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If you feel like the app TikTok came out of nowhere, you’re not wrong.

Since launching in early 2018, TikTok’s been covered by seemingly every major news publication and racked up millions of downloads globally.

Despite TikTok’s major early success, the app still feels like a bit of a mystery, especially to marketers. In fact, until recently, its parent company, ByteDance, hasn’t disclosed many metrics at all.

In TikTok’s first year, all we really knew was that an odd-ball video app was going viral, topping global app store charts, and gaining a huge fanbase from Gen-Z.

 

But now, shortly after TikTok’s first birthday, we know a lot more about it as sites like Digiday, AdWeek, and our own Marketing Blog regularly cover it.

Even if you still aren’t quite sure what TikTok is, you’ve probably seen a video meme on social media that was created and published in the app first. Here’s one for example of a TikTok post which went viral on Twitter:

Now THIS is a tiktok I could watch all day pic.twitter.com/u1dBkH2OAa

— 🌸 Alexandra Daniels 🌸 (@alexdanielsxo)
July 11, 2019

When making decisions about your social strategy, you’re probably more interested in numbers than virality as proof of an app’s staying power.

As someone who’s gotten sucked into the app, blogged multiple times about it, hearted hundreds of posts, and even made a few embarrassingly mature videos of my own, I’m fairly certain that this platform will stick around for quite some time. But, luckily, with mounting data on TikTok, you don’t just have to take my word for it.

To help you make informed decisions about your strategy and whether TikTok is right for your brand, I’ve compiled a list of 28 interesting stats and facts to know before venturing on to the app.

29 TikTok Stats to Know in 2021

Userbase, Downloads, and Growth

Within TikTok’s first year, it reportedly reached 500 million monthly active users. Wondering if this was just a fluke or a viral trend that will simmer down? Think again. According to TikTok and its company heads, the audience might be larger and more promising than we think.

• In September 2021, TikTok celebrated reaching 1 billion monthly active users. (TikTok)
• Musical.ly, a lip-syncing app which ByteDance purchased and merged with TikTok, reportedly had 100 million monthly active users when it was purchased by TikTok in 2018. (The Verge)
• Douyin, TikTok’s original standalone app in China, had 300 million users at the time Musical.ly merged with TikTok. (The Verge)
• In 2020, TikTok was the most downloaded app globally (850 million downloads), followed by WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. (Apptopia)
• TikTok is the Top Free App in the Entertainment section of the Apple App Store. (Apple App Store)

Demographics

While TikTok’s user base is dominated by Gen-Z in the United States, many millennials have adopted it around the world.

And, although it might feel like TikTok is huge in the U.S., the app’s biggest audience actually comes from China, where the platform is called Douyin.

Here’s a breakdown of TikTok’s major demographic stats.

• 35% of TikTok’s global audience is between the ages of 19 and 29, and 28% is under 18. (Business of Apps)
• As of December 2020, TikTok has 69.5 million monthly active users in the United States. (Statista)
• As of April 2021, 48% of U.S. adults between 18-29 use TikTok, compared to 20% of adults between 30-49 and 14% among 50-64 year olds. (Pew Research Center)
• One-quarter of Americans between 12 and 34 have used TikTok compared to 3% of adults aged 35+. (MarketingCharts)
• 51% of global TikTok users are male and 49% are female. (Hootsuite)
• TikTok is now available in more than 200 countries. (Oberlo)
• Over 22.2 million of TikTok’s monthly active users are in Indonesia. (Statista)

User Behavior

TikTok is a fast-paced app. The second you log in, you see a video at the top of a feed that’s algorithmically curated around your interests. If you enjoy the video you’re watching, you can follow, comment, and like the content directly from the video post. If you’re not loving what you see, you can keep swiping in an upward motion to immediately see more odd videos.

From my own experience, I’ve found that TikTok can easily cause you to spend more time than expected watching an endless stream of often comedic videos. Since these videos are usually between 15 seconds and one minute, it makes the app ideal for people who need quick entertainment on their morning commute or when they’re bored at home.

Because of TikTok’s quick pace and entertainment factor, the stats below aren’t that surprising:

• The average user spends 89 minutes per day on the app, according to a leaked deck from TikTok. (Music Business Worldwide)
• As of September 2021, there are 14.43 million daily active users using the TikTok Android App and the average user spends 12.3 hours per month using it. (Statista, HootSuite)
• TikTok is one of the most downloaded apps in the Google Play Store. (Statista)
• Younger users aged 4-15 spend an average of 80 minutes per day on the app. (Qustodio)
• According to a leaked TikTok deck, the average user opens the app 19 times per day. (Music Business Worldwide)
• There are 30.8 million global DAU on the TikTok iOS app as of September 2021. (Statista)
• TikTok users on Android now spend more time watching content on the app than they do on YouTube. (App Annie)

Viral Trends and Influencers on TikTok

Like YouTube, Vine, Instagram, as well as other past and present video apps, TikTok has opened doors for influencers, comedians, meme creators, and even some brands. While it’s still a bit too early to see how successful its influencers and trends will be in the long run, here are a few interesting tidbits:

• The most followed creator on TikTok is dancer Charli D’amelio with 123.5 million followers. Following close behind is Khabane Lame with 115 million. (Wikipedia)
• One of the earliest branded hashtag challenges was Guess’ #InMyDenim challenge. According to TikTok, videos marked with this hashtag have received a grand total of 38.8 million views. (TikTok)
• Rapper Lil Nas X credits the success of his song “Old Town Road” to TikTok. The song was propelled to #1 on the Billboard Top 100 in 2019 after the artist uploaded it to TikTok. (BuzzFeed News)

Here’s a compilation of TikTok’s #CowboyChallenge where people wearing normal clothing cut to themselves in cowboy costumes to the song “Old Town Road.”

Business, Revenue, and Competition

The launch of TikTok not only put its parent company, ByteDance, on the map, but it also resulted in competition from apps like Facebook, which launched a very similar app called Lasso shortly after TikTok went viral. While TikTok and ByteDance are less transparent about revenue and other major details, here’s what we know:

• TikTok now offers five advertising tiers aimed at big brands. One of which, a branded hashtag challenge, reportedly costs $150,000 per day. (TikTok Pitch Deck Notes First Reported by Digiday)
• TikTok generated an estimated 1.9 billion in revenue in 2020. (Business of Apps)
• In October 2020, TikTok made $115 million on in-app purchases from users. (Sensor Tower)
• TikTok has a 4.9-star rating in the Apple App Store and 4.4 in the Google Play Store. (Apple App Store, Google Play Store)
• Bytedance, TikTok’s parent company is valued at $75 million, making it the world’s most valuable startup. (CBInsights)

The Mysteries of TikTok

Although TikTok is a top social platform and is ramping up its options for advertisers, it’s still rather new. When a company or startup is new, it’s not uncommon for leadership to hide early numbers, even when a brand is successful. In fact, we’ve seen this with other major companies like Snapchat and Netflix.

Despite the launch of TikTok For Business in mid 2020, there’s still a lot more to learn as TikTok’s global teams and ByteDance continue to remain hush-hush about major metrics. In the coming years, as TikTok continues to draw in more advertisers, it wouldn’t be surprising if we started to see more transparent information about the app and its user base. 

Where to Find TikTok Stats

In the meantime, If you want to learn more about TikTok, you can read up on its short history and early success in this post, or click here to find a how-to guide for using the app. In addition, you can discover important TikTok facts app on various websites: 

• Statista
• Business of Apps
• Global Web Index
• Pew Research Center
• eMarketer

Want to see what other businesses are doing on TikTok? Check out this roundup of brands on TikTok.

There are a lot of acronyms in the business world to keep straight. SEO, CRM, SERP, CDN, and CMS are just a few important ones.

CMS is particularly important, considering that more than 68 million websites are built with one. So what is it?

CMS stands for content management system. It also may be the solution you’re looking for to quickly make a website with limited technical knowledge and resources.

In this post, we’ll define what a CMS is and how it works. Then we’ll look at how you can use a CMS to handle the infrastructure of your site so you can focus on creating exciting, delightful content that results in more conversions and leads.

We’ll wrap up by looking at some of the most popular CMS platforms on the market. Let’s get started.

With a CMS, you can create, manage, modify, and publish content in a user-friendly interface. You can customize the design and functionality of your site by downloading or purchasing templates and extensions, rather than coding. You can have multiple users working in the back-end of the same tool — and much more.

You might be wondering how one piece of software does all of this. To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at how a CMS works.

How a CMS Works

To understand how a CMS works, you first have to understand what it’s like to build a site from scratch.

You’d start with HTML to add text, images, navigation bars, and other building blocks of a site. Then you’d add CSS to style those elements to match the unique look and feel of your brand.

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You’d finish up by writing some JavaScript to add more advanced functionality to your site, like slide-in CTAs. Then you’d have to upload this HTML file to your server to be filed away in your database.

Whenever you want to make changes — even simple ones like updating content — you have to download files from the server, open them, and change the HTML code by hand. Then you’ll have to make sure you didn’t break any links or something else before uploading the files back to the server.

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Sounds complicated, yes? For developers and other advanced users with experience in website development, building a site from scratch might be ideal. But for those who don’t have the coding skills or time and resources to build a site from scratch and maintain it, they can use a CMS. Let’s talk about how.

How to Use a CMS

A CMS is made up of two core parts: a content management application (CMA) and content delivery application (CDA). Combined, these applications essentially handle all the code, database queries, and infrastructure in the back end so you can focus on the front end of your site.

Rather than start with a blank HTML page, for example, you’ll open up the content editor and be able bold text, add links and CTAs, and insert images and tables by dragging and dropping some modules or clicking a few buttons rather than writing out HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 

Here’s a look at how easy it is to create a blog post using WordPress, for example.

To make other changes on your site, like changing the permalink structure or installing extensions, just navigate to the appropriate section in your admin panel. This is the CMA in action: all these changes are made in an intuitive interface that hides the code from you, the end user.

When you’re done making changes, the CDA will take the content you entered into the CMA, assemble the code, display it to your front-end visitors, and store it. That means when you want to publish a new blog post, for example, you just have to hit the Publish button instead of manually uploading a page to your server.

Now that we understand what a CMS is, how it works, and how to use it, let’s explore the benefits of using one over building a site from scratch or using another website building tool.

Why Use a CMS?

We’ve already alluded to some benefits of using a CMS, but let’s look at some specific ways it can impact your set-up process, team’s productivity, and visibility online.

1. No Coding Knowledge Required

By enabling non-developers and other users to build websites without coding, CMS systems have helped revolutionize web design. Gone are the days of relying on web developers and designers to establish an online presence for your business.

You can create and manage content, customize the design of your site, and install extensions to add functionality to your site — all without coding. (It’s important to note that most platforms do allow you to add custom code for more granular control over your site, too.)

As a result, users with limited technical resources and time can still build a powerful website for their business.

2. Easy Collaboration

Multiple users can access and work in the back end of a CMS at the same time. That means on any given day, your marketers can be producing content, your IT professionals implementing security protocols, and your developers adding custom code to your theme. In fact, they could all be working on the same landing page.

In short, a CMS can help improve workflows and productivity across your team.

3. User Roles and Permissions

A CMS allows you to collaborate in the most efficient and safe way possible thanks to built-in (and often customizable) user roles and permissions. That means content writers, for example, can have all the permissions they need to write, publish, and manage content — but won’t be able to delete plugins or otherwise significantly alter the site’s functionality. 

Here’s a look at the User Role Editor in WordPress. 

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Without a CMS, you’d have to code some pretty complicated conditions and checks to create user roles and permissions in JavaScript.

4. SEO Features and Extensions

CMS platforms offer built-in features as well as add-ons to help you optimize your site for search engines.

Using built-in or third party tools, you can:

• Customize page titles and meta descriptions
• Choose SEO-friendly URL structures
• Create XML sitemaps
• Add image alt text
• Create 301 Redirects
• Include breadcrumb navigation
• Optimize page load times

Implementing these best practices will help improve your chances of ranking on Google and other major search engines.

5. Security Features and Extensions

CMS platforms also offer built-in features and add-ons to help you secure your site. Some even offer a dedicated security team. CMS Hub, for example, provides a dedicated 24/7 security team, an enterprise-class web application firewall, SSL, custom CDN, SSO memberships, and and other out-of-the-box features.

6. Predesigned Templates

Most CMS platforms come with a selection of predesigned templates you can use to quickly customize the appearance of your site. They can also affect the behavior of your site.

Choosing a responsive template, for example, will ensure your site looks good on any device, without requiring you to write a bunch of code. Not only do templates save you design time before launching your site, they can also make a website redesign much faster and simpler down the road.

Webflow is just one CMS that offers hundreds of responsive templates. 

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7. Simple Updates

As discussed above, a CMS enables you to make changes on your site faster and easier — from major updates, like a website redesign, to minor updates, like changing the image on your home page. Rather than hiring a freelance developer or trying to edit the code yourself, you can go into the dashboard of your CMS to update and edit the content of your website. This allows you to keep your content dynamic and relevant.

8. Blogging Functionality

Blogging offers a range of benefits, particularly to businesses. It can help drive traffic to your website, convert traffic into leads, establish authority in a particular industry, generate backlinks, and achieve other long-term results. But building a blog from scratch is difficult, even for experienced developers.

A major advantage of using a CMS is that most provide built-in blogging functionality (or extensions) so it’s easy to start creating and publishing blog content and reaping the benefits. 

9. Content Scheduling

Scheduling content is essential to any editorial strategy. When building a site from scratch, you can schedule content — but it will require a combination of coding and tools like GitHub.

With a CMS, scheduling content is as easy as clicking a button. Most platforms allow you to schedule more than just blog posts, too. With CMS Hub for example, you can schedule blog posts as well as website pages, landing pages, and emails.

Here’s a look at the scheduling tab within HubSpot’s blog editor.

10. Easy Access

With a CMS platform, you can access and edit your site on virtually any device with an internet connection. That’s much easier than the alternative of building a site from scratch, which requires you to be on a device connected to the server or connect remotely.

Plus, most CMS systems have a single dashboard or control panel where you can access your site’s content, theme, plugins, settings, and more — all in one place. 

If your site is growing, you may need to upgrade to a CMS to meet your needs. You can start your search by checking out a few of the best CMS systems below.

Let’s unpack eight popular CMS platform examples to discover which might be the best fit for your website needs.

1. CMS Hub

Ideal for: Any-sized businesses

Price: $25 – $1,200 per month

Why Use CMS Hub: With CMS Hub, you can build websites that are secure, powerful, and optimized for search engines.

Using this all-on-one connected platform, you can create personalized content for visitors based on data from your HubSpot CRM, create custom templates and styles, run A/B tests on multi-language content, safely redesign and relaunch web pages, view performance analytics, and much more.

By combining ease of use and flexibility, this proprietary CMS is ideal for businesses with diverse teams of marketers, developers, and IT professionals that are looking to grow over time.

Learn more about CMS Hub’s customization options, multi-lingual support, reporting dashboards, and more.

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2. WordPress

Ideal for: Small businesses and freelancers

Price: Estimated between $30 to $3,000

Why Use WordPress: WordPress is a self-hosted platform that powers millions of sites. You can easily and quickly build a WordPress site using the Gutenberg editor and then customize it with any of the thousands of plugins and themes available in the official WordPress directory or other third-party sites.

Want to add forms and live chat to your site? Want a theme that comes with a built-in visual builder and split testing? Leveraging WordPress plugins and themes like these, you can create a unique experience specific to your brand.

3. Joomla

Ideal for: Global companies

Price: Estimated between $700 to $6,500

Why Use Joomla: Site owners looking for more functionality built right into the platform may try a WordPress alternative like Joomla.

Like WordPress, Joomla is an open-source CMS. What sets Joomla apart is its built-in multilingual support and advanced user and content management options, which make it ideal for membership, community, and social networking sites. UIDAI, for example, is a multilingual website powered by Joomla. 

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4. Drupal

Ideal for: Corporatations and government agencies

Price: Estimated between $5,000 to $20,000

Why Use Drupal: Drupal is a highly flexible CMS favored by large corporations and government agencies like NASA. While you will need web development experience to fully leverage the power of this platform, you won’t have to start from scratch.

In addition to its out-of-the-box features, you can choose among 47,000 modules available in its directory and thousands of free themes in its theme repository to build a complex site that handles large volumes of data and heavy traffic, like Rush University Medical Center’s website. 

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5. Magento

Ideal for: Ecommerce businesses

Price: Estimated at $15,000 and up

Why Use Magento: The self-hosted version of Magento, known as Magento OpenSource, is like the Drupal of the ecommerce world. It’s highly flexible and secure, but difficult to learn and take advantage of all its built-in functionality and extensions.

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With Magento, you can manage multiple stores, use several worldwide shipping providers, and transact in different countries, languages, and currencies — all within the same dashboard.

So, if you have the time and resources to invest in set-up and maintenance, you’ll be able to build an online store with a huge product inventory and global reach.

6. Webflow

Ideal for: Web designers and agencies

Price: $15 – $235 per month

Why Use Webflow: Webflow is a “visual” content management system designed to fill a market gap for web designers who want to focus on creating and customizing sites without worrying about hosting, security, or performance.

With Webflow, you can start with one of the hundreds of pre-built templates or start from scratch using the Webflow Designer shown below.

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You can also extend the functionality of your site through third-party integrations or embedding HTML code. Since it requires at least some knowledge of HTML, CSS, and web design, Webflow is best suited for freelancer designers or agencies.

7. Ghost

Ideal for: Bloggers

Price: $9 – $2,400 per month

Why Use Ghost: If you’re looking for a more simple and lightweight CMS dedicated to blogging, Ghost is a great option. Ghost is a headless CMS, which means that its body (the content repository) is separated from its head (the presentation layer).

Basically, this allows you to create and manage content and then deliver that content via their Node.js APIs (or another front-end tool you prefer) to any platform and channel, from smartwatches to virtuality reality headsets.

