shares, comments, likes, etc). 

9. Lead Generation and Conversions

The number of acquired leads, conversions, and sales that result from your content (e.g. email sign ups, blog subscriptions, CTA clicks, downloads, product purchase.)

11. Brand Awareness

The way your target audience learns about your brand and becomes aware of your products, mission, and what it is you do.

This can mean taking a look at other metrics on this list such as page views, social media engagement (or simply using the process of social listening), downloads, video views, referrals, and resource/ document reads or shares. 

12. Customer Loyalty

The amount of content that your current customers consume and/or engage with (e.g. if a current customer is a blog subscriber who receives articles in their email inbox weekly). 

13. Upsell/ Cross-sell

Sales for new, additional, or upgraded products that you offer. 

Apply Content Marketing Analytics to Grow Better

Content marketing analytics tools have the power to help your team understand the health of your strategy, audience behaviors and interactions, progress to goal, and more.

As a result, you’ll have the information you need to improve the customer experience, resonate with your audience through your content, and increase conversions.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Advertising is changing — in 2021, companies are on track to spend more than $450 billion dollars on digital advertising.

The challenge? Massive variety in the digital advertising market — from differing platforms and ad types to target audiences — can frustrate efforts to capture customer interest and drive ROI.

How do you choose the right medium to promote your platform? What metrics matter? And once you decide, how do you actually make the ad?

Our comprehensive ad-making guide has you covered. Let’s go.

Featured Resource: Advertising Planning Templates & Kit

To make your advertising planning easier, use HubSpot’s free Advertising Planning Kit. Included are templates to help you plan and present your ad pitch, schedule your release dates, and inform your stakeholders. We’ve also thrown in an advertising best practices guide to help you choose the advertising method that works best for your business.

1. Choose Your Target Audience

When making an ad, you’ll first need to decide the audience you’re making the ad for. Target the right market and you’ll find customers naturally inclined to engage with your brand and product. Cast too wide a net and you may find yourself lost in the digital noise.

One way to help your ad find the right audience is to get granular on whom you want to target with your messaging, which will help you incorporate the best messaging and select the best advertising platform. This should be based off of your buyer personas — semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

If you need help building your personas, try using HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool.

2. Conduct Marketing Research

Market research is an essential part of campaign promotion. Feeding into your buyer personas, market research can answer key questions about your target market, such as:

• How old are they?
• What do they spend most of their time doing?
• What social media platforms do they use, if any?
• Do they live in suburban, urban, or rural areas?

Knowing the above information about your target audience can help you answer questions like — TV or YouTube? Instagram or LinkedIn? Billboard or bus? — because you’ll understand more about how to appeal to the right people.

You can use this Market Research Guide and Set of Templates to get started on market research for your ad.

3. Choose Your Platform

Your market research should give you the insight and confidence you need to choose the most effective platform to reach your target audience. You should also do some supplemental research on the costs, ROI, and benefits of certain ad platforms and methods.

You may come to the realization that using multiple ad platforms and methods would be the right move for your campaign – such as social media and search engine ads. This is actually a great strategy, as it casts a wider net and opens up the possibility of reaching even more prospects where they already are.

4. Decide on a Budget

For advertising, you need to spend money to make money.

Getting your budget approved can be difficult, so make it easier to get what you need by clearly outlining:

• The total budget you need
• How the costs are broken down
• A projected ROI (or business impact)

Be sure to come to any budget meeting prepared to answer whatever questions could be thrown at you and to defend the specifics.

For instance, saying “We need $10,000 to run a Google Ads campaign” doesn’t sound nearly as compelling as “We’d like to run a series of ads on Google. Here’s a list of our keywords and negative keywords, their monthly search volume, and our preliminary bids for each. With these projections, we’re expecting to bring in 400 new contacts next month for a total cost of $10,000.”

5. Craft a Message

By this point, you know your target audience and your preferred platform, but you’re still not sure what you’re saying. Here’s where you’ll want to think about the broad purpose of your campaign to inspire your ad.

Do you want people to come to your store, or visit your website? Is your immediate goal to drive free signups for your software, or ebook downloads? Think about the message and how that can feed into the end goal(s) of your ad campaign.

6. Get People Talking

While your message needs to include your brand purpose and tie in with long-term marketing goals, it also needs to be something people remember.

Here’s why: As more advertising shifts to social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and even Twitter, brand marketing needs to get to the point ASAP to drive customer interest and social sharing. If your message — whether it’s text, images, or videos — can make users stop, look and share with their connections, you’ve got a much better chance of creating organic interaction and driving more traffic to your site.