With an intuitive editor and built-in SEO tools, Ghost appeals to bloggers and beginners who want a basic site that’s simple to create and manage.

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8. Sitecore

Ideal for: Enterprise companies

Price: Must contact company for pricing info

Why Use Sitecore: Sitecore is an enterprise-level headless CMS that enables you to create and deliver personalized websites, emails, social media posts, and mobile experiences.

You can use its WYSIWYG editor with drag-and-drop functionality, session- and device-based personalization rules, and multilingual tools to scale your content creation and deliver content that’s optimized to your users’ interests, language, and device. And thanks to Sitecore’s headless architecture, you can provide these relevant customer experiences across multiple channels, including web, social, voice, point of sale, and more.

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This CMS powers more than 120,000 websites in industries ranging from sports to banking to travel and more. Some of its biggest brands are American Express, ASOS, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars.

Use a CMS to Build Your Site 

Using a content management system to build and manage your site can help you grow over time. Not only will a CMS store all of your web content in one place, it will also support collaboration across teams, allow for quick and easy updates, and offer templates and extensions to customize your site.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2010 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Since 86% of consumers rely on the internet to find local businesses, having a website is a no-brainer regardless of your business type.

Although building a website is great for business, you’ll want to avoid making common mistakes that will stop you from getting the most out of your investment. All of these mistakes are easy to identify for free using a handy tool called Website Grader.

In this post, I’ll show you the most common website mistakes we’ve seen here at HubSpot and exactly how to fix them if they apply to you.

1. Lengthy Page Title

A page title, like the one in the Google search result below, tells visitors what a page is about.

Search engines and browsers may cut off your page title if it’s too long. From a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, a concise page title yields the best reader experience. If your page title is too long, it will dilute the importance of each term in the title. This might even prevent you from ranking well on the search engine results page (SERP).

It’s best practice to keep your page title under 70 characters so that the reader can see the entire title and make a decision to click through to the post.

Website Fix #1: Use a Headline Analyzer Tool to Write Concise Headlines

Use a tool like Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer to draft a concise and keyword-rich description of your page. It’s a great idea to test several variations of a headline before choosing the best one. Amanda Sellers, manager of the historical optimization team at HubSpot, recommends a score of 70 or above from the Headline Analyzer tool for most headlines.

2. Long Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are essential for drawing in visitors from search. The meta description is the text under a page title in search results. Like page titles, meta descriptions will get cut off and replaced by “…” if they are too long.

Website Fix #2: Use a Word Counter to Check Your Characters

You can use tools like WordCounter and SERPsimulator to count the number of characters in our meta description so you don’t go over the limit.

SERPsimulation, for example, shows you what your title tag and meta description would look like on the search engine result page.

3. Keyword Stuffing

We’ve seen many people make the mistake of stuffing their page title with keywords or targeting unrealistic keywords. For example, it’s often a futile effort if a new website in the online marketing space is trying to rank for a keyword like “inbound marketing.”

Sometimes websites target keywords that would attract a ton of traffic but fail to convert.

From a user’s standpoint, using too many keywords in your content creates a bad user experience and makes it hard to read your website. As for search engines, Google Search Central mentions that keyword stuffing can harm your site’s rankings.

Website Fix #3: Conduct Proper Keyword Research

Start by creating a list of all the relevant terms used to describe your business. Then, you can break these terms up into content or topic buckets. For example, here at HubSpot, we have topic buckets like “inbound marketing,” “blogging,” and “social media marketing.”

The next step would be to fill these broad topic buckets with keyword phrases your potential customers might use when searching for that type of content.

If you already get a bit of traffic from Google, you can dig into your Google Analytics instance to find the keywords people use to get to your website.

Aside from Google Analytics, you can also use SEO and keyword research tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush for more keyword ideas.

4. Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization is when two or more pages on your website are targeting the same keyword.

The problem with keyword cannibalization is that your web pages targeting the same keyword would be competing against each other on the search engine results page. This could result in a low click-through rate and cause a decrease in the value of each page.

Each page on your website is a new opportunity to get found online. You don’t want to waste all these opportunities by reusing the keywords.

Website Fix #4: Try the Pillar Cluster Model

With tools like Moz Keyword Explorer and SEOScout Cannibalization Checker, you can easily identify pages competing for the same keywords on your website.

Once you’ve identified these pages, you can try the pillar cluster model to reorganize your website. The pillar cluster model involves grouping related blog posts into specific topic areas instead of long-tail keywords.

With this model, the individual blog posts link back to the pillar page and share hyperlinks.

5. No Image Alt Text

Search engines do not “read” images. Instead, they scan primarily for text. Fortunately, with the alt tag, you can associate text with an image.

Considering that around 33% of Google’s search results now show an image pack — a snippet display of horizontal rows of image links appearing in any organic position — you’d be losing out on a ton of traffic if you don’t add alt text to your website images.

Alt text also helps you make your content accessible to users and improves the user experience in addition to helping you gain more traffic.

Website Fix #5: Add Alt Texts to All Your Images

Assign ALT text to pictures whenever possible by adding something like this to your HTML:

alt=”David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox batting from home plate at Fenway Park”

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When writing alt text, use proper sentence structure and be as specific as possible when describing the image.

6. Too little (or Too Much) Text

Search engines read text better than anything else. So, it’s important to have text on your web page. Knowing this, some people cram as much text as possible into a page. As a result, search engines then struggle to extract the relevant text.

Website Fix #6: Focus the Page on One Topic

Make sure your page is readable and contains the keywords you are targeting. However, don’t add unimportant text just to hit a specific word count.

7. Not Using Analytics

Even after you’ve created engaging content on your website, optimized, and converted traffic into leads, your work is not done! You still need to track your website’s analytics.

Web analytics are essential because they help you better understand your visitors and how they interact with your site. Without proper tracking, you won’t be able to tell what pages on your website get the most/least traffic, which devices visitors are using to access your site, and so on.

Without access to these vital metrics, you’d be left in the dark when making decisions that affect your website.

Website Fix #7: Track Metrics That Matter

It’s going to be a waste of time to track all the analytics on your website. Instead, focus on the metrics that align with your business objectives. For starters, you should track and analyze website metrics like unique page views, bounce rates, number of returning visitors, and traffic sources.

You can then analyze the data you collect to make informed business decisions that’d drive your business’ growth.

Web analytics tools like HubSpot’s Marketing & Analytics Dashboard and Google Analytics can help you track all the metrics you need.

8. Slow Load Times

Nobody enjoys waiting in a queue, especially not when they have other options to choose from. You can say the same of your website visitors. They’re not going to wait around if your website takes forever to load when they could hop on the next website that loads almost instantly.

If your website loads slowly, it could be because your hosting is insufficient, you have large images across your site, you have too many redirects, or you’ve installed too many unnecessary plugins.

Website Fix #8: Increase Your Website Loading Speed

You can use simple tools like Pingdom Website Speed Test, GTmetrix, Google PageSpeed Insights to check your website’s speed.

To improve your website’s speed, follow these best practices:

• Choose a web hosting platform that’s designed for speed
• Compress your images
• Embed videos instead of uploading them directly to the site
• Reduce redirects
• Enable cache browsing
• Leverage a content delivery network (CDN)
• Uninstall any unnecessary plugins

9. Unresponsive Website

Mobile devices account for over 54.8% of global website traffic. Since most people use their handheld devices to access the internet, it’s in your best interest to make your website responsive on mobile screens.

Unfortunately, many website owners make the mistake of only optimizing their websites for desktop devices, thereby leaving out the larger chunk of their audience and traffic.

Website Fix #9: Optimize Your Website For Mobile

You should avoid including content that is only accessible on desktop. Avoid large header sections so that mobile users get to the content quickly. You should also ensure the font size is not too small to read.

Google Search Console has a neat feature that lets you test how mobile-friendly your website is. Here’s the test result for HubSpot’s website.

10. Poor Internal Linking

Links are essential for improving website authority on search engines. However, many website owners make the mistake of either using too many or too few links.

If there are too many links on a page, it can become distracting. And too few links could make the article or web page look less authoritative.

Another poor linking mistake is when you don’t use anchor text for internal links. You’ve likely come across websites with a “Click here” or some other generic text. Did you click it? Likely not.

Website Fix #10: Create an Internal Link Structure

With a tool like SEMrush, you can run a site audit to identify internal linking opportunities across your website.

You could also create a link structure that helps you naturally include internal links to existing content whenever you’re creating new blog posts or web pages.

However, as much as you want to build internal links between your web pages, don’t go around linking to everything just for the sake of it. Instead, emphasize link quality over quantity. Finally, use relevant keywords in the anchor text for your internal links to help the search engine infer a relationship between the posts.

11. Poor Website Security

You probably wouldn’t sleep well at night knowing your home is vulnerable to a break-in. Like you, online shoppers (or website visitors in general) also feel edgy whenever they try to navigate or shop on an insecure website.

The recent rise in personal data breaches and website hacks also makes it necessary for your website to be secure.

Now, web browsers like Chrome and Firefox show a warning, as seen in the photo below, to alert users whenever they visit an insecure website.

Website Fix #11: Enable an SSL Certificate

You can protect your customers and gain their trust by installing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate on your website. SSL is a security protocol that creates an encrypted link between your web server and your visitor’s browser.

To know if your site is protected, check its URL to see if it starts with “HTTP” or “HTTPS.” If it’s “HTTPS,” your site is secure. If not, you need to purchase an SSL certificate from your domain provider or a site like Let’s Encrypt.

12. Lengthy Website Forms

Website forms are crucial for converting traffic into leads, but the leads will only convert if your form is done right.

Most website forms today require a lot of work from visitors to fill out. These forms might ask for unnecessary information and have several “required” fields that look pushy, leaving visitors confused or frustrated.

Website Fix #12: Ask For Only the Essential Details

Limit the content of your forms to only the information you need. For example, use only 3-5 fields in each form. Also, reduce the number of required fields, and add help text in the field’s default.

This form from Hubspot’s Marketing Grader shows how simple a form can be to optimize conversions.

13. No Calls To Action

Another common website mistake people make is not including a CTA on their website. You’ve probably spent lots of time and effort directing people to your website. But what happens once they arrive on your website? Do you want them to buy a product? Sign up for a newsletter? Share what they’ve read?

Whatever you want them to do, you have to ask them for it.

Website Fix #13: Add Specific Calls to Action

If you are selling a product, make purchase buttons stand out and guide visitors on the next step to take. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter or something similar, create a sign-up form available as soon as possible before they leave your website.

It’s also good practice to place your calls to action above the fold.

14. No Search Box

A search box is a simple feature many websites lack today. Without a search box, it’s more difficult for visitors to find the specific web pages they’re looking for on your website.

The absence of a search box causes a poor user experience and reduces users’ time on your website.

Website Fix #14: Create a Search Box

If your website has multiple pages, you should include a search box. Then, as your website gets larger, visitors can use the search box to find what they’re looking for within seconds.

To add a search box on a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, simply place the widget where you’d like your users to see it. The home page is a great place for a search box.

15. Contact Info is Hard to Find

This is a mistake that’s especially costly for ecommerce websites. If potential customers find it difficult to get in touch with you, they might lose trust in your product or service.

Website Fix #15: Make it Easy to Find Your Contact Information

Make it easy for visitors to reach out to you by including your contact information like email and phone number on different pages on your website.

You can also link to social media accounts to give visitors a way to engage with your business. If you’re stuck, you can find helpful templates, information, and inspiration from HubSpot’s guide to contact forms.

16. Using Stock Images Throughout Your Website

Stock photos make it hard to differentiate your website from many other sites that use the same free images. These stock photos also don’t feel original and may create a poor experience for your visitors.

Website Fix #16: Use Original Images or Graphics

Whenever possible, take and use original photos that showcase your products or your work culture. If it’s too expensive to take new images consistently, you can use a design solution like Canva to create engaging graphics that leave a more lasting impression.

Fix Your Website the Right Way

Despite your best intentions, you could be making some mistakes on your website that cause you to lose leads, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Now that you know these common website mistakes, test out these simple solutions to optimize your site for traffic and conversions. Examine this list of mistakes against your website and see what changes you can make to improve how well your website works for your business.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2010 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

When I started HubSpot, I was a trained engineer with little writing experience. In the early days of the company, I could not create software. Instead, I spent a lot of time writing articles for our Marketing Blog. As an inexperienced writer, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it performed. Today, the blog has over 500,000 subscribers and over 10M new visitors each month.

The success of the blog convinced me that I suppressed brilliant writing skills for the last 20 years! My excitement led me to send a Thank You note to my eighth-grade teacher, Tom Brown, who helped me learn to write.

Emboldened with my newfound writing confidence, I wrote the Inbound Marketing Book with my co-founder Dharmesh Shah. When we submitted the final draft to a professional editor, I was confident she would send it back with minimal edits and high praise. Wrong. The document she returned had more red lines than anything I had ever seen in my life.

After many weeks of language crafting, we got it close to perfect. Upon its release in 2014, it was ranked #200 out of the 8 million books currently available on Amazon — a list led by notable writers such as Dan Brown and Stephen King.

I learned that you do not have to be a great writer to have a great book. The same goes for blogs. Non-writers can develop new skills and practices that turn your words and message from mediocre to excellent, and in this post, I’ll tell you how.

Blogging Tips for Non-Writers

Non-writers and great blogs are not mutually exclusive. If you have no formal writing education or experience, join the club. English is not the most popular Bachelor’s degree. There has been a 26% decrease in English degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions since 2011 while blogging has seen a 12% growth since 2015.

With the number of professional writers decreasing and the number of blogs increasing, we can deduce that the number of non-writers who blog is likely increasing.

Formal education, or the lack thereof, won’t stop you from running a successful blog. You’ll just need a few skills in your toolbelt.

When writing your blog, you need to:

• Select your audience and topics.
• Have a conversation.
• Include links to reputable websites (including your own).
• Make your content easy to digest.
• Use online writing assistants.

Let’s cover each of these in-depth.

1. Select your audience and topics.

Who is your audience? It is significantly easier to speak to someone when you know who they are, but it’s impossible to know every person who reads your blog posts. This is where your buyer persona comes in. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer. Once you establish your audience and their needs, you can figure out your topics of conversation.

Keyword research should determine the content you share with your readers. Keywords are words and phrases people type or speak into search engines. There are multiple ways to conduct keyword research, but a typical place to start is by evaluating monthly search volume (MSV) for industry-related terms.

Monthly search volume is the total number of searches performed for a particular keyword in a month. An easy example could be the keyword research of a greeting card store. November searches would unsurprisingly tell you that the search volume for the keyword “Thanksgiving cards” is higher than the keyword “Easter cards.” These results, combined with research on keyword difficulty, will lead you to your target keywords for the month.

Once you establish your buyer persona and keywords, you can begin a conversation with our audience.

2. Have a conversation.

Your blog is not an opportunity to bring your high school English term paper to life. Trust me, you do not need to reference a thesaurus and pull out the longest words in the dictionary to get your point across. Been there, done that. Instead, imagine you are talking to a friend when you write a post. Be knowledgeable yet personable. Be authoritative yet relatable. Your readers don’t want to be talked down to. They want quality information they can understand from a credible source, and it is you’ve been granted the responsibility to provide it.

3. Include links to reputable websites (including your own).

As you can tell, there’s no one rule for writing a great blog. Most of the rules about blogging aren’t even associated with writing. One example of this is link building.

Link building can boost the quality of your content and the credibility of your blog. Focus on interlinks and backlinks.

Interlinks

Interlinks are links that guide readers back to the content on your website. This gives your other content more exposure in a relevant way, plus it helps search engine site crawlers index more pages on your site. That’s great news for your SEO efforts! Another rewarding benefit is extending the time readers spend on your website. When you use interlinks, you provide your readers with relevant resources to increase their knowledge on the subject. It boosts your credibility as a source, and the more credible your visitors find your blog, the more successful it will be.

Backlinks

There are endless amounts of information on the internet, but not all of it is credible and accurate. You can help readers find other great content by giving backlinks to reputable sites.

A backlink is a link from one website to another. If your blog links to another website, they have a backlink from you. If a website links to your content, you have one from them. But you might be wondering, why would you want to take traffic away from your blog?

In short, search engines like to see websites giving credit where it’s due. Backlinks are a great way to substantiate your blog article so that the reader can learn more about your point of view.

The key to a strong backlink strategy is to prioritize quality over quantity. Build your content around information from reliable sources. Getting backlinks from other websites is not guaranteed, but you can increase your chances by creating quality content with the tips on this page.

4. Make your content easy to digest.

What you write is valuable — we know that. You also need to pay attention to how you write and present your information. No one wants to open a webpage to a sea of never-ending words trickling down the page. The important information will easily get lost. So will your reader. The amount of time spent on your blog is limited. Your goal is to keep their attention while giving them the information they want as easily as possible. To accomplish this, use:

Headings and Subheadings

Many readers do a visual scan of a webpage before they decide to dive deeper into the content. Here is where you will see the importance of headings and subheadings. Treat them as an outline or summary of your blog post. Use them to make your most significant points so readers can quickly determine the value of your information.

Lists

When presenting information to your readers, use lists wherever possible. Elaborate on your main points, and break up your text to make your content easier to comprehend and retain. Vary between using numbered lists and bullet points. Use numbered lists to prioritize the order and bullet points when there is no order of importance.

Visuals

If your content allows it, use tables and charts. There are reasons for commonly adding these visuals to presentations. One, you can present the same information in a different, more exciting way. Two, you’re able to accommodate visual learners. Hundreds of words could be necessary to build your point, but a table will either supplement or summarize your information and break up the monotony of your text.

5. Use online writing assistants.

Fifteen years ago, the most writing assistance we received was from the red and green lines appearing in a Microsoft Word document. Now, there are plenty of tools to help improve your writing. Available options for free writing assistant software include Writefull, 1Checker, and Grammarly.

Grammarly, a popular spelling and grammar check tool, offers suggestions based on correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery. The platform breaks your writing down into overall performance, readability, and vocabulary. Are you constantly confusing ‘than’ with ‘then?’ Do you need to double-check your use of ‘affect’ and ‘effect?’ Tools like Grammarly easily catch these minor mistakes to elevate your content.

The content written on your blog is not the only help you might need. Your blog content is strategic but so is optimizing your blog for SEO. While SEO is a long conversation that needs to take place for all content you put on the internet, another aspect where you can get help with your writing is your SEO title tag. The title tag appears as the name of your webpage on a search engine results page (SERPs) and is clickable to the link destination. CoSchedule, a marketing resource, offers its Headline Analyzer as a tool for creating better headlines that can result in increased SEO value, traffic, and social shares.

Great blogs don’t need great writers.

You don’t need a degree in English or creative writing to have a successful blog. You need identity and value. Establish who you’re writing to and what you have to say. Identify yourself as a knowledgeable and reliable source who brings value with your content and relevant content on the internet. Boost your blogs with visuals when necessary, and if you can’t proofread your content, have someone (or something) else do it for you.

Blogs need to be written with strategy. Use these tips to create yours.

What led you to make your most recent purchase? Were you wishing for something for a while and decided to just go for it? Were you casually browsing a store and saw something you liked? Or were you browsing and an advertisement from a business convinced you that you need to buy it right then and there?

If it was the latter, the business used a form of outbound marketing to convince you to take an immediate action after seeing one of their marketing materials. It can be a very effective strategy, especially if done correctly.  

In this post, learn how businesses can use direct response marketing to drive conversions, best practices for creating these types of campaigns, and examples from real companies to use as inspiration.

What is direct response marketing?

Direct response marketing, sometimes called push marketing, is when you present your target audience with an offer in an attempt to persuade them to take immediate action, like completing a lead gen form, downloading an ebook, or making a purchase.

This strategy is popular with marketers because it can drive quick results for time-sensitive campaigns.

What distinguishes direct response marketing from traditional marketing is that it desires an immediate response for immediate ROI rather than traditional brand awareness. Below we’ll discuss more elements of these ad campaigns.

Direct Response Marketing Strategies

Direct response marketing strategies are customer-centric, targeted, offer-centric, and urgent. Here’s what that means for your campaigns:

Customer-centric

To elicit a response, your direct response ads must be customer-centric and directly related to the value you can provide them if they follow through with your desired action. If your audiences can’t tell why your offer matters to them, they won’t take action.

Targeted

Not all of your customers have the same needs, so your ads must be hyper-targeted to specific audiences with personalized messages that speak to their pain points. Statistics show that this practice is worth it, as Epsilon found that 80% of consumers were more likely to purchase a brand that offers personalized experiences.

Offer-centric

Direct response ads prompt users to do something, so they usually feature an offer or CTA that tells the user what your desired action is, whether it’s signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase. When creating these offers, mind copywriting best practices to ensure they’re clear and concise, focused on one specific outcome, and personalized.

Urgent

These ads all present a sense of urgency in addition to a CTA to entice quick action, so leveraging language like “As supplies last” or “Buy one get one free” is common. For example, maybe you’ll send a direct response ad to remind consumers about an event before it happens, so they quickly decide to sign up for it instead of missing it.

Active voice and power words are well suited to direct response ads.

Direct Response Campaigns

Below we’ll go over some common direct response campaigns businesses use.

• Social Media Ads: Social media is a powerful tool for running direct response campaigns due to the sheer number of users and the targeting options that many platforms offer marketers. On this platform, ads need to use short and to-the-point copy that displays urgency and a CTA that directs the action you want your audience to take.
• Referral Programs: Referral programs are an excellent tool for direct marketing, especially since you can easily track their effectiveness. Consider giving your current users a promo code or URL and ask them to share it with a friend or family member in exchange for something, like a 10% discount. If they successfully refer someone, you’ll be able to track it through the unique code.
• Email: Direct response campaigns run over email typically make users aware of flash sales, upcoming events filling up, or things like abandoned cart reminders. We’ll cover an example of a direct response email below.
• Display Ads: Display ads, like banners, are in an area on a website or channel dedicated to paid ads. They usually contain short copy that shows a sense of urgency and a CTA to inspire action.
• Direct Mail: While it may seem outdated, direct mail is a popular channel for direct advertisements. Things like brochures, coupons, digests, or newsletters are used for direct marketing, but be mindful of not having your assets seem like junk mail.  

Direct Response Marketing Examples

Let’s go over some high-quality examples of direct response marketing that you can use to guide your own strategy.

New York Times

The New York Times, a newspaper, used Instagram to run a direct ad campaign to promote a limited discount for unlimited access to the newspaper.

Grailed

Grailed is an online marketplace where individual users can resell different products, from clothing to collectible items. Their form of direct response marketing is via email, where they notify users when an item they have favorited has dropped in price.

Scribd

Scribd is an online ebook and audiobook subscription platform. Like The New York Times, it uses social media, Facebook specifically, to run direct marketing campaigns to notify audiences about a limited-time discount offer.

UberEats

UberEats is an online food delivery service that uses email for direct marketing campaigns to prompt users to follow through with a purchase after they have abandoned their cart.

Direct Response Marketing Metrics and Tools

Below we’ll discuss critical metrics that will help you understand your direct response marketing success and the tools that help you collect this data.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is an essential marketing metric for direct response ads as it tracks the number of users that have taken the action you want them to take, a.k.a converted.

You’ll get a sense of how successful you were, helping you learn about the effectiveness of your copy and the content you offer when it comes to providing value and prompting action. Let’s go over some specific tools that will help you track these conversions.

1. Promotional Codes

Promo codes can be unique per user or unique per campaign, so you can see how specific ads successfully prompt action. Make sure that you track the number of codes you give out so you can get an exact sense of how many people converted based on how many you gave out.

2. QR Codes

QR codes are similar to promotional codes as they’re unique to the specific campaign you use them on, helping you see how many users actually converted from that specific ad. QR codes also typically lead to landing pages, so you can further track if customers took action on your landing pages or simply landed on them and bounced.

3. UTM Codes

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) codes are snippets of text placed at the end of a URL that helps you track where website traffic comes from. For direct response marketing, you can attribute your specific site traffic to your direct ads, like those who visited your site and made a purchase after receiving a promo code.

Here’s what a sample UTM code could look like for this use case: utm_campaign=20percentpromocode.

All-in-all, direct response ads have similar outcomes as regular marketing ads, but they want a user to take action right now. Be mindful of being customer-centric and use concise, urgent, and compelling copy, and you’ll find ads driving conversions.

In this competitive B2B marketing landscape, businesses make substantial investments in building content marketing programs.Why? Content marketing has been proven to deliver resounding success.

As one of the most effective methods of growing audience engagement, developing your brand presence, and driving sales, content marketing is a mission-critical growth method for most businesses.

Below, let’s review content marketing — the benefits of producing consistent, high-quality content, and how to measure success.

According to the State of Inbound report, content creation is a top priority for 80% of marketers. Moreover, on average, content marketing accounts for26% of B2B marketing budgets.

Consistent, high-quality, and engaging content impacts audience decision-making more than any other technique.

Consistency in brand messaging is one of the many factors that determine the growth and success of your business. Big brands know how to portray their brand consistently and at every customer touchpoint.

The same reasoning applies to content marketing — your content needs to carry a unique and identifiable voice, style, and pitch across all distribution channels.

Content consistency establishes your credibility, builds trust, and strengthens your reputation.

So, we know the content you create has to be consistent. However, why is content marketing so beneficial in the first place? Here are the top benefits of content marketing.

Benefits of Content Marketing

1. Your audience will stick around longer.

Great content is an important asset. It has the ability to create positive experiences for your potential customers and compel them to come back for more. It’s your ticket to capturing your audience’s attention and continually reinforcing a positive brand impression.

2. You’ll have better traction on social media.

It’s one thing to increase your social media followers across channels, but it’s quite another to create trendy content. If you’re one of those businesses that doesn’t see much traction despite having a huge following, it’s time to use content marketing to your advantage. Quality content can help your business gain traction on social media.

Track the performance of your content campaigns using HubSpot’s analytics software.

3. Your audience will trust you.

Creating content helps your business build a relationship with your audience. You can answer their questions and interact with customers. When you create value without taking anything in return, your audience is more likely to trust your advice and recommendations.

Ultimately, when your content shows up at the right place and at the right time with the right audience, it’ll improve your brand’s reputation. The more quality content customers see, the more likely they will have a positive association with your company.

4. You’ll generate more and better leads.

Content marketing can also generate leads. When your audience views your content, they’re more likely to purchase from you in the future. Additionally, calls-to-action (CTA) placed directly in your content can generate new leads for your sales team.

So, how can content generate leads?

According to Lindsay Kolowich, the team manager of the HubSpot Academy Acquisition Content Team, “content is a great way to guide users to a landing page. Typically, you create content to provide visitors with useful, free information. You can include CTAs anywhere in your content — inline, bottom-of-post, in the hero, or even on the side panel. The more delighted a visitor is with your content, the more likely they are to click your call-to-action and move onto your landing page.”

5. Original content can improve conversions.

The content you post influences conversions. It helps your audience connect with you and gives them the information needed to make educated purchases.

Even more, if you’re using blog content to bring in traffic, consider using original graphics rather than stock photos, as marketers report the former as least effective in helping them meet their goals. 

Additionally, your content should always include a CTA and guide your reader on what they should do next.

6. Your business will become more visible thanks to SEO.

The more consistent, high-quality content you produce, the better it’ll be for your SEO efforts.

For example, your content should help your business become visible online and build trust and authority with your audience. In addition, with a developed content strategy, such as the pillar/cluster model, your content should help you rank higher in search engines.

7. Great content can position your company as an authority in your industry.

Creating quality content will also help build your authority online. If your business is established as a credible place to get information, you’re more likely to rank higher in search engines.

Plus, your customers are more inclined to trust you if they view you as an industry expert. Your content should demonstrate your expertise in your field and provide valuable answers to your audience’s questions.

Overall, content marketing is important. But, how can you be successful at it?

One way to tell is to assess the quality of your content. One particularly beneficial assessment of quality is content scoring.

As more businesses increase their content marketing budget, there’s never been a better time to incorporate content scoring metrics into your marketing campaign.

With the help of content scoring, you can measure and improve your content marketing performance and offer great value to your audience.

8. Quality content can build brand awareness.

Sure, anything can build brand awareness, but content marketing can do it in a unique way.

Our HubSpot marketing experts have written about something called Surround Sound strategy.

In a nutshell, this content strategy does more than just rank your blog article on page one. It makes your content (and therefore your brand) appear everywhere your potential customers are looking for your product.

To execute this strategy, write about topics your customers are interested in so they begin to associate your great content with your brand.

9. You’ll cultivate loyal brand fans.

Taking brand awareness a step further, all the people who raved about your content and associated all those great feelings with your brand are very likely to become brand advocates before ever purchasing your product.

Wait, what?

It’s true; brand fans can be just as loyal and influence their friends and family’s buying decisions as potential consumers see that a business provides value to its current audience. One of the more successful ways companies can do this is through content marketing.

For example, while I may not be in the market for children’s meal plans because I don’t have children yet, I am obsessed with the Kids Eat In Color blog and Instagram content. I recommend it to my friends and family who have children with picky eating habits. See how well that can work?

10. You’ll save money on your marketing strategy.

Since HubSpot first assessed the cost of content marketing ten years ago, the practice has remained the most cost-effective marketing strategy available.

Upfront costs for content appear steep, and that’s a fair point.

Estimates for blog content range from $150 a post to $3,000 for a freelance writer, but you could go the route of hiring a full-time staff writer to create content for you on a regular basis.

In the long term, when compared to paid advertisements, video marketing, and traditional marketing, content wins the battle with Frank from finance every time.

What is content scoring?

Content scoring is the process of assessing and quantifying the true potential of content by tracking how individual content pieces perform in generating and converting leads.

As an innovative content marketing metric, content scoring helps marketers prioritize only the assets that have a higher probability of generating and converting leads.

In addition to delivering a scientific method of assessment to writing, content scoring is a reliable and predictive method of evaluating the engagement potential of an individual piece of content before it’s published.

Improving the quality of your content is pivotal to the success of your marketing campaigns.

The quality of your content is relative to your audience’s profile. With a better understanding of your customer’s needs, you can offer content with higher resonance. But improving your content is a gradual process, and you need to continually measure and analyze your audience’s responses to understand and improve on the elements that matter most.

How to Score Your Content

Writers and content creators often find it difficult to quantify what recipe works for their content and their audience. By scoring your content, you’re able to objectify that process and use the same recipe repeatedly to create similarly successful content.

Here’s how to score your content:

• Establish scoring criteria. To develop an effective content scoring system, you need to establish a foundation built on whichever engagement metric has the greatest impact on your content. For some, it may be page views, for others it could be shares on social media.
• Create a campaign. Once you’ve identified which metric matters to you most, create a campaign and add the successful content that meets your threshold. For example, if you decide that 1,000 page views is high performing, include all the content assets that meet said criteria.
• Monitor content performance. Measure how each new piece of content you create is performing. As certain content assets meet your success metric — 1,000 page views, for example — add them to the campaign. Continue adding content to build a small sample size of high-performing content. Use HubSpot Analytics to track the performance of this content.
• Evaluate what works. Now that your high-performing content is segregated, you can further analyze what makes your content perform. Although it’s difficult to quantify, you can discover patterns within your content that you can then replicate.
• Rinse and repeat. Although these patterns are always changing, this manual process is an effective way to score your content and take action on your insights in the future.

This can be a tedious process, and it only scrapes the surface of a true content scoring system, but it’s a thorough and important process to implement. For more effective and efficient results, you can use an automated tool like Atomic AI to help you score your content in more granular patterns.

Content scoring helps your brand set a benchmark for itself, moving you closer to understanding customer’s buying stages and expectations. When you’ve established the content types that work for a specific customer segment, you can easily replicate your success over and over again.

Start Creating Consistent Content

Creating a content marketing strategy is one of the most important steps you can take for your marketing team. To do so, take an audit of your current content and figure out what works for your business.

No matter the format, message, or style of online content, everyone’s striving to reach the largest possible audience with the best possible content.

Making that a reality requires companies to create something that answers an audience’s most pertinent questions, is presented in an engaging way, and maybe even offers some new ideas no one’s hit on before.

As content marketers aim for these goals, one ingredient can distinguish popular content from something that barely gets noticed: the input of a subject matter expert (SME). Partnering with an SME can strengthen content’s credibility and value, in turn helping audience growth.

In this post, we’ll review what a subject matter expert is, how to become one, and why your company should leverage SMEs in your content marketing strategy.

Businesses might leverage an SME to integrate new software, fix technical issues, design their website, extract and format data, and provide insight. Additionally, a company may hire a subject matter expert to have on retainer as an ongoing consultant. When that’s the case, you might be wondering what that job looks like. Let’s dive in below.

Subject Matter Expert Job Description

While people can become SMEs no matter what their official job title and description are if you’re a subject matter expert looking for a job, you might find a job that reads something like this:

At ‘Company X’, we are looking for a subject matter expert in social media to help us develop an end-to-end social media strategy. This person will be responsible for creating our social media strategy and managing it on a daily basis.

As the social media subject matter expert, your duties will include evaluating our current social media content and recommending new strategies and trends to lean into. To ensure success, our social media subject matter expert should possess an exceptional track record of increasing engagement and pioneering multiple successful social media campaigns.

Job requirements:

• Master in Social Media Management
• Demonstrable credentials as a leading social media Subject Matter Expert.
• 10-15 years of experience working in a relevant area of expertise.
• Advanced knowledge of project management and social media management.
• Advanced ability to recommend and implement social media campaigns.
• Exceptional leadership and mentorship abilities to introduce and implement new strategies.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Now that we’ve looked at an example of a subject matter expert job description, let’s review what the roles and responsibilities of this individual might be.

Subject Matter Expert Roles and Responsibilities

The typical roles and responsibilities of a subject matter expert will vary greatly depending on the type of position you’re applying for. You could be an in-house manager or a hired consultant to specialize in helping a company grow in a certain area.

Going along with our social media subject matter expert example above, typical roles and responsibilities might look something like this:

Roles and responsibilities for a social media subject matter expert:

• Analyzing the company’s current social media content and activities to identify areas where new solutions would improve performance
• Providing a new strategy for each platform that you find is most important and appropriate for our audience
• Creating a process for content creation and scheduling content
• Making recommendations for social media platforms, content, and hashtag ideas
• Validate requirements and deliverables required for our social media team
• Consulting and collaborating across teams to create useful content

At this point, you might be thinking, “This is great. How can I become a subject matter expert in my field?” To become a subject matter expert, you’ll need to develop your expertise in your discipline over a long period of time. Below we’ve outlined some good steps to take.

1. Obtain advanced degrees in the area of specialization.

The first step to becoming a subject matter expert is studying the area that you want to specialize in. You can obtain advanced degrees and spend time writing dissertations in your field. This will require years to obtain degrees, certifications, and study your industry.

2. Maintain current knowledge in your area of expertise by continuing education.

Once you’ve obtained your degrees and been studying in your field, it’s important to continue your education. As the world continues, your industry will evolve and you should be consistently maintaining your current knowledge by reading current news and trends.

3. Consistently consume and create content and remain up-to-date on current industry trends.

Another great way to become a subject matter expert is to consume and create your own content in your field. Write about what’s going on with current industry trends and be an active part of the conversation.

4. Experiment with your own ideas.

Besides participating in the conversation, you should be working on projects and experiments in your field as well. This will continue your education and develop your skills even further. Plus, you might find new learnings and be able to write and discuss what you’ve found.