7. Decide What You’re Building

Ads can build brand awareness and product awareness — but not simultaneously. As a result, it’s worth taking the time to think about your advertising goals for new marketing campaigns.

For example, if brand awareness is the goal, you may want to consider a set of ads that tell a story or help customers learn more about what makes your brand unique. Here, the goal is to engage with customers over a longer period of time to help them engage with your brand from the first time they see your ad to eventual conversion. Ideally, your brand story will help create a long-term, reciprocal customer relationship.

Product awareness ads, meanwhile, are designed to highlight new products or services, call out seasonal specials or help drive specific action from customers. They’re often one-off or a short series of ads that run over a small period of time.

8. Include a CTA

While building awareness is critical for ads to be effective, it’s not enough in isolation.

That’s why all your ads also need a call-to-action (CTA) that provides information for consumers on what to do next. In some cases — such as an ad on your webpage — the CTA may be simple and direct, such as “sign up for our newsletter” or “click here to buy now.”

If you’re advertising on social sites, meanwhile, reaching for an immediate sale or asking for user contact data may actually drive customers away. Here, your CTA needs to be more subtle but no less clear. For example, you might opt for “click here to learn more” or “explore what we have to offer.” In practice, the goal is to avoid presuming what users want — instead, your CTA provides a path to more information if they’re interested. And if you’ve crafted a great ad, they will be.

9. Don’t Forget the Details

They’re small things — the smallest, in some cases — but can have significant impacts for your ad campaign: The details.

Consider an advertisement for a concert or event that your company is hosting. You’ve done the work: Identified the right market, crafted a great message, and created a CTA that will drive customer action.

But…

You’ve forgotten the details. Your ad doesn’t mention where or when the event is happening. Sure, customers could click through and see the specifics on your website, but there’s no guarantee they’ll take this step. Put simply, when it comes to creating a great ad, you have to account for the forest and the trees: You need big-picture advertisements that are visually compelling, content-rich and engaging, but it’s just as critical to double-check that you’re not missing the details.

10. Create Test Ads

Before launching your ad campaign, it’s worth trying your hand at making an advertisement for your brand. Here’s why: Not all ad designs look as great on the screen as they do in your head. By creating basic mock-ups, you can see what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to improve.

One of the most popular options for simple ad creation is Adobe Photoshop. Not sure where to start? Here’s a quick look at how to make an ad in Photoshop.

How to Make an Ad on Photoshop

Let’s say you want to create a Facebook ad on Photoshop. Follow these steps:

• Create a new document in Photoshop.

Open Photoshop, select “File,” and then click “New” from the drop-down menu. You’ll see the screen above. Here, you can select the size of your new ad, along with the color profile you want to use.

• Insert your image.

Next, you’ll want to insert an image to work with. Simply drag-and-drop the image of your choice into the Photoshop workspace and you’re ready to go.

• Add some text.

Next, add some text to your image by selecting the “T” button in the bottom left-hand corner. You can choose vertical or horizontal text, depending on what works best for your image.

• Add a CTA.

Once you’re happy with your text placement, consider adding a CTA. Select one of the shape tools from the left-hand side menu and insert that into your image. Resize as needed, then head back to the text tool and insert your CTA.

• Consider the 20% rule.

Facebook used to have a hard-and-fast 20% rule that stated no more than 20% of your image could contain text. While this is now a strong suggestion rather than an absolute rule, it’s worth keeping your text to a minimum since Facebook rates ads based on their text volume — the more text you have, the lower your chances of getting seen.

• Save your file.

Finally, save your new ad. Head to “File”, then “Save As,” and then “Format.” It’s worth saving it as both a Photoshop document (.psd) and a .png file, which makes uploading to Facebook easier.

11. Develop Creative Assets

Whether it’s copy for a Google Ad or a flashy landing page from your in-house designers, all ads need creative assets. Chances are, most of the ads you run will need one or more of the following:

• Short, promotional copy (for image ads and online ads)
• Long-form copy (for video scripts)
• Photographs (for online ads)
• Custom-designed images and/or animations (for online ads and video ads)
• Video (for…video ads)
• GIFs (for online ads)

All of these assets can be overwhelming, and if you’re thinking “I’m not a videographer/writer/designer/photographer!”, that’s totally fine. If these resources aren’t available to you in-house to help make your ad, consider hiring a team of freelancers or an agency to help you produce these deliverables and make an outstanding advertisement, or use an online marketing design tool like Canva to help streamline the process.