5. Participate in social media community forums.

To participate in your community, you should be active on social media and community forums where your industry discusses industry news. Interact and engage with other subject matter experts and don’t be afraid to share your opinion — bringing me to my next point.

6. Share your expertise.

When you’ve experimented and been studying, it’s important to come to your own conclusions and test your hypothesis. Then, share that news and your findings with others in your community by participating in speaking engagements, participating in social media, etc.

7. Remain credible and value your reputation.

To truly be considered a subject matter expert, your reputation and credibility are of the utmost importance. To hold on to this, try to remain neutral and seriously consider other people’s thoughts and opinions.

8. Become a person of authority in your space.

The last step of being a subject matter expert is becoming a person of authority. Whether that means working your way up at a company and holding a position of leadership, or running a freelance consulting business.

Now that we’ve learned how to become a subject matter expert, let’s look at some examples of what this looks like in action.

Examples of Brands That Use Subject Matter Experts

1. HubSpot

A great example of a brand that uses subject matter experts is HubSpot itself. On our blog, we work with thought leaders and subject matter experts to grow our audience and provide as much value as we can in our content.

For example, review some of our thought leadership blog posts below:

• 7 Reasons Scale-Ups Earn Investments, According to HubSpot’s Founder
• What Video Marketers Should Know in 2021, According to Wyzowl Research
• How to Become a Successful Real Estate Agent, According to Experts
• How to Build and Scale a High-Performance Marketing Team, According to Leaders Who’ve Done It
• How Google’s Head of Startups LATAM Helps Brands Globalize Their Business [+Tips for Marketers]
• How Gong’s Head of Enterprise Sales Uses Sales Analytics to Drive Decisions & Speed Deals
• 8 Inclusive Advertising Tips for 2021, According to Microsoft’s Head of Inclusive Marketing
• A Comprehensive Guide to Marketing on Quora, According to Quora’s Head of Product Marketing

2. Backlinko

Backlinko is the brand from subject matter expert, Brian Dean. As Brian Dean has become an SEO expert, he decided to share his thoughts and research experiences on a blog called Backlinko.

A few great examples of thought leadership posts that are written from the SME perspective include:

• WE ANALYZED 11.8 MILLION GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS: Here’s What We Learned About SEO
• WE ANALYZED 5 MILLION GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS: Here’s What We Learned About Organic Click Through Rate
• WE ANALYZED 912 MILLION BLOG POSTS: Here’s What We Learned About Content Marketing

1. More attention will lead to better results.

It’s not a stretch to say an SME will offer immense benefits to a content project. When a well-known name is attached to a project, whether it’s a downloadable ebook, video, or series of articles, attention will inevitably result. Just as a popular novelist can earn pre-sales purchases months before a book is even published, name recognition can lead to an automatic buy-in from a community of enthusiasts.

2. Know and understand current industry trends and challenges.

An expert can also serve as a source for up-to-date knowledge and news on an industry. He or she will be able to convey the biggest challenges, the latest breakthroughs, and future concerns around a particular subject. This kind of information will allow you to shape the direction, message, and format of your project.

3. Spread the news and reach more people.

Then once you’ve completed a project, an SME can also play an important role in helping spread the news about it with his or her social media followers. With a well-known expert, your content promotion efforts have the potential to reach a huge community of enthusiasts, fellow experts, and industry leaders. Awareness of your content, and your brand, can reach an unprecedented level of exposure when you take advantage of the social channels an SME can bring to the table.

Leveraging a Subject Matter Expert in Your Content

A subject matter expert’s insights and perspective can take a piece of content from being one-dimensional to a complete and nuanced portrait of a topic or event. Taking on some of the fundamental tactics of a journalist entails researching who would be the best choice of experts, reaching out to them, scheduling a time to speak, devising some effective questions, and then conducting the interview itself.

As any journalist could tell you, conducting an interview is much more than just asking questions. The best interviews require thorough planning and shouldn’t be done in a lockstep Q&A fashion. Being able to ask spontaneous questions or ask an interviewee to elaborate on a statement can help ensure the discussion is a meaningful one.

All marketers want a content marketing strategy that helps them generate influence and a large audience. Case in point — “how to develop a content marketing strategy” was the fifth most searched question about content marketing in 2020.

Unfortunately, no concrete formula will help you generate incredible content with consistent results, yet it is essential to create incredible content with consistent results. Competitive intelligence poses a solution to this issue, yet only 23% of marketers leverage it in their content creation strategy.

In this post, discover what content intelligence is, and the benefits that it will bring to marketers leveraging it as a tool to create their own content marketing strategy.

It is essentially a GPS that leads you to a high-quality content strategy that drives leads, conversions, and revenue. You don’t have to guess what will be of interest to your audience because the data shows you what performs well with your audience based on market and competitor analysis.

Why is content intelligence important?

Many marketers use content marketing to communicate with their audiences and draw them in, and content intelligence helps them do so effectively. Some additional benefits include:

• Generating a deep understanding of your target audience and the type of content they enjoy based on competitor data and analysis.
• Data from market research helps you create content that is entirely centered around your users and what they enjoy.
• Gain insight into various content types and how they should be created, like video content intelligence that lets you know actions within videos that drive results.
• AI analyzes content for style, tone of voice, and other important metrics to eliminate guesswork and the trial and error that often goes into creating content.
• Ability to predict the effectiveness of your content based on the historical performance of your competitors.
• Generate authority in your niche through high-quality, informative content that helps you get more visitors, increase conversion rates, and gain visibility in search results.

 

Content Intelligence Software

While it’s possible to conduct competitive intelligence on your own, software automates the process and generates results quickly. Let’s go over some high-quality tools you can leverage in your process.

1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo uses a strategy of research and discovery to obtain insights about the content created by your market and industry competitors to help you understand what performs best with your audience.

The tool analyzes a variety of social media feeds and web content to provide you with viral trends to leverage, business-related content you should consider covering, and target keywords to use when you begin creating.

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2. Contently

Contently uses StoryBook™, its proprietary technology, to analyze and predict the content that will have the most significant impact on your business. This data will then help you create a content strategy that aligns with your audience interest — SEO, voice and tone, and your brand guidelines are all considered in every recommendation. Then, when you create your content, you’ll get analytics to show what performs and drives ROI to further focus your efforts.

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3. Curata

Curata’s self-learning engine helps you discover the best performing content and understand why audiences like it and how you can create your own top-performing content. You’ll also get SEO assistance to help you curate your content and share it in the most relevant and impactful channels.

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4. Crayon

Crayon’s software provides you with competitive intelligence that will help you use actionable insights to create a high-quality content strategy. You’ll gain an understanding of what works for your competitors, from social channels to review sites, and discover key messaging that performs best that you can adapt to your content strategy.

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Over To You

The content strategy you choose to create should depend entirely upon your business needs, but it can become even stronger if it’s made using content intelligence tools. Pick a software option that’s right for you, and begin generating your influence.

Imagine spending time and resources to create an ad campaign just to get meager results. It’s can be discouraging but also difficult to assess.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could mix and match different ad components and see which one performs the best without dishing out more time and resources?

With responsive display ads, you can.

Discover how they work, what you need to get started, and the steps to launch one in Google Ads.

Benefits of Using Responsive Display Ads

One of the biggest advantages of using responsive display ads is that it can help you reach a broader audience.

Because you can adjust various elements in your ad, you can maximize where it can be seen by your target audience.

Additional benefits include the following:

• You can use video – When you use responsible display ads, you can add video and use that in place of images when appropriate.
• It’s a time-saver – Don’t have to keep creating new ads, can let Google Ads create combinations based on its algorithm and what can produce the best results.

It’s great for small businesses that may not have the in-house team or the resources to create multiple ad images, sizes, etc. With responsive display ads, the work is done for you.

The major downside to using responsive display ads is that you lose some control. Google chooses the ad combination and it may not represent your brand to its fullest potential.

For instance, your ad may have little to no branding and seem generic, which also means it may be harder for it to stand out and get clicks.

What You Need to Create a Responsive Ad on Google Ads

Before you can run your responsive ad, you must first upload your assets: your visual elements and your text. Let’s get into the specifics of each.

1. Visuals

With responsive display ads, you can have up to 15 images in your ads.

Google Ads recommends having at least five images, as that can lead to higher conversions. Here are a few more tips on image ads:

• Have high-definition sizes.
• Use the most popular sizes:
• 300 x 250
• 728 x 90
• 160 x 600
• 320 x 50
• 300 x 600
• To create interactive or animated images, use HTML5.

If you do not add upload a logo (you can add up to five), Google Ads will provide a neutral one, which can be an icon or the first letter of your brand name. As for the aspect ratio, upload 1:1 and 4:1 versions with transparent backgrounds.

If you don’t upload a video, you can choose the advanced format option in which Google generates a video based on the visual and text assets you have on file.

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2. Text

1. Headlines – For your ad, you can have up to five short headlines of 30 characters or fewer. You can also have a long headline up to 90 characters long. One thing to note is that your headline will not always show up with your description, so it should be compelling enough to attract clicks.
2. Descriptions – You can create up to five descriptions that will be shown based on what Google believes will perform best.
3. Call-to-action – Your CTA should be action-oriented (ex: Join Now) or value-oriented (ex: Start Learning Today).
4. A business name – This should be the name of your brand, spelled and capitalized correctly.
5. A URL – This is where users will land after clicking on your ad. Google Ads allows you to add tracking or custom parameters to your URL for better reporting.

If your ad is dynamic, you can also add promotion text and a price prefix to potentially increase conversions.

Your ad may get rejected if:

• You have text that covers more than 20% of the image.

• You have content that is:
• Irrelevant
• Misleading
• Sexual
• Your images are low-quality.
• You don’t follow trademark use policies.

Responsive ads are a great opportunity to diversify your ads in a cost-efficient way. Whether you’re a small business with limited resources or a larger brand with low ROAS, it’s a strategy worth considering. 

The irony doesn’t escape me that I’m currently writing a how-to guide on … how-to guides.

Fortunately, I’ve had my fair share of experiences writing how-to guides for HubSpot over the years — some of my favorites include How to Give a Persuasive Presentation, How to Develop a Content Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide, and How to Write a Request for Proposal.

Here, we’ll explore the right structure to use when making a how-to guide and how to write a comprehensive how-to guide. We’ll also take a look at some impressive examples of how-to guides for inspiration. Let’s dive in.

Benefits of Creating a How-To Guide

How-to guides are valuable opportunities to reach new audiences with useful, high-quality content. For both B2B and B2C businesses, how-to guides are often necessary for a healthy lead generation strategy.

For instance, consider how many people search “How to [fill in the blank]” on Google each day:

These search queries demonstrate one of the primary reasons people turn to the internet: to learn how to do something.

If your business can reach those consumers with informative, relevant answers to their questions, those users will begin to see your brand as an authority on the topic.

Down the road, those same readers you first attracted with a how-to guide could become customers and loyal brand advocates who spread the word about your products or services.

Suffice to say: How-to guides are worth adding to your content arsenal.

How to Make a How-To Guide

1. Conduct research to ensure your guide is the most comprehensive piece on the topic.

Depending on the topic, you want to write something that caters to the specific audience you’re targeting. For instance, if you’re writing a how-to guide targeted toward mechanics, there are certain terms and descriptions you can forgo, as you assume a mechanic is already well versed in this.

However, if you were targeting the average vehicle owner, your content will have to be jargon-free and descriptive enough to resonate with that audience.

As such, it’s important that your first step in how to make a how-to guide is making sure your content is comprehensive. Here’s how to do it:

• Conduct keyword research to see what people want to learn.
• Use Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs, SEMrush, or another SEO tool to identify similar keywords and queries. This can help you create a well-rounded piece that will answer all your readers’ questions, and help you rank on Google.
• Look at your competitors to see how they write their guides.

For instance, let’s say you’re writing a blog post, “How to Make an Omelette.” Upon conducting research, you find Simply Recipe’s post is at the top of Google.

Diving into the post, you’ll see Simply Recipe has covered sections including “French Verses American Omelettes,” “The Best Pan for Making Omelettes,” and even “Ideas for Omelette Fillings.”

If you want to create your own how-to guide on omelettes, then, you’ll want to cover all – if not more – of the sections Simply Recipe has in its post.

Even if you know a topic incredibly well, research isn’t a step you should skip. In fact, knowing a topic well can make it more difficult to write a how-to guide on the topic, as you might make assumptions about what should be covered.

For that reason, rely on your research to ensure you’re including all relevant information.

2. Understand your target audience’s concerns and challenges.

For this step, leverage online community forums like Quora or internal, historical data to identify the concerns or challenges your target audience might have. That information will help you identify content to include in your guide.

If you’re writing “How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy,” for instance, you could follow these steps:

1. Start by looking at responses to “What is content marketing?” on Quora. These user-generated responses can help you identify common themes, misconceptions, or confusion around content marketing.
2. Reach out to your research marketing team to identify common pain points or questions they’ve seen in surveys or focus groups regarding “content marketing.” For instance, you might find that most of your audience says content marketing is a priority for them — but they don’t know how to do it on a budget.

Conducting qualitative research like this arms you with the information necessary to ensure your how-to guide addresses all relevant concerns on a given topic.

3. Structure your steps in the correct order for your reader, and when possible, use screenshots.

Your readers will bounce from your page if it’s too difficult for them to quickly find the answer to their question. With this in mind, deliver it as quickly as possible — and in the right order.

Many readers will use your how-to guide as a list of instructions. For instance, if you’re writing, “How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac,” you’ll want to write down each specific action necessary to take a screenshot. When possible, use visuals like GIFs, images, screenshots, and videos to supplement your instructions.

For less tactical, more ambiguous topics, use bullet points and examples for easy readability and understanding

4. Tell the reader why it matters.

The last step in writing a how-to guide is asking yourself: “Why do my readers need, or want to know, this?”

Understanding the high-level purpose behind a topic can encourage you to write with empathy. Additionally, it will help you create content that accurately meets your reader’s expectations and needs.

For instance, when writing “How to Create a Facebook Group for Your Business,” I took some time to identify that readers might search this topic if a) they are seeking out new ways to connect with customers or want to create a stronger sense of brand community, or b) they want to raise awareness about their products or services.

As a result, I wrote:

“A group is a good idea if you’re interested in connecting your customers or leads to one another, you want to facilitate a sense of community surrounding your brand, or you’re hoping to showcase your brand as a thought leader in the industry. However, a group is not a good idea if you want to use it to raise awareness about your products or services, or simply use it to post company announcements.”

In the example above, you can see I targeted a few different segments of readers with diverse purposes to help readers determine whether this how-to guide would even help them meet their own goals.

Ultimately, understanding the purpose behind your how-to guide is critical for ensuring you target all the various components or angles of the topic at hand.

How to Write a How-To Guide

Once you’re ready to start writing your how-to guide, you might wonder if your tone or writing style should differ, compared to other types of posts.

In short: Yes, it should.

When people search “How to …” they’re often in a rush to find the information they need, which means it’s critical you write in short, concise sentences to provide an answer quickly.

Additionally, how-to guides need to offer tactical, actionable advice on a topic so readers can begin implementing the steps immediately.

There’s a world of difference between readers who search “What is an RFP?”, and those who search “How to write an RFP.”

While the former group is looking for a definition of RFPs and maybe an example or two, the latter group likely already has a fair understanding of RFPs and needs to create one ASAP.

When writing a how-to guide, here are some best practices to keep in mind:

• Use verbs when writing out steps. Say, “Write a company background” rather than “Your RFP should start with a brief background on your company.”
• Use numbered lists, headers, and bullet points to break up the text and make your content as easy to skim as possible.
• Use both screenshots and written text for readers who can’t load the image on their screen or don’t understand what you’re trying to tell them from the image itself.
• Link out to other relevant blog posts, pillar pages, or ebooks so readers can find follow-up information on certain topics mentioned in your how-to guide.
• Provide examples to show your readers what you mean.
• Write with empathy, acknowledging it can be frustrating when learning or refining a new skill.

How-to guides often attract a wide range of readers, all with varying levels of expertise.

“How to Create a YouTube Channel,” for instance, likely attracts YouTube beginners who are simply interested in creating a channel to watch and comment on friends’ posts.

However, it probably also attracts professional marketers who need to create a channel for their business to attract and convert leads.

With such a diverse audience, it’s critical you write clearly, but not condescendingly, to ensure you retain readers regardless of skill level or background experience.

Is there a difference in how you would write a tutorial vs. a how-to guide?

Tutorials and guides are often used interchangeably to define content that explains how to complete a particular task. While some argue that one is more descriptive than the other, you’ll find that it varies from one brand to the next.

Perhaps the most distinctive difference is between a how-to guide and a user manual. A how-to guide is typically a top-of-the-funnel piece of content meant to attract users and generate leads.

A user manual is typically created for someone who has already purchased a product or service and needs step-by-step instructions on how to use it.

While one falls under marketing materials, the other relates more to the product.

How-To Guide Examples

1. The Recipe How-To Guide

McCormick’s “How to recipe guide on french toast” is neatly organized so readers can quickly determine a) how long the recipe will take, b) the ingredients they’ll need, and c) how to find the recipe.

If a reader already knows the ingredients necessary for french toast, they can click on “Instructions” to get started right away.

Alternatively, say a reader prefers viewing instructions rather than reading, they can click on “Watch How-To Video.” This offers a good variety for visitors who consume content differently.

Takeaway: as you’re structuring your own how-to guide, consider how you can best organize it so readers can jump straight to what they need. In addition, account for the medium that your target audience will prefer.

2. The B2B How-To Guide

Atlassian’s “How to Write the Perfect 90-Day Plan” provides important contextual details to the 90-day plan, including “What is a 90-day plan?” and “What should be included in a 90-day plan?” The piece is well-researched and written with empathy.

Best of all, the guide provides a downloadable 90-day plan PDF, so readers can immediately download and use Atlassian’s plan with their own team.

Takeaway: Consider what ebooks, PDFs, charts, Canva designs, or Google Sheets you can create internally and offer to readers to download. Readers will appreciate the option to immediately apply what they’ve learned.

3. The B2C How-To Guide

This “How to Become a Freelancer” guide from FlexJobs does a good job providing relevant links and data to create a comprehensive overview of what freelancing is.

Additionally, the post uses action verbs to inspire the reader.

Under “How to Start a Freelance Business.” you’ll see tips such as “Do Your Homework,” “Create a Brand,” and “Plan Ahead.” The language used in this post goes a long way toward encouraging readers to get started immediately.

Takeaway: Use action verbs and concise language to keep a reader engaged. When possible, start with a verb instead of a noun when listing out steps.

4. The Product-Related How-To Guide

This article by How-To Geek, titled “How to Find Data in Google Sheets with VLOOKUP,” isn’t necessarily the most interesting topic.

However, the brand effectively keeps the content engaging with empathetic statements like, “VLOOKUP might sound confusing, but it’s pretty simple once you understand how it works.”

Additionally, How-To Geek includes useful, original images to demonstrate each tip they’re describing.

These images don’t have to be state-of-the-art visuals created by a professional design team, either — as this post proves, a few simple screenshots go a long way toward helping readers understand a complex topic.

Takeaway: When possible, create your own visuals/screenshots to walk readers through each step-by-step instruction.

5. The Lifestyle How-To Guide

I recently saw this post in Medium titled, “11 Ways to Quickly Stop Stress in Your Life.”

I clicked on it expecting a few quick, easy tips for stopping stress. Instead, I was engrossed in the first section of the post, “The Effects of Stress in Your Life.”

While I previously mentioned the importance of starting with a quick answer to the searcher’s how-to question, there are exceptions to that rule.

In this case, it’s important readers understand the why before the how.

Takeaway: Play around with structure. Consider what your readers need to know in order for the rest of the post to matter to them. For instance, you might start with a section, “What is XYZ?” and “Why XYZ matters” before diving into, “How to do XYZ.” This way, your readers are fully invested in finding out how these tips can improve their lives in some small (or big) way.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2021. It has been updated for freshness and accuracy.

As an advertiser and marketer, it’s important to understand the impact of your campaigns and content on your target audience.

It’s also important to know how much money you need to invest to ensure those campaigns and content are actually seen by your audience.

You may have heard of CPM before — it’s a formula and metric that tells you exactly that.

In this article, we’ll review what CPM is, how to calculate it, and tips on how you can get the best CPM.

CPM Meaning

CPM in marketing is cost per thousand, also known as cost per thousand impressions or cost per mile. It’s a formula that calculates the total ad spend per 1,000 impressions on a web page.

How does CPM work?

CPM is often used in advertising, marketing campaigns, social media, and digital marketing. It tells you the total ad spend for every 1,000 impressions. An impression in CPM is how many views/ engagements an ad receives — it’s when an ad is successfully displayed to a visitor or audience member on a web page.

Impressions are small units of measure in marketing which is why they’re calculated by the 1,000 — this gives advertisers and marketers a better idea of the impact their work is having on audience members.

CPM is an effective top-of-funnel strategy because it helps advertisers garner a lot of attention from a large audience on one piece of content, all on a pre-determined budget.

As a result, you’ll increase brand awareness and recognition as well as develop an understanding of which ads and content types are most successful among your audience so you can improve upon

CPM Advertising

Advertisers often use CPM. They select an ad publisher to work with based on where they want their ads published and the specific audience they want to get those ads in front of. Then, advertisers pay the ad publisher, often $1-$10+, for every 1,000 ads that are displayed to viewers.

This method of advertising allows advertisers to stick to a set budget while ensuring their target audience is seeing their ads and campaigns on a large scale. Especially when used on mobile — CPM ads are an effective way for advertisers to determine the impact of their in-app ads.

How to Calculate CPM

To calculate CPM, you need to use the following formula which states CPM is equal to the total amount spent/ total ad spend divided by total impressions multiplied by 1,000.

CPM Formula

How to Get the Best CPM

There are a number of tips and techniques you can apply to help you get the best CPM possible — here are some examples.

1. Choose an ad network.

There are several networks and publishers available for your CPM ads. Here are five popular options:

• Google AdSense: Video ads, mobile ads, display ads, text, in-feed ads, in-article ads, matched content ads, games ads
• Criteo: Digital ads, contextual ads, mobile app ads, dynamic ads, video ads, self-service ads
• BuySellAds: Native ads, sponsored content, podcast ads, display ads
• Media.net: Contextual ads, display ads, native ads,
• SmartyAds: Rewarded videos, native ads, banners

2. Pick an ad tool.

You’ll also want to identify a CPM and ad tool to help you plan, run, monitor, and analyze your campaigns.

CPM Software

CPM software is typically ad software — meaning it can help create, publish, and report on your ads.

For instance, you might choose to use HubSpot Ads Software to support your CPM strategy.

HubSpot is unique because it enables CRM-powered marketing — meaning, you can use the data from your CRM to create personalized and targeted ad campaigns and report on the ads that are turning prospects into customers.

With HubSpot Ads Software, you can also…

• Segment audiences.
• Personalize ads.
• Report on leads and ROI generated by every Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google ad.
• Understand attribution of revenue from specific ad campaigns and platforms.
• Log lead information into your CRM automatically.
• Create journey-based advertising campaigns for Facebook audiences.

How to Apply CPM Software to CPM Ads:

Here are some specific examples of how you could apply a tool like HubSpot Ads Software to your CPM strategy and ads.

• Refer to your contact data to effectively target your audience.
• Apply the results of past campaigns to create ads that you know will resonate with your audience.
• Use the knowledge you’ve gathered from your CPM campaigns about what works best among your audience to create and share more specific campaigns through HubSpot (since CPM campaigns are broad — more on this below).
• Review your CPM results alongside your attribution of revenue from your other ads and campaigns in HubSpot to determine overall ad spend versus your budget.
• Input contact data gathered from CPM ads in HubSpot so all contact and customer data across the entire business are organized in a single platform.

3. Use CPM in broad ad and marketing campaigns.

CPM campaigns are best for broad marketing ads and campaigns. That’s because their main function is raising brand awareness and recognition. They offer the insight and data businesses need to then get more specific with follow-up ads and who they’re targeting with those ads.

4. Highlight your point of difference.

Since your CPM ads are bound to be broad, be sure to highlight your product’s point of difference.

For instance, if you’re running a CPM ad on a training sneaker, ensure your ad makes the training shoe’s unique feature(s) (e.g. it’s ideal for all CrossFit athletes for X reason).

5. Think about ad format and placement.

When it comes to your CPM ads, it’s critical you consider ad format and placement.

Perform research on your buyer personas and target audience as well as competitive intelligence— this will provide an understanding of what will work best among your audience as well as what’s working well for your competitors.

This research will also help you decide which ad publisher you’ll use to share your CPM ads based on the audience you can target via that publisher as well as the format in which you can publish your ads (e.g. display ads, mobile ads, etc.). 

6. Consistently analyze your results.

Similar to all strategies in business, you need to analyze your results. Be sure to track the success of your CPM ads and campaigns — report on what’s working and what isn’t hitting the mark.

You can do this by calculating your CPM regularly (while ads are live and once campaigns end), sharing that information with team members, and iterating as needed. Most ad software also has reporting capabilities that can help you track, record, store, and share CPM results.

You can also log this information in your marketing software and/or your CRM so all things related to your marketing work and your customers are stored in a single platform.

Start Calculating CPM

CPM is a valuable metric for marketers and advertisers — it gives you an accurate understanding of your impressions.

As a result, you’ll gain insight into your level of brand awareness, which of your content and campaigns are being viewed the most, and what’s working well among your audience.

How many times have you seen a killer marketing strategy and thought to yourself, “Wow, I wish I would’ve thought of that!”

(Glossier, I’m looking at you.)

We’ve all been there. The truth is, when you’re just starting out, it can be tough to know whether your strategy is as comprehensive and powerful as it can be.

To help ease some of that uncertainty, we’ve created this guide that’ll show you step-by-step how to create a marketing strategy that leaves no stone unturned.

Let’s dive into the critical components of a complete marketing strategy in 2021, followed by some examples for further inspiration.

The Importance of Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy Steps

A robust marketing strategy will reach your target audience – this includes those who have never heard of your brand all the way to those who have purchased from you before.

Without a defined strategy, you’ll essentially be throwing things to the wall to see what sticks. And it’s costing you cost, time, and resources.

A marketing strategy will:

• Align your team to specific goals.
• Help you tie your efforts to business objectives.
• Allow you to identify and test what resonates with your target audience.

There are seven key steps to crafting a successful marketing strategy: Build your marketing plan, create your buyer personas, identify your goals, select the tools, review your existing resources, audit and plan media campaign, and lastly, execute your strategy.

Let’s get into the details of each step in the next section. Or you can jump to the section you’re most interested in.

• 7 Steps of a Marketing Strategy
  • Build a marketing plan.
  • Create buyer personas.
  • Identify goals.
  • Select the appropriate tools.
  • Review your media.
  • Audit and plan media campaigns.
  • Bring it to fruition.

• Examples of Succesful Marketing Strategies
• What to Do After Following Your Marketing Process Steps

1. Build a marketing plan.

Wait, I have to make a plan for my strategy? What’s the difference?

Your marketing strategy provides an overview of the reasons why your marketing team will need certain resources, take certain actions, and set certain goals over the year. Your marketing plan is the specific actions you’ll take to achieve that strategy.

Not sure where to start? This free marketing plan template can help.

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The right template can help you build a marketing plan that identifies your budget for the year, the initiatives your marketing organization needs to tackle, and the marketing channels you’ll use to implement those initiatives.

Plus, it’ll tie everything back to a business summary, to keep you aligned with overarching company goals.

2. Create buyer personas.

If you can’t define who your audience is in one sentence, now’s your chance to do it. A buyer persona is an example of your ideal customer.

For example, a store like Macy’s could define a buyer persona as Budgeting Belinda, a stylish working-class woman in her 30’s living in a suburb, looking to fill her closet with designer deals at low prices.

With this description, Macy’s Marketing department can picture Budgeting Belinda and work with a clear definition in mind.

Buyer personas have critical demographic and psychographic information, including age, job title, income, location, interests, and challenges. Notice how Belinda has all of those attributes in her description.

You don’t have to create your buyer persona with a pen and paper. In fact, HubSpot offers a free template you can use to make your own (and it’s really fun).

Buyer personas should be at the core of building your strategy.

You can also use a platform like Versium, which helps you identify, understand and reach your target audience through data and artificial intelligence.

3. Identify your goals.

Your marketing strategy goals should reflect your business goals.

For example, if one of your business goals is to have 300 people attend your annual conference in three months, your goal as a marketer should be along the lines of boosting online registration by 10% at the end of the month to stay on track.

Other marketing goals might be to increase brand awareness or generate high-quality leads. You might also want to grow or maintain thought leadership in your industry or increase customer value.

Whatever your goals, identify what they are and how your marketing organization can work to achieve them over the next year.

4. Select the appropriate tools.

Once you have your goals identified, make sure you have the right tools to measure the success of those goals.

Online software like social media schedulers gives you analytics to help you keep track of what your audience likes and doesn’t. Alternatively, you might consider Google Analytics to measure blog and web page performance.

Additionally, make your goals SMART – to do so, take a look at How to Write a SMART Goal [+ Free SMART Goal Template].

Here are a few tools that can help you track and measure the success of your marketing goals:

HubSpot Marketing Hub

The Marketing Hub allows you to consolidate all of your marketing tools into one centralized platform.

Too often, you’ll find a tool that’s powerful but not very easy to use. With this tool, you can attract users with blogs, SEO, and live chat tools. You can then convert and nurture those leads through marketing automation, the landing page builder, and lead tracking features.

With custom reporting and built-in analytics, you can analyze your data and plan out your next move. Plus, HubSpot Marketing Hub integrates with over 500 tools.

Pricing: Free; Starter, $45/month; Professional, $800/month; Enterprise, $3,200/month.

Trello

Trello keeps your marketing team on track and openly communicating about the projects they’re working on. Create boards for individual campaigns, editorial calendars, or quarterly goals.

Built-in workflows and automation capabilities keep communication streamlined, and simplicity keeps your marketing team focused on the work that matters.

Pricing: Free; Business Class, $9.99/user/month; Enterprise, $17.50/user/month for 100 users.

Monday.com

Everything on Monday.com starts with a board or visually driven table. Create and customize workflows for your team and keep groups, items, sub-items, and updates synced in real-time.

You can also transform data pulled from timeline and Gantt views to track your projects on Monday.com and ensure deadlines have been met. Plus, with more than 40 integrations — from SurveyMonkey to Mailchimp and, of course, HubSpot — you can visualize your data and ensure your whole company is collaborating.

Pricing: Basic, $8/month/seat; Standard, $10/month/seat; Pro, $16/month/seat; Enterprise, contact for pricing.

SEMrush

SEO continues to be a huge factor in the successful ranking of your website.

SEMrush allows you to run a technical SEO audit, track daily rankings, analyze your competitor’s SEO strategy, research millions of keywords, and even source ideas for earning more organic traffic.

But the benefits don’t stop at SEO. Use SEMRush for PPC, building and measuring an effective social media strategy, content planning, and even market research.

Pricing: Pro, $99.95/month; Guru, $199.95/month; Business, $399.95/month.

Buzzsumo

BuzzSumo allows you to analyze data to enhance and lead your marketing strategy, all while exploring high-performing content in your industry.

Use the platform to identify influencers who may help your brand reach, monitor comments, and find trends to make the most of every turn.

As your needs evolve, you can also leverage their crisis management and video marketing tools.

Pricing: Pro, $99/month; Plus, $179/month; Large, $299/month; Enterprise, $499+/month.

Crazy Egg

Need to optimize your website this year? Consider getting started with Crazy Egg. You’ll be able to identify “attention hotspots” on your product pages, track ad campaign traffic on your site, and understand if shoppers are clicking where you want them to.

You can even make sure your “Buy Now” buttons are in the best place.

Crazy Egg also offers recordings, A/B testing, and more to help ensure your website is offering the best user experience.

Pricing: Basic, $24/month; Standard, $49/month; Plus, $99/month; Pro, $249/month; Custom options available upon request.

5. Review your media.

Decide what you already have in your arsenal that can help you create your strategy. To streamline this process, think of your assets in three categories – paid, owned, and earned media.

• Paid media means any channel you spend money on to attract your target audience. This includes offline channels like television, direct mail, and billboard to online channels like social media, search engines, and websites.
• Owned Media refers to any of the media your marketing team has to create: pictures, videos, podcasts, ebooks, infographics, etc.
• Earned media is another way to say user-generated content. Shares on social media, tweets about your business, and photos posted on Instagram mentioning your brand are all examples of earned media.

Gather your materials in each media type and consolidate them in one location to have a clear vision of what you have and how you can integrate them to maximize your strategy.

For example, if you already have a blog that’s rolling out weekly content in your niche (owned media), you might consider promoting your blog posts on Twitter (paid media), which customers might then reTweet (earned media). Ultimately, that will help you create a better, more well-rounded marketing strategy.

If you have resources that don’t fit into your goals, nix them. This is a great time to clean house and identify gaps in your materials.

6. Audit and plan media campaigns.

Cleaning house segues straight into this step. Now, you must decide which content is going to help you.

Focus on your owned media and marketing goals. For instance, will updating the CTAs at the end of your blog posts help you increase RSVPs to your event?

Next, look at your buyer personas. Let’s say you work for a video editing software company. If one of your persona’s challenges is adding clean sound effects to their videos but you don’t have any content that reflects that, make a 15-second demo video for Instagram to show how great your product is at solving that challenge.

Finally, create a content creation plan. The plan should include topic clusters, goals, format, and channel for each piece of content. Be sure to include which challenge it’s solving for your buyer persona.

For ideas on content creation or a more in-depth look at how to create a content plan, check out our post, The Ultimate Guide to Content Creation.

7. Bring it to fruition.

At this point, your market research and planning should help you visualize how your strategy will be executed – and by which teams.

The final step is to bring that all together and assign actions to your plans.

Create a document that maps out the steps you need to take to execute your campaign. In other words, define your strategy.

Think long-term when creating this document. A standard strategy document is 12 months. This structured timeline should be the home base for your strategic marketing efforts.

To paint an example, let’s go back to the video software company.

Maybe in January, you will launch a software update that improves the exportation process for users. In April, you want to publish an ebook that explains editing terms to your buyer personas, and in September, you plan to launch an integration with other software.

Remember, your digital strategy is unique to your business, so the document should be as well. As long as the strategy includes the pertinent details outlined in previous sections, you’ll be set.

Now that we’ve explored the critical steps of a complete marketing strategy, let’s look at some “Why didn’t I think of that?” strategies to inspire your own.

Examples of Successful Marketing Strategies

1. Regal Movies

Digital strategy: Owned media

Regal Movies took the Halloween spirit to a new level, even renaming its Twitter account to reflect the spirit of the season. This “Monster Madness” poll is a fun, interactive way to get followers invested in Regal’s content:

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Regal’s tweet is an example of owned media because the company was in full control of the answers followers gave (and, apparently, American Werewolf didn’t stand a chance).

Regal effectively kept true to their brand by using only classic movies in their poll while still putting a modern spin on it.

This is also a good example of how retweets don’t necessarily equal success. While four retweets aren’t that big of a deal, check out the votes: 461. That means there were over 400 interactions with a single tweet.

2. Pipsnacks

Digital strategy: User-generated content, earned media

User-generated content is one of the best ways to gain traction in your strategy.

It demonstrates your appreciation for loyal customers and also incentivizes other users’ to promote your products for the chance at a similar shout-out.