12. Determine Measurements of Success and Set Up Tracking

No matter if your ultimate goal is Page Likes, online purchases, or promo code uses, you should never launch an ad without first being crystal clear on two questions:

• What do we want to see in order to call this ad successful?
• How are we measuring success?

You already thought of your advertisement’s goal in Step 7, so now, make the expectations of your campaign known by setting up the proper ad tracking.

If you’re advertising online, there’s a good chance the platform you’re using — like Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn — has an ad management and tracking platform, allowing you to see how many interactions your ads have had and how much they cost.

However, you’ll also want to take a few extra steps to aid in your analysis down the line:

• Use an automated free ad tracking platform to measure advertising ROI and see how your ads tie into larger marketing projects and campaigns. You can also use this platform to compare ads from different sites; say, if you were running ads on both Instagram and Twitter.
• Set up a custom tracking spreadsheet offline to measure engagements with your ad and other data points like cost, conversion, and advertising ROI, especially if your ad is online.
• Use custom tracking tokens for links promoted in your ad so that you can analyze engagement and conversions on your own website.

13. Launch Your Ad

The stage is set, and you can finally launch your ad for the world to see.

Needless to say, the process of launching an ad on Google is different than on Bing. The same can be said for every social media channel, TV ads, or transportation ads.

Here’s a list of the more detailed, step-by-step process for launching an ad on some of these platforms. Click through to learn more about the platform or platforms that you’re creating an ad for:

• How to Launch a Facebook Ad
• How to Launch a LinkedIn Ad
• How to Launch an Instagram Ad
• How to Launch a Twitter Ad
• How to Launch a YouTube Ad
• How to Launch a Google Ad
• How to Launch a TV Ad
• How to Launch a Billboard Ad

14. Track & Analyze Performance

For campaigns that have a set run time (transportation, television, etc.), determine how the ad’s results performed against expectations. Since it’s difficult to draw a one-to-one comparison for these ad types, you may want to look at general business trends, change in revenue, or even social media/press mentions to gauge success.

For online ads, this process is a bit easier. Results start coming in immediately, so you can see how well your ads are performing instantly, and over time. Take note of the ads that are bringing in high numbers at low costs and — just as importantly — ads that are costing a lot but not performing that well.

Remember, you can take the headache out of the manual ad tracking with a free online ads tracking tool.

15. Make Changes, Rinse, and Repeat

Once your ad campaign is over (or if it’s an ongoing online campaign), take your learnings and apply them to your next advertisement.

For instance, maybe you realized your online ads that were wordier performed worse than ads that were more concise, or that YouTube just didn’t work this time around. Lean into what worked (or is working) and abandon what’s not to continue to strengthen your company’s advertising program.

It All Ads Up

And there you have it — our comprehensive guide to planning, creating, launching, and analyzing your new ad.

Looking to streamline the process? Use an advertising planning template to outline your ad campaign, keep all contributors informed, and rally behind the same end goal for your business.

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

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

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

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

Advertising on Snapchat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

42 Agency: A Snapchat Case Study

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

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

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

Overall here are the campaign stats:

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

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

Should You Advertise On Snapchat? A Final Verdict

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 Data-Backed Marketing Recommendations for 2022

1. Produce short-form videos.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Partner with influencers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Leverage audio for engagement rather than ROI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Go live.

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

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

6. Use marketing automation software to streamline strategies.

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

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

7. Champion social responsibility.

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

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

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

8. Use an omnichannel approach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. Focus on building hybrid strategies.

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

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

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

11. Make the most of your marketing budget.

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

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

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

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

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

Want more recommendations?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Short Life of Twitter Fleets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alternatives to Twitter Fleets

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

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

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

The past two years have been anything but consistent.

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

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

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

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

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

What is employee turnover?

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

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

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

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

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

Employee Turnover Rates in 2020 (By Industry)

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

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

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

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

Average Employee Turnover Rates

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

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

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

Cost of Employee Turnover

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is turnover so high?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HubSpot Blog Research

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

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

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

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

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

How to Reduce Employee Turnover

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

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

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

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

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

2. Prioritize your employees’ well-being.

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

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

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

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

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

3. Foster a sense of belonging.

If you want to reduce turnover, take belongingness seriously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Offer competitive pay and benefits.