Plus, sometimes the content your brand loyalists create is really, really good.

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In this case, the consumer is praising the brand’s product. Doesn’t get better than a fantastic review like that.

3. Small Girls PR

Digital strategy: Event marketing

Wait, is that Keke Palmer?

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Small Girls PR is a boutique PR company based in New York, and one of the company’s talents is throwing amazing events for their clients, like Olay. This event recap carousel on Instagram is an effective event marketing example, as it boosts awareness for your brand and offers social proof by featuring a public figure.

4. Superside

Digital strategy: Paid media

Design agency Superside launched an Instagram ad to promote a lead magnet: Their digital ad design guide. While the brand may have created the guide specifically for paid promotions, it’s also possible that they repurposed a high-performing blog post into a downloadable ebook.

In this case, all they had to do was repackage their current content, build an ad around it with creative assets, and run it.

In previous sections, we discussed the power of leveraging multiple forms of media in your marketing strategy. This is a great example of it.

5. Target

Digital strategy: Paid media, Twitter cards

If you’ve got the budget for paid media, take full advantage of it.

Paid media is when you pay social channels, like Twitter, to promote your content on their site. By doing this, your content reaches new audiences you might not be able to reach organically:

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This inclusive ad from Target about fall shopping uses Twitter cards to promote the brand and make shopping easy with the click of a button.

More social channels are offering ways for shoppers to purchase in-app or close to it, driving sales and boosting exposure for brands.

What to Expect After Following Your Marketing Process Steps

Ultimately, creating a complete marketing strategy isn’t something that can happen overnight. It takes time, hard work, and dedication to ensure you’re reaching your ideal audience, whenever and wherever they want to be reached.

Stick with it (and use some of the resources we’ve included in this post), and over time, research and customer feedback will help you refine your strategy to ensure you’re spending most of your time on the marketing channels your audience cares most about.

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

Content mapping allows you to deliver highly targeted, personalized content at every stage of the buyer’s journey, pushing leads and prospects toward a purchase decision. In this post, we’ll go over what a content map is and how you can start content mapping for your brand.

Let’s get started.

Why are content maps important?

Creating a content map is important because it personalizes your audience’s experience with your brand. They’re not receiving a one-messaging-fits-all offer or email. Instead, they get content that speaks to them at the right moment.

The idea of a content map may seem new, but it’s not. Marketers hear it all the time: The content you create needs to be personalized. It needs to be aligned with the wants and needs of your customers (and prospective customers). It needs to resonate with them. It needs to feel like it was created just for them.

On its surface, this sounds like great advice. Personalization, giving people content that they’re actually interested in … it makes perfect sense. But coming up with the actual topics that make for a highly targeted content strategy isn’t that easy.

To help you brainstorm and map out content ideas for targeting specific segments of your audience, we’ve created a new free template resource: Content Mapping Template: Using Buyer Personas & Lifecycle Stages to Create Targeted Content.

Download Your Free Template Now

I’ll talk more about how you can use this template in a bit. But first, let’s take a look at how this whole “content mapping” business works.

And when you have this concept down, you’ll want to check out HubSpot Academy’s free content marketing training resource page to learn how to map a content strategy for your business.

Content mapping supports the customer journey and creates a more cohesive, personalized customer experience.

When it comes to content, one size rarely fits all. To ensure that your company’s content is effective at generating and nurturing leads, you need to deliver the right content, to the right people, at the right time. Content mapping is the process of doing just that.

With content mapping, the goal is to target content according to:

• A buyer persona, e.g. The characteristics of the person who will be consuming the content.
• The buyer’s lifecycle stage, e.g. how close that person is to making a purchase.

Let’s go over these two qualities right now.

Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers. They help you understand your customers (and prospective customers) better, and make it easier for you to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different groups.

The strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as on insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or dozens. If you’re just getting started with personas, don’t go crazy! You can always develop more personas later if needed.

Lifecycle Stages

The buyer persona you target with your content is just one half of the content mapping equation. In addition to knowing who someone is, you need to know where they are in the buying cycle (i.e. how close they are to making a purchase). This location in the buying cycle is known as a lifecycle stage.

For the purposes of our Content Mapping Template, we’re divvying up the buying cycle into three lifecycle stages: Awareness, Consideration, & Decision.

• Awareness: In the awareness stage, a person has realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity.
• Consideration: In the consideration stage, a person has clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity.
• Decision: In the decision stage, a person has defined their solution strategy, method, or approach.

By combining buyer personas with lifecycle stages, you can really hone in on specific segments of your audience and tailor content to resonate with each of those segments.

As you get more acquainted with content mapping, you’ll want to consider website content mapping as well.

Website Content Mapping

Website content mapping is the process of planning the pages, blog posts, and offers you’ll publish on your site and identifying which buyer personas those pages and posts will serve. Website content mapping also identifies which pages and posts address different lifecycle stages.

Website content mapping is a key element of website personalization. In essence, you’ll create different pages, posts, and offers to address different buyers at different points in the buyer’s journey.

But before you can write all of that content, the content map comes first. Luckily, you don’t have to create one from scratch.

With the right content mapping template, you can get create a content map that resonates with your audience.

Content Mapping Template

Download Your Free Template Now

To help you create a content map for your own team, we’ve created a downloadable content mapping template. The template includes an introduction to content mapping, a crash course on buyer personas and lifecycle stages, a content mapping template (plus examples), and bonus buyer persona templates.

With the template, you’ll:

• Learn how to understand buyer personas and lifecycle stages.
• Identify problems and opportunities that your audience needs help with.
• Brainstorm highly targeted content ideas that incorporate personas and lifecycle stages.

This template is available in both Google Docs and Microsoft Word.

Whether you want to download our content mapping template or create your own, let’s dive into the structure of a content mapping template.

HubSpot Content Mapping Template: How to Use

In our content mapping template, we created a simple grid system. The buyer persona (and a key problem or opportunity that persona is struggling with) is at the start of the grid. As you move from left to right, you’re effectively moving down the funnel.

Here’s how to fill out each of the sections in the template.

Awareness Stage Content

Your awareness stage content should target the top of the funnel (TOFU). People in this segment are just becoming aware that they have a problem. At this stage, don’t try to beat them over the head with product-focused content. Instead, think of how your content can help people become more informed about the problem in general, and you’ll (hopefully) find that they continue moving down your funnel as they search for solutions.

Consideration Stage Content

Your consideration stage content, in comparison, can more explicitly mention how your product or service could potentially solve a problem. Keep in mind, however, that at this point in the buying cycle, people are still evaluating their options. So while case studies and demo videos are fine, save your more sales-focused content (estimates, free trials, etc.) for the next stage.

Decision Stage Content

At the decision stage of the game, you can really lean into marketing your products or services. If someone has reached this stage, they’ve already identified a problem and a solution, and are now getting ready to pull the proverbial trigger. You can begin to send more “salesy” emails and offers that push the buyer toward a purchase decision.

Unsure of what this all can look like when put together? Let’s take a look at an example below.

Content Mapping Example

You now know what content mapping is, and you have the template you need to get started. What type of tools can you use to start content mapping?

Content Mapping Tools

Content mapping may seem like a difficult task that requires highly specialized software. It’s not true — it requires simple business tools you may already be using in your day-to-day.

We’ll start with the most basic tools you need to start content mapping, such as word processors and visualization tools. Then we’ll move into the tools that will get you the data that you need to address different buyers, such as a CRM.

1. Google Docs

First up in your content mapping tech stack is your preferred word processor. This is where you’ll outline your content map and write out the actual content once it’s time to create it. We highly recommend Google Docs because it makes it easier to share work across your team, and you never have to worry about backing up your content map.

Pricing: Free

2. Lucidchart

If you’re more of a visual person, then a flowchart tool is a must. Also, if you’d prefer to create an actual content map — with lines and diagrams — then you need a more sophisticated tool than Microsoft Paint (and Microsoft Paint is great, but it may not be what you need). Lucidchart’s flowchart maker is a top-of-the-line tool that also allows you to connect different apps and services. Like Google Docs, it allows you to work collaboratively.

Pricing: Free; $7.95/month (Individual); $9/month (Team); Custom (Enterprise)

3. HubSpot

HubSpot’s CRM is the one tool you need to compile all of your data from current and prospective customers. You’ll have access to names, emails, prior engagements, and website visits all in one intuitive place. HubSpot will allow you to discern different lifecycle stages and pinpoint commonalities between customers who are ready to purchase — and customers who are not. As such, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions as you create your content map.

Pricing: Free

4. Marketing Hub

Once you have access to the customer data that you need, it’s time to write the content and distribute it. For that, you need a marketing automation tool. Marking Hub comes bundled with everything you need to create a personalized experience for your leads and prospects, such as email marketing tools. It’ll help you execute your content map once it’s ready for deployment.

Pricing: $0/month (Free); $45/month (Starter); $800/month (Professional); $3,200/month (Enterprise)

5. CMS Hub

A content management system is probably the most important tool for your content mapping efforts. A CMS will allow you to publish personalized content that targets different site visitors at — you guessed it — different stages of the buyer’s journey.

CMS Hub is fully integrated with HubSpot’s CRM platform and Marketing Hub, allowing you to create a seamless experience for your customers as they receive the content you’ve designed for them. It will help you execute your content map flawlessly. Even more importantly, with CMS Hub, you can continue testing and re-testing your content for better results.

Pricing: $23/month (Starter); $360/month (Professional); $1,200/month (Enterprise)

Not quite convinced that content mapping is worth it? Let’s hear from some marketers who are actually doing this stuff …

Content Mapping Tips From the Pros

1. Educate your audience.

“We all have to create compelling content to attract our ideal clients, build an active and engaged audience, and get daily sales. Spend time building your audience by educating them and engaging with them. No one has built a business by posting the same image or type of image everyday on socials and not having convoys with their audience. It is not just about showing up, but doing so with intention so you can attract your ideal clients who will buy from you.”

– Adanna Austin (Business Coach and Consultant, Marketing Dynamics Business Solutions)

2. Give your prospects the information they need before they ask for it.

“With content mapping, you can give your prospects the information they are asking for before they even ask for it. Buyer personas and lifecycle stages allow you to be one step ahead of the game by mapping out what your prospect’s next steps are and delivering them the content from numerous different avenues.

We create buyer personas as part of our onboarding process and everything we do from content offer to daily tweets is centered around that document. We also always ask ourselves, ‘Would business owner Bob open this email, click this tweet, or download this offer?'”

– Laura Hogan (Founder, Digital Atlas Marketing)

3. Provide different conversion paths for different personas.

“When mapping out content for your site’s visitors, it’s important to remember that when it comes to purchasing decisions (BOFU conversions, especially for B2B and high-priced items), there are some personas out there who would rather speak to someone on their terms rather than fill out a form for a consultation. Understanding how they are most comfortable when it comes to making decisions can help you understand what points of conversion will be the most relevant and successful for that persona.

Optimizing your site pages (landing and thank you pages, as well), TOFU & MOFU offers, and workflows with direct contact information (phone #, email, etc.) is a great way to ensure that visitors, prospects and leads who may shy away from form submissions still have readily available, alternate means of converting.”

– Marc Herschberger (Director of Operations, Revenue River Marketing)

4. Create specific content that appeals to specific personas.

“Mapping out buyer personas and lifecycle stages is extremely important when creating content. In terms of buyer personas, it’s easy to see that a Marketing Director will have different questions, information needs, and interests compared to a CEO. Both of these personas may be searching for your product or service, but they’ll be looking for different topics. By creating content that appeals to each audience, you can be more effective in attracting that specific audience.

By the same token, each persona of yours may be in a different stage of the buying process, so it’s important to think through and create content that appeals to someone looking for basic, high-level information such as an ebook, as well as specific information like a pricing guide or case study.

One tip I’d suggest for anyone with pretty different personas would be to dedicate an entire section of your site to each audience. That way, when you pull in your audience, all the content is directed toward them.

We actually took this concept and went a step further by creating unique brands for each one of our vertical markets. Each brand has its own section of the website, its own blog content, and its own premium content (downloadable offers). It’s really helped us attract and convert visitors at a higher rate because all the content is more relevant to that persona.”

– Spencer Powell (Chief Executive Officer, Builder Funnel)

4. Pull content topics from your sales process.

“By taking the buyer and buying stage into account when creating content, you can be sure that you’re designing content to help move them through the buying process.

In addition to mapping content to the buyer profile and buying stage, we regularly pull topics from the sales process. Then we offer the content in later sales calls. This helps us not only evaluate the relevancy of the content but also the interest of the buyer. We encourage clients to do the same.”

– Diona Kidd (Managing Partner, Knowmad)

Content Mapping is Key to Your Company’s Growth

Delivering the right content at the right time can do wonders for your company’s growth. By meeting prospects’ needs based on their persona and lifecycle stage, you’re delighting them at every turn, boosting your chances of winning a loyal customer and turning them into a brand evangelist.

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

According to HubSpot data, blogs are among the top three forms of media used in content strategies today.

This isn’t surprising. Whether you’re interested in blogging for your business or as a hobby, publishing blog content offers many benefits. Blogging not only helps you establish authority in an industry — it also drives traffic to your website and enables you to better convert that traffic into leads.

To reap the rewards of blogging, we’ll walk through the process of choosing the right platform for your needs and goals. Then we’ll explore some of the best blogging platforms that can help if you’re looking to add a blog to your business site or to create a stand-alone blog.

How to Choose a Blogging Platform

To select a blogging platform that’s right for your business, you first have to evaluate how its capabilities align with your goals and needs. If you need to boost your visibility in SERPs, for example, look for a platform with built-in SEO tools. If your main priority is to start publishing visual content fast, then you might focus on finding a platform that supports multimedia posts.

Let’s take a look at some essential features that you might need for your blog. You can use this list when evaluating different blogging platforms.

Content Editor

The content editor is the core of every blogging platform. As a blogger, you might be working in this editor every day, so make sure you pick a platform with an editor you like.

You could make a list of must-have and nice-to-have features. For example, maybe your editor must have drag-and-drop functionality and an auto-save feature but it’d be nice to have an option to preview how your post looks on different devices.

Themes and Templates

Themes and templates allow you to customize a blog quickly and easily. When looking at different blogging platforms, check out their selection of themes and templates.

Do they have a lot of options for blogging specifically? Do they have a variety of free and premium ones? What’s the average price of their premium themes? Can you edit the themes and templates to create a truly customized look for your site?

You might also want the option to start from scratch rather than use a predesigned theme.

These are just a few questions that can help you select a platform with the design and customization options you need.

SEO Features and Tools

Optimizing your content for search is essential to driving traffic to your blog. According to a study by Sistrix, sites listed on the first SERP in Google get 88% of the organic clicks for a keyword or phrase, with 28.5% going to the first result alone.

To get on that first page, you ideally want a platform with built-in tools to help you optimize your content. CMS Hub, for example, offers SEO recommendations as you write.

If a platform doesn’t have this type of advanced functionality, then check if you can install a third-party SEO tool. Otherwise, you’ll have to get up to speed on SEO best practices and make sure to implement them on your blog.

Extensions and Integrations

No blogging platform can offer every single feature every single blogger wants out-of-the-box. Besides, your blogging needs and goals will likely change over time as your audience grows or strategy shifts.

That’s why it’s important to select a blogging platform that offers extensions or integrations with third-party tools. Platforms with an ecosystem of apps will be able to scale with you over time so you don’t have to migrate to a more flexible alternative in the future. 

Now that you know some features to consider in your selection process, let’s take a look at some of the best blogging platforms on the market.

We’ll divide this list into paid and free blogging platforms, so you can find one that meets your needs and budget. Let’s get started below.

Paid Blogging Platforms

Most premium blogging platforms will offer more features and control over your blog than free platforms. If you have the budget, investing in your blogging efforts now can help you grow over time.

1. CMS Hub

G2 Rating: 4.5/5.0 (1,093 Reviews)

Best for: Rich Functionality

CMS Hub Ideal Users

What sets CMS Hub apart from other blogging platforms is that it’s ideal for both developers and marketers. It has the tools, technologies, and workflows that developers need to build a CRM-powered blog and that marketers need to manage it. 

CMS Hub Pros

The biggest advantage of CMS Hub is that it’s powerful but still easy to use. You can start by selecting a pre-designed theme or build your own custom theme. Then, using HubSpot’s blog editor and built-in SEO tools, you can quickly create search engine optimized blog posts with CTAs, forms, and other interactive elements. You can even create multi-language variations of your blog posts and run A/B tests on them to reach a global audience. Before you publish, you can preview how your posts and pages look on different types of devices.

Once you’re ready to start promoting, you can connect your blog to your social media accounts. That way, you can automatically share new blog posts on your social networks in the same place that you wrote them.

As you publish more content, you can analyze your blog performance to understand what topics and types of content are resonating with your readers. That’s because CMS Hub is built as part of HubSpot’s CRM platform.  

CMS Hub Cons

Since CMS Hub is designed to be an all-in-one solution for marketers and developers, it has lots of rich functionality, including activity logging, flexible themes, multi-language support, and more. This is a good thing for most bloggers. But, if you’re an individual or small business just starting to blog, then you may not have the time or expertise to leverage the full power of the CMS Hub. In that case, you might be better off with a simpler or free alternative to start. 

CMS Hub Website Example

Below you can take a look at this retailer’s feature-rich blog built on the CMS Hub.

CMS Hub Key Takeaways

• Meets the needs of developers and marketers
• Backed by HubSpot’s CRM tools
• Multi-lingual support, SEO recommendations, and other advanced functionality is built-in

2. WordPress

G2 Rating: 4.3/5.0 (8,096 Reviews)

Best for: Themes and Plugins

WordPress Ideal Users

Creating and managing a blog on WordPress will likely require more maintenance than other platforms, but it will provide the extensibility and content management features publishers and other businesses need to create a complex blog.

WordPress Pros

WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform. Though it has evolved into a multi-purpose content management system, it still has many features and themes for blogging.

WordPress enables you to not only purchase a custom domain and download one of 3,500+ themes specifically designed for blogs — it also lets you add social media buttons, forms, affiliate links, and other features via plugins.

The customization options are virtually limitless with the 59,000+ free plugins available.

WordPress Cons

You will have to make sure your theme and plugins are compatible and up-to-date. Otherwise, they can disrupt the user experience or break your site. Other maintenance tasks like finding and fixing broken links, updating the core software, and optimizing your database will also be your responsibility. This can be difficult for site owners who don’t have the time or technical expertise to regularly maintain their site. 

WordPress Blog Example

Tech Crunch, one of the largest and most popular technology news blogs, is powered by WordPress. Take a look at this WordPress website example below.

WordPress Key Takeaways

• Ideal for publishers and others who want to extend platform via plugins
• Over 3,500 free blogging themes
• Website maintenance can be time-consuming

3. Squarespace

G2 Rating: 4.4/5.0 (921 Reviews)

Best for: Design

Squarespace Ideal Users

Squarespace is an ideal blogging platform for businesses and individuals creating image-rich content. With Squarespace’s award-winning designer templates and integrations with Getty Images, Unsplash, and Google AMP, you can create visual content that’s engaging and shareable.

Squarespace Pros

While Squarespace only offers about 140 templates, they are all mobile-optimized and fully customizable so you can create a blog that looks the way you want it to. Once you’ve designed your pages, you can use Squarespace’s blogging and SEO tools to create and optimize your content.

Finally, after publishing your blog posts, you can connect your social media accounts to easily promote them. Then use the built-in analytics tool to learn where your traffic is coming from, what your visitors are looking for, and how they’re interacting with your content.

Squarespace Cons

Squarespace offers even more features, from audio files support to newsletter signup forms, but ultimately it’s limited in functionality. That’s because it supports less than 30 extensions, so you’re mostly limited to the features Squarespace provides out-of-the-box.

Since they lack some feature that bloggers needs — like an auto-save feature, for example — Squarespace is not the ideal platform for everyone.

Squarespace Blog Example

Squarespace does allow some bloggers to create beautiful sites, like this lifestyle blog below.

Squarespace Key Takeaways

• Best suited for individuals and brands who want to customize a blog to their personal style
• Small selection of templates but high-quality
• Limited to features and few extensions that Squarespace offers

4. Wix

G2 Rating: 4.2/5.0 (1,338 Reviews)

Best for: Fast Setup

Wix Ideal Users

Wix is a popular blogging platform for beginners who are looking for hosting and blogging tools in one place and who prioritize speed and design over functionality.

Wix Pros

With Wix, you have two options for creating your blog. Using the Wix Editor, you can start by selecting from over 800 pre-designed templates that any blogger can use, whether you own a retail business or run a food review website. Or you can start from scratch if you know HTML and CSS. Using Wix Artificial Design Intelligence, on the other hand, you can fill out a quick questionnaire and have a blog created for you. 

After you’ve picked or created your template, or had one selected for you with Wix ADI, you can begin writing and editing posts on desktop or mobile, embed Wix’s stock photos and videos or your own media, and organize them into topics.

Once you’re done writing, you can configure your SEO settings to boost your organic reach, push your content to your subscribers with Wix’s email tool, and share them through your social media accounts. You can further foster a sense of community among your readers by letting them become members.

Wix Cons

While Wix is more versatile than other hosted website builders, it lacks customization options and content management features, particularly when comparing Wix vs WordPress or another CMS.

For example, to add more advanced elements to the page, like music or maps, you’ll have to add HTML code. This process can be intimidating for beginners, particularly when compared to the ease of installing plugins on WordPress. It’s post editor also isn’t drag-and-drop, which might frustrate some bloggers.

Wix Blog Example

Take a look at this Wix blogger’s site below for an example of a stylish but relatively simple blog. 

Wix Key Takeaways

• Ideal for bloggers who prioritize speed and design over functionality
• Option to use pre-designed templates or start from scratch
• Editor lacks drag-and-drop functionality

5. Weebly

G2 Rating: 4.2/5.0 (419 Reviews)

Best for: Ease of Use

Weebly Ideal Users

Weebly is another popular blogging platform for bloggers that want everything they need to launch a blog in one place, including website building tools, templates, and hosting. More specifically, Weebly is best suited for creating blogs with lots of content but more basic functionality.

Weebly Pros

Weebly is affordable and easy to use like Wix, but differentiates itself in multiple ways. The editor supports drag-and-drop functionality for both posts and pages, for example. You can create more complex layouts by adding elements like forms and image galleries as well. You can also add more sub-levels to your navigation menus, which allows you to organize larger amounts of content.

All Weebly templates are also mobile-optimized, which means you won’t have to do any additional editing or rearranging for mobile.

Weebly Cons

While Weebly offers more functionality than most website builders, it does lack flexibility when compared to WordPress or another CMS. For example, you can’t drag and drop elements anywhere on your posts and pages or edit parts of the underlying source code. These restrictions do make Weebly easier to learn and use than most platforms, but they can frustrate more advanced users.

There’s also been some pain points since Weebly was acquired by the ecommerce company Square. A prime example: users who select that they want to create a website will see the standard Weebly editor, whereas users who select that they want to create a website with an online store will see a completely different editor called the Square Online Builder. This has caused some confusion among users. 

Weebly Blog Example

Take a look at this Weebly blog below, which is content-rich but not feature-rich. 

Weebly Key Takeaways

• Ideal for content-rich blogs
• Editor supports forms, image galleries, and other advanced elements
• No access to source code

6. Craft CMS

G2 Rating: 4.1/5.0 (35 Reviews)

Best for: Customization

Craft CMS Ideal Users

Craft CMS is a blogging platform designed for developers, designers, and web professionals. 

Craft CMS Pros

With Craft’s personalized content modeling, powerful templating, and option to edit your source code, you can completely control the appearance and functionality of your site — if you have the necessary experience.

Craft CMS also offers an image editor, collaboration tools, and a localization feature that can translate your content to specific languages. You can now also manage multiple blogs from within a single Craft install. To analyze your content’s performance, you can integrate Craft CMS’ dashboard with Google Analytics.

Craft CMS Blog Example

If you have the web development experience to fully leverage the power of Craft CMS, you’ll be able to create a complex blog with custom post types, like this travel blog below.

Craft CMS Key Takeaways

• Advanced functionality including personalized content modeling and localization feature
• Free version for single admin accounts
• Requires some web development experience

7. Contently

G2 Rating: 4.5/5.0 (51 Reviews)

Best for: Enterprise Content Marketing

Contently Ideal Users

Contently is a robust blogging platform that’s ideal for enterprise companies with large budgets but few internal editorial resources.

Contently Pros

Contently allows you to manage your entire content creation process in one place. You can create and visualize your editorial strategy with their customizable production calendar tool, organize your blog posts with their tagging tool, and effectively collaborate with your team on projects by leveraging their advanced workflow tools. You can even pay for Contently’s well-vetted freelancers to write some of this content for you.

Before publishing your content, Contently’s smart content review tools will ensure your content is aligned with your brand, optimized for search, and legally compliant. Finally, to refine your content strategy, Contently enables you to compare your content’s performance against industry benchmarks, quantify its ROI, and measure its performance by topic, format, and sources directly in your dashboard.

Contently Cons

The biggest drawback of Contently is that it’s beyond many small businesses’ and individual’s budgets. With prices ranging from $3,000 to $25,000 per month, Contently is one of the most expensive blogging platforms for enterprise companies.

Contently Blog Example

The Royal Bank of Canada, one of North America’s largest banks, uses Contently to streamline content creation across 14 marketing departments. Check out its blog below.

Contently Key Takeaways

• Can manage entire content creation process
• Deep-dive analytics
• Pricing only feasible for enterprise companies

8. Joomla

G2 Rating: 3.9/5.0 (338 Reviews)

Best for: Community Building

Joomla Ideal Users

Joomla is an open-source CMS with advanced content and user management features that are built directly into the platform. This makes it an excellent WordPress alternative for creating community-centric blogs. 

Joomla Pros

Joomla offers rich built-in functionality as well as thousands of extensions. For example, Joomla allows you to create custom post types, manage hundreds of users, and publish content in multiple languages right out of the box.

It also offers some great extensions for blogging. EasyBlog by StackIdeas, for example, provides a much cleaner drag-and-drop editor than Joomla’s built-in editor. You can also enable star ratings on your blog and automatically publish posts to your social media platforms with this extension.

Joomla Cons

Because of its robust built-in functionality, Joomla does have a steeper learning curve than a CMS like WordPress so it’ll require more time to set up. It also offers a smaller selection of themes and extensions than WordPress, which can limit your customization options.

Joomla Blog Example

Below is an example of a Joomla blog built with EasyBlog.

Joomla Key Takeaways

• Advanced content management features
• Steep learning curve due to robust built-in functionality
• May require blogging extension like EasyBlog

9. Drupal

G2 Rating: 3.8/5.0 (375 Reviews)

Best for: Flexibility

Drupal Ideal Users

Drupal is a highly flexible open-source CMS that’s best suited for advanced users, as well as enterprise companies, with complex blogging needs who are looking for a self-hosted solution. 

Drupal Pros

Drupal has hundreds of out-of-the-box features and modules. If you know how to use them or have the time to learn, then Drupal will provide you more power than other open-source platforms. 

Specifically, Drupal supports a wide selection of taxonomies, content types, page templates, blocks, views, and more for creating and managing lots of different types of content. It also has advanced user permissions so you can provide site admins, content editors, and other stakeholders personalized access to specific content. This — along with its multilingual capabilities, Layout Builder, and other modules — will allow you to create and manage large, complex blogs

Drupal Cons

If you don’t know how to use Drupal’s out-of-the-box features and modules, and you don’t have the time to learn, they can be confusing and hinder your blogging efforts. In that case, you might be better off with a simpler platform. 

Drupal Blog Example

Below is a Drupal blog that features all of the add-ons and modules developed by the site owner.

Drupal Key Takeaways

• Best suited for technical users with complex blogging needs
• Powerful content management features
• Advanced user permissions

Free Blogging Platforms

While free blogging platforms might offer less functionality and flexibility than their premium counterparts, many can still provide the blogging tools and customizations you need to start blogging. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular options below.

10. Write.as

G2 Rating: 4.3/5.0 (23 Reviews)

Best for: Privacy

Write.as Ideal Users

Write.as is a lightweight blogging platform that’s ideal for individuals looking to create simple blogs with a minimalist design.

Write.as Pros

Offering a stripped-down editor with nothing but an auto-save feature, Write.as offers the experience of writing in a virtual journal. Write.as is also free to use and doesn’t support ads.

Teams can also use it like Google Docs to share updates, proposals, and works-in-progress (for a monthly subscription). 

Write.as Cons

Write.as does require you to use Markdown, a syntax that uses special characters to format text. For example, you’d type in asterisks to create bullet points, hashtags to create headers, and [Link] to add a link. The syntax is not difficult to learn, but it might require some practice. If you’d prefer to simply click a button to create bullet lists or add hyperlinks, then you’ll be better off with one of the free platforms below.

Also, while Write.as is free to use, you’ll have to upgrade to its pro plan for $6 per month to connect a custom domain name, install a custom theme, remove the nofollow tag from your links, and more.

Write.as Blog Example

Check out an example of a Pro blog below.

Write.as Key Takeaways

• Best for individuals who want a minimalist interface and design
• Requires you to learn and use Markdown syntax
• Free version is ad-free

11. Blogger

G2 Rating: 4.1/5.0 (76 Reviews)

Best for: Simplicity

Blogger Ideal Users

Blogger is a free platform designed for newbie bloggers. While it lacks many content management features, Blogger is more feature-rich than most free blogging platforms. For that reason, Blogger is perfect for individuals looking to create lifestyle blogs as a hobby or to make some extra cash.

Blogger Pros

The biggest advantage of Blogger is how easy it is to create and customize a relatively basic blog.

To get started, you just need to create an account with Google, select a template, and get publishing. You can purchase a custom domain, optimize your SEO settings, connect your blog to Google Analytics, optimize your posts with Adsense, and even edit the HTML and CSS of your site — but you won’t be able to do much beyond that.

Blogger Cons

To get a better sense of the platform’s limitations, you can compare Blogger vs WordPress or another CMS. With Blogger, you can’t install plugins to extend the functionality of your site. You can’t create different content types, like portfolio pages. And you can’t change the default display of your content from reverse-chronological order to, say, your most popular posts.

In short, if you need the content management features and customization options of a CMS, then look into alternatives to Blogger.

Blogger Blog Example

Take a look at this personal blog below for an example.

Key Takeaways

• Best suited for lifestyle bloggers
• More feature-rich than other free blogging platforms
• Can’t create custom post types or change display of posts

12. Tumblr

G2 Rating: 3.9/5.0 (26 Reviews)

Best for: Multimedia

Ideal Users

Tumblr appeals to personal bloggers and brands alike. While bloggers might be able to use this as their only platform, brands tend to use it as one platform among many to show their personality.

Tumblr Pros

Tumblr combines the power of blogging and social networking in one highly-visual publishing platform.

Tumblr offers everything you need to create a professional-looking site. You can select from hundreds of free and premium themes and add multiple pages, sidebars, social sharing buttons, comment sections, and more. You can also buy a custom domain name from a domain name registrar rather than use the free subdomain: yourusername.tumblr.com. If you have HTML coding skills, you can further customize your site.

When you’re satisfied with your site’s design, you can start creating and publishing multimedia post types. Featuring photos, GIFs, links, chat dialogue, audio files, and video in your content makes it more engaging, memorable, and shareable. 

Since other users can easily like, reply, and reblog your posts on their Tumblr as well as their other social accounts, right from their dashboard, this is an excellent platform for engaging and fostering an online community.

Tumblr Cons

There are restrictions on the site that can frustrate users. For example, you can only schedule (or “queue”) 50 posts in a day, which might limit your ability to plan and execute a long-term content strategy. You can also only upload videos under 100MB and in MP4 format and only track 20 tags at a time. Furthermore, your site can be suspended at any time if you’re found in violation of Tumblr’s community guidelines.

Tumblr Blog Example

Vogue has a highly visual and multimedia-rich site on Tumblr. Check it out below.

Key Takeaways

• Ideal for publishing multimedia posts
• Restrictions on what you post, when, and how often
• Ideal for individuals and brands to engage with followers

Get Started Blogging

Once you identify your blogging goals and needs, you can select a blogging platform with the functionality and flexibility you’re looking for. Ideally, your platform is like CMS Hub, combining ease of use and power so you can start blogging and reap the benefits in SEO and traffic.

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

If you’ve been on Instagram for a few years now, you’ve likely watched the evolution of influencer marketing unfold.

And one tell-tale sign of influencer marketing? The swipe-up feature.

I can remember countless hours of scrolling through stories and hearing my favorite influencers encouraging me to “Swipe up, swipe up!” (My bank account remembers, too …)

But — as of August 30th — the option to swipe up is no longer available. Instead, Instagram has replaced it with a new link sticker, which effectively operates the same way: It enables users to link to external websites.

Here, we’ll explore why Instagram got rid of the swipe up, and how HubSpot (and other brands) have leveraged the sticker tool, instead.

Why Instagram is Getting Rid of the Swipe Up

Back in June 2021, Vishal Shah, Instagram’s former Head of Product, told the Verge they were testing an alternative to Instagram’s popular swipe up feature — which, as a reminder, enables influencers to direct viewers to external links.

As Shah told the Verge, stickers fit more cohesively into the existing Instagram infrastructure. He said, “[This test] brings links into the same kind of overall system, which from a simplicity of system perspective, also makes a lot of sense.”

Then, in August, Instagram made an announcement that stickers would replace the swipe up feature. In a statement, an Instagram spokesperson said stickers would “streamline the stories creation experience” and offer more “creative control”.

What does that mean, exactly? Well, unlike the swipe up feature, which looked the same for everyone, link stickers can be customized depending on color, text, size, and placement within the story.

Plus — perhaps best of all — viewers can still engage with the story by reacting or replying to it, which the swipe up feature had previously inhibited people from doing.

Here’s an example of what I mean. On the left phone, shown below, you’ll see an older HubSpot stories post with a “See More” CTA at the bottom — what was known as the swipe up feature.

On the right side, you’ll see a newer HubSpot stories post with a “Visit Link” CTA, which pops up when you click on the link:

It’s important to note — similar to the swipe up feature, the new link sticker will only be available for verified accounts or accounts with more than 10,000 followers. (At least for now.)

Adding links as a sticker makes sense for Instagram’s creative direction, seeing as most of its other features are already available in sticker form (including polls, questions, and location stickers).

To investigate how social media teams are using the new link sticker, I spoke with HubSpot’s social team. Let’s dive into their advice, next.

How HubSpot Social Media Teams Are Preparing

I spoke with Kelsi Yamada, a Marketing Manager of Social Media Campaigns at HubSpot, to learn how the team had prepared for the swap to link stickers.

Yamada told me, “The biggest piece of advice I have is to plan for the sticker to take up space. The swipe up feature allowed you to include a link without having it be a part of the creative, but [the link sticker] actually needs some real estate on the screen.”

When adding a sticker, think about how it can match the aesthetic of the post. If your stories all follow the same visual theme, consider designing your sticker to match that theme.

Yamada adds, “I also think there’s a character limit on the link sticker, so be prepared to make custom vanity links, or make it very clear where the link is going — for instance, for a product announcement, we were going to use bit.ly, but since it showed up on the sticker as a bit.ly link, we decided to just use hubspot.com/new so it seemed more authentic.”

Next, let’s dive into a few additional best practices brands can follow as they incorporate the link sticker into their stories.