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

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

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

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

6. Provide professional development opportunities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Be thoughtful and strategic when hiring new candidates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Develop an inclusive culture for distributed teams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is Good Global Marketing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Red Bull

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

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

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

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

How to Imitate Red Bull’s Strategy

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

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

2. Airbnb

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

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

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

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

How to Imitate Airbnb’s Strategy

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

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

3. Dunkin Donuts

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

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

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

How to Imitate Dunkin Donut’s Strategy

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

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

4. Domino’s

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

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

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

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

How to Imitate Domino’s Strategy

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

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

5. Rezdy

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

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

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

How to Imitate Rezdy’s Strategy

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

6. World Wildlife Fund

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

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

How to Imitate WWF’s Strategy

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

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

7. Pearse Trust

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

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

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

How to Imitate Pearse Trust’s Strategy

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

8. Nike

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

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

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

How to Imitate Nike’s Strategy

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

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

9. McDonald’s

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

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

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And added McSpaghetti to its menu in the Philippines:

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

How to Imitate McDonald’s Strategy

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

10. Innocent Drinks

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

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

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

How to Imitate Innocent Drink’s Strategy

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

11. Traffic Ticket Clinic

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

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

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

How to Imitate Traffic Ticket Clinic’s Strategy

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

12. Coca-Cola

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

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

How to Imitate Coca-Cola’s Strategy

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

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

13. Spotify

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

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

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

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

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

How to Imitate Spotify’s Strategy

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

Start Global Marketing in Small Steps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is management by objectives?

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

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What is the purpose of management by objectives?

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

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

Management by Objectives Advantages and Disadvantages

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

Advantages of Management by Objectives

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

The Disadvantages of Management by Objectives

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

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

How To Incorporate Management by Objectives Into Your Organization

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

Management by Objectives Steps

Define Your Goals

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

Create and Communicate Employee Goals

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

Monitor Their Performance and Progress

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

Assess Their Performance

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

Provide Feedback

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

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

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

Management by Objectives Examples

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

Sales MBO examples

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

Marketing MBO Examples

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

Customer Service BMO Examples

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

Human Resources MBO Examples

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is a Career Objective?

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

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

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

How to Write a Career Objective

1. Understand the job description.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Know your value.

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

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

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

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

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

3. Keep it concise.

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

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

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

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

How to Write an Objective for a Career Change

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

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

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

Career Objective Examples

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

Lifecycle Marketing Manager

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

Communications Specialist

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

Senior Brand Strategist

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

Communications Manager

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

Director of Content Marketing and Strategy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is competitive market research?

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

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

Competitive Analysis in Marketing

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

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

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

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

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

Featured Resource: 10 Competitive Analysis Templates

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1. Determine who your competitors are.

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

So how can you do this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Determine what products your competitors offer.

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

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

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

Some questions to consider include:

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

3. Research your competitors’ sales tactics and results.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Ensure you’re meeting competitive shipping costs.

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

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

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

6. Analyze how your competitors market their products.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Learn what technology stack your competitors’ use.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. Observe how they promote their marketing content.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some questions to get you started include:

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

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

 

Competitive Product Analysis

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

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

Step 1: Assess your current product pricing.

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

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

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

Step 2: Compare key features

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

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

Step 3: Pinpoint differentiators

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

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

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

Step 4: Identify market gaps

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

Competitive Analysis Example

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

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

Sony vs. Nintendo: Not all fun and games

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

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

1. Determine who your competitors are.

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

2. Determine what products your competitors offer.

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

3. Research your competitors’ sales tactics and results.

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Analyze how your competitors market their products.

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

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

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

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

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

Competitive Analysis Templates

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

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

Download Free Templates

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

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

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

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

How Does Your Business Stack Up?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do exit intent pop ups work?

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

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

What about exit intent pop ups on mobile sites?

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

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

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

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

How to Implement Exit Intent Pop Ups

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

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

Exit Intent Pop Up Software: HubSpot Exit Intent Forms

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

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

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

With HubSpot, you can also:

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

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

Why would you use an exit intent pop up?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exit Intent Popup Examples

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

Best Exit Intent Pop Up Examples

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

1. Cart Abandonment Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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

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

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

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

2. Email/ Newsletter Subscription Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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

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

3. Discount on Purchase Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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

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

4. Exclusive Offer Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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

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

5. Resource Offer Exit Intent Pop Up Example

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

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

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

Other Ideas for Exit Intent Pop Ups

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

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

Increase Conversions With Exit Intent Pop Ups

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