How Brands Can Navigate

Similar to the swipe up feature, the link sticker enables brands to promote new product pages, upcoming events, or the company’s homepage.

But these links should be used sparingly. If every story you publish includes a link to take followers elsewhere, your followers will grow tired of clicking.

Additionally, you want your link to be as relevant to the content as possible. If you’re posting about an upcoming product announcement, don’t link to your homepage — take followers directly to the product landing page.

Here are a few other actions you can encourage followers to take with the link sticker:

• Drive traffic to your other social media accounts. For instance, you might post a short clip of a branded YouTube video, and include the link to the full video.
• Drive traffic to your blog by posting content related to the blog post, with a link to the full article.
• Create promotional deals directly through Instagram. Encourage followers to click on a story link to earn 10% off, win a giveaway, etc. This can help you increase engagement on Instagram and drive sales, as well.

Here are a few clever examples of how brands are using the new link sticker.

1. ASHYA 

ASHYA, a bag and luggage brand based in New York City, created a recent story post that highlighted the company’s new fall bag.

The design of the post is minimalist to draw attention to the new product — and, to ensure it doesn’t distract users, ASHYA’s link sticker (which links directly to the product page) is grey and white and blends into the background nicely.

2. Lil’ Libros®

Lil’ Libros®, a bookstore that sells adorable bilingual picture books for children, created a story post to highlight an upcoming book signing. The post uses a mix of tan, black, and white colors — and the link sticker, designed in a colorful blue, fits the post’s theme perfectly.

Additionally, Lil’ Libros® drew attention to the sticker by adding text with a “Click link” arrow that points users directly to the sticker. Consider how you might similarly design your post around the sticker to show followers exactly what you’re asking them to do.

3. Neatly Nested

Boston-based home decor shop Neatly Nested has a clean, sophisticated theme across their Instagram posts. In the post shown below, the team uses neutrals and browns to highlight their new fall collection. The sticker at the bottom is the same color as the background, and is placed below the photo to ensure nothing detracts from it.

And there you have it! You’re well on your way to using the link sticker like a pro. Keep in mind — just like with anything related to social media, you’ll want to do what’s best for your audience above all else.

As you test out the link sticker, keep track of which types of links drive the most traffic. Over time, you can iterate on your strategy to delight more of your audience. Happy linking!

To understand what peer-to-peer (P2P) marketing is, let’s start with an example.

Recently, I was looking for a new face moisturizer. Of course, I could’ve trusted the numerous influencers I follow on Instagram, all with strong opinions regarding the “best, most effective” options available.

But I wasn’t convinced these influencers had my best interest in mind. Yes, most influencers’ (and micro-influencers) are successful because they promote valuable products. But they’re getting commission off those posts, too.

So I handled my problem the old-fashioned way — I texted my friends and asked what products they use.

This isn’t to say influencer marketing is ineffective. Quite the opposite: When done right, influencer marketing is a fantastic opportunity to expand your brand’s reach and increase sales.

But depending on your team’s budget, influencer marketing could be limiting. Plus, influencer marketing inhibits your brand from reaching those consumers who still trust their peers above all else.

Enter: P2P marketing.

Why is peer-to-peer marketing effective?

Given 93% of consumers trust friends and family over all other influences (including review sites, blogs, and social media platforms), it makes sense why P2P marketing works.

And P2P marketing, a form of word-of-mouth marketing, isn’t new. People have been giving personal opinions about their favorite — and least favorite — brands, products, and services long before social media.

If you’re learning about P2P marketing for the first time, you might be wondering — why invest in P2P marketing, instead of more traditional forms of influencer marketing?

And what’s the difference, anyway?

Why Peer-to-Marketing Is Simply Better

Over the past couple of years, influencer marketing has been one of the most popular and effective opportunities for brands to reach new audiences by leveraging those influencers’ built-in communities.

However, as mentioned above, consumers still trust their own peers more than anyone else. And influencers can often feel like celebrities to the general public — in fact, sometimes, they are actual celebrities, like George Clooney with Nespresso. This removes a level of authenticity you might be striving for as a brand.

Additionally, many small and medium-sized businesses can’t afford the typical influencer cost. Celebrity or macro-influencers charge between $3,000 and $500,000 for a single post — and while micro-influencers are undoubtedly cheaper, they can also charge upwards of $500 per post.

Ultimately, P2P is a form of marketing that can feel increasingly trustworthy and authentic through real, genuine reviews from peers who have no incentive to promote businesses they don’t care about.

To further explore the difference between P2P marketing and influencer marketing, let’s consider an example.

Peer-to-Peer Marketing vs Influencer Marketing Example

Briogeo, a haircare company, has a referral program in which they credit existing customers 500 points for each invited friend who makes a purchase. This is an example of P2P marketing.

Briogeo’s influencer marketing campaign, on the other hand, refers to the influencers on Instagram (as well as other social platforms) who tag posts with #briogeoambassador, signifying the post is sponsored by Briogeo.

These are both equally valuable marketing options, but they achieve different goals. Briogeo’s P2P marketing initiative (in this case, the referral program), aims to tap into the company’s existing consumers to reach new prospects.

The company’s P2P program is likely more narrow in reach, but has the potential to convert more quickly than influencer marketing, since it’s leveraging the power of an existing relationship between customers and their friends or family. The influencer marketing program, alternatively, is meant to spread brand awareness about Briogeo to a wider audience.

How to Start Peer-to-Peer Marketing

You can increase P2P marketing by selling a fantastic product that your customer can’t help but recommend to others. But even if you do have a fantastic offering, it’s not guaranteed that your customers will recommend them to their family and friends.

Here’s how to prompt P2P marketing the organic way.

1. Ask for customer reviews and recommendations — always.

Some older forms of P2P marketing include Yelp, reviews on personal business’ websites, and good old-fashioned conversations between your consumers and their friends and family. You can still take advantage of these traditional avenues by asking for customer reviews and recommendations. Even if a customer doesn’t post a review online, they may feel compelled to share the product with those around them just by having that reminder.

2. Leverage referral marketing tools to increase peer-to-peer word-of-mouth.

You don’t have to rely on luck and hope that your customers will recommend your products and services. You can prompt them to do so using new tools to leverage P2P marketing on a broader scale.

Geniusreferrals, for instance, helps businesses generate customer reviews and referrals, guarantee event attendance, or even increase in-store foot traffic. The tool ultimately relies on the premise of P2P marketing: That there’s nothing more powerful than peer recommendations.

Other tools, like Higher Logic, work to establish a sense of community among existing consumers, and increase brand loyalty — a critical component of P2P marketing. (Since consumers won’t refer products or services towards which they don’t feel loyal.)

Peertomarketing.co has an excellent directory of P2P marketing tools for any budget and company size.

3. Carry out NPS® surveys to find out how your customers feel about you.

Finding out how your customers feel about your product is instrumental for increasing peer-to-peer marketing. While you could carry out a traditional survey with many questions, you can capture your customer’s sentiment by asking the classic Net Promoter Score question:

“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”

The moment you know your NPS score, you can implement strategies to increase it — and find out what, if anything, is preventing your customers from recommending your business or product to their peers.

4. Incentivize referrals by offering discounts and freebies to your customers.

While customers don’t trust influencer marketing because they know influencers get commission, the same effect doesn’t apply when it comes to their peers. Even if you offer account credit or free products in exchange for a referral, your customer’s identity as a friend or peer will be enough to sway the referred customer to make a purchase.

After all, you wouldn’t just recommend any product to your friends and families in exchange for a discount, especially if that product doesn’t work for you. But by referring other customers, your customer is giving you a vote, making it easy for others to accept the referral and make a purchase.

Peer-to-Peer Marketing Is a Winning Marketing Strategy

P2P marketing can take different forms depending on your brand and business goals. You can create a referral program, encourage reviews on your site in exchange for a small discount or prize, or organize events meant to increase brand awareness to the larger community.

Ultimately, P2P marketing comes down to increasing the incentive for your consumers to share your product or service with friends and family, which is undoubtedly one of the best long-term strategies for success.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

According to HubSpot’s social media team, the video-based social app TikTok has serious growth and engagement potential for brands.

The platform, which allows users to make short, looping videos with special effects and musical overlays, is booming with more than 1 billion users.

While Gen-Z uses the platform to show their creative side, some brands on TikTok use the platform to build brand awareness, engage younger audiences, and reveal a lighter side of themselves through funny videos and challenges that drive social media trends across other platforms.

In this post, we’ll discuss why you should leverage TikTok marketing in 2022 and how smaller companies can build a scalable, fun, and creative strategy on the platform. We’ll also cover eight brands that have gone viral on TikTok.

What is TikTok Marketing?

Although TikTok might feel like a hub of strange posts, its popularity and video-driven content provide a variety of unique marketing opportunities.

Marketers can leverage TikTok in three main areas:

1. Influencer Marketing

A great way to leverage TikTok is by engaging with the influencer community. Because influencers have a solid understanding of the platform, they can transform stiff brand messages into fun and creative videos. This type of marketing is particularly effective at opening your content to a new audience and boosting brand awareness.

2. Original Content

Although fans of TikTok love original content, you don’t need to spend hours coming up with the next viral trend. Often, the best performing TikToks are ones that replicate or recreate a current trend. Start by exploring the app, its trends, and where your brand can join the fun.

3. Paid Ads

TikTok ads are a relatively new addition to the platform. Powered by their own advertising platform, TikTok For Business, brands can run in-feed ads or create branded hashtags and video effects.

Although many of the first brands to join TikTok were large, well-known companies, it can still be helpful for small businesses to look at why brands of all sizes are joining the platform.

Why Brands Should Leverage TikTok Marketing in 2022

TikTok has seen a growth spurt over the past few years. The app has over 1 billion users and overtook Facebook as the most downloaded app of 2020.

With its stellar growth, there’s a large audience ready to be wooed by innovative and fast-thinking brands.

TikTok’s playing field is also fairly level when it comes to achieving viral status on the app. Unlike other social platforms like Instagram and Facebook, even accounts with a handful of followers can spark millions of views on a great video.

Since TikTok is quirky by nature, brands need to be creative to truly gain their audience’s attention. A simple ad or sponsored influencer endorsement might not cut it on this fast-paced app.

Let’s look at eight brands who nail TikTok marketing with creative content that draws attention.

1. NBA

Unlike its Instagram channel, which focuses purely on basketball games and highlights, the NBA’s TikTok posts show a lighter side of the organization. For example, they’ll often post videos of players working out to music, dancing on the court, or answering fan questions.

In this video, Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors busts a move from the sidelines after his teammate scores:

And check out this funny montage of Chris Bosh photo-bombing his teammates (including LeBron James) throughout his career:

While you might expect the NBA to focus more seriously on stats and games, it uses the app to lighten up the branding and make its athletes look more relatable. While the videos still promote basketball, they also fit with other funny posts on TikTok feeds.

In other business settings, making your brand feel more personal can have the same effect. For example, if your restaurant’s TikTok account posts funny videos of waiters dancing, viewers might think the restaurant has pleasant and happy staff. This might make them want to eat there because they can picture themselves having a fun dining experience.

2. Fenty Beauty

One of the most popular types of content on TikTok is tutorials. Some brands lend themselves to this more than others, but a great example is Fenty Beauty, which uses TikTok to show makeup tutorials, wear-tests, and product launches.

Tutorial-based videos can fit a variety of brands. For example, a clothing store can show how to style certain pieces of clothing. A hardware store can show how to build, restore, or paint something using its tools. Even a gym can offer a demonstration on how to use different equipment.

Start by brainstorming all the ways someone could use your products or services. If you can break a task into steps that last no more than 60 seconds, it may make for a great TikTok video tutorial.

3. Dunkin’

Dunkin’ was one of the first brands to employ influencer marketing on the platform by partnering with TikTok megastar Charli D’Amelio.

Together, they launched new menu items at Dunkin and collaborated on several videos.

After posting content about the partnership, Dunkin saw a 57% spike in app downloads and a 20% sales boost for all cold brew coffees.

Influencer marketing is powerful because it taps into word-of-mouth marketing and social proof. But if you believe you need to partner with a famous TikToker for it to work, think again.

When it comes to influencer marketing, relevance is more important than reach. Rather than partnering with an influencer based solely on vanity metrics (such as follower count), look for micro-influencers who have a niche audience that aligns with your own. Research shows that influencers with less than 1,000 followers receive more engagement than their more popular counterparts.

4. Milk Bar

TikTok videos thrive with music, and Milk Bar knows this too well. The bakery chain does an exceptional job at capitalizing on popular TikTok memes, formats, and audio.

Here’s Milk Bar putting a spin on the “Have you ever been in love?” video trend:

Check out another funny video that uses the popular “Oh Lord” audio clip:

TikTok makes it easy to add music to video clips, which could result from having made legal arrangements with major music companies. Maybe this is why it’s nearly impossible to scroll through TikTok without seeing users dancing or lip-syncing to music.

Viewers like to see brands joining in on current trends or putting a unique spin on an existing one. When brands take the time to understand TikTok and keep a finger on the pulse of the platform, it becomes easier to join trending topics, challenges, and memes. And if you’re not sure where to start, check out TikTok’s Discovery Page for inspiration.

5. Chipotle

Since joining TikTok in 2018, Chipotle has set the standard for how brands can grow their brand presence while engaging the TikTok community in a fun and authentic way.

Chipotle opts for a more casual vibe, often posting dance challenges and fan-made content, such as videos of people sharing their favorite Chipotle recipes and hacks. Here’s an example of a Chipotle “menu hack” for spicy queso, which has over 300,000 likes:

Chipotle also showcases behind-the-scenes footage from real crew members in real Chipotle kitchens. Check out this “vlog style” video of a former Chipotle employee revisiting her job and interviewing her coworkers:

If you need a creative way to spread brand awareness quickly, taking a note from Chipotle and sharing personable behind-the-scenes footage might be a great experiment. Also, lean into your brand advocates who may be willing to share their experiences on social media.

6. Gymshark

Gymshark is one of the leading fitness brands on TikTok, reaching 2 million followers in only six months. Gymshark caters to fitness fanatics by posting workout challenges, inspirational health journeys, and relatable fitness humor that makes the gym feel less intimidating.

Here’s one of those relatable fitness videos:

One of the brand’s most notable TikTok campaigns was the 66 Days: Change Your Life challenge, which highlights the fact that it takes 66 days to form a habit. TikTokers submitted videos of their own workout journey in hopes of winning a Gymshark membership.

The campaign was an overwhelming success, with the hashtag #gymshark66 generating 193 million views.

Challenges are one of the biggest trends on TikTok, and innovative brands are using them to fast-track their growth and connect with millions of users on the app. Consider creating your own challenge or putting a unique spin on an already existing one.

7. The Washington Post

The Washington Post was one of TikTok’s earliest brand adopters. Those who haven’t seen their videos might be anticipating investigative or serious content. Surprisingly, the newspaper actually uses its account to post comedic skits about the latest breaking news.

These videos fit in perfectly with the platform because they’re funny, timely, and embrace some of TikTok’s weirdest special effects. Check out this skit about Delta Airlines’ PR department struggling to write a press release about the COVID-19 delta variant:

The Washington Post displays how brands can succeed on TikTok by talking directly to its specific audience — young viewers who want to laugh.

Because The Post has a long history of groundbreaking, award-winning, and intellectual journalism, this comedic approach might also attract young readers who want to follow the news but used to worry that content from a newspaper would be too advanced or out of touch for them.

If your brand is in publishing, academia, or similar industries, testing out a video strategy that shows off your lighter side could be an interesting experiment. It might make your content and brand feel less intimidating and help you gain attention from newer audiences.

8. San Diego Zoo

Everyone loves a cute animal video. The San Diego Zoo’s TikTok account pleasantly takes advantage of this well-known fact.

The zoo’s strategy is simple: Post videos of cute animals with fun music. And with over 2 million fans, it seems to be working. How could anyone not want to follow them after seeing this video of an adorable red panda?

If that cuteness wasn’t enough, the zoo has also dueted with other animal-friendly accounts, like the Monterey Aquarium:

Not only is this appealing to penguin lovers, but it’s also a great example of how two similar brands can cross-promote using TikTok features. Because of the zoo’s tagging strategy, this video might be seen by fans of the aquarium and the zoo. This way, zoo followers might gain more interest in the aquarium and vice versa.

TikTok Marketing Tips

While it might be challenging to get your content to go viral like the bigger brands, TikTok could be a great tool for getting in sync with younger audiences.

If you think TikTok might be part of your marketing strategy soon or in the future, now would be a great time to get ahead of your competitors by downloading the app and investigating what similar brands or potential audiences are doing there.

If you’re raring to go on a TikTok strategy, here are a few tips and takeaways that we’ve gained from looking at the brands that have already done well on the app.

• Show a different side of your company. The app is a hub for creativity and humor. Embracing a more personal tone or a behind-the-scenes approach could make your company appear more relatable or trustworthy to potential customers.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment. Unlike platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, there aren’t as many norms, best practices, or rules about what works and what doesn’t. If you think something might be interesting or funny, try it and see if it gets any likes, comments, or shares.
• Engage with your audience. Between challenges, duets, likes, comments, and shares, there are plenty of ways to engage with other TikTok users — even if you don’t know them. Try to come up with videos, challenges, or duets that aim to interact with others. As with other platforms, the more you engage with people, the more your fan base could grow.
• Don’t shy away from marketing your products, but make sure you do it in a creative way. Try your hand at tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to content that showcase the best parts of your products or services.
• Tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing with influencers. But remember that relevance is more important than reach, so partner with niche micro-influencers who share a similar audience.

It’s getting difficult for marketers to ignore the popularity and influence of TikTok. Joining the platform offers an opportunity to reach younger audiences and increase brand awareness in a highly playful environment. But succeeding on TikTok relies on creating exciting content — so prepare to put your creative hat on and experiment with new formats.

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