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The look and feel of events changed exponentially after March 2020 as companies moved live events to virtual spaces. But whether your event is online or in-person over the year ahead, event branding is essential to create a memorable experience for attendees.

When I joined Adobe MAX 2020, for example, the virtual event felt as close to an in-person experience as possible. The opportunities to learn from accomplished speakers energized me and made me feel connected to the company.

That’s no surprise, because 91% of people have positive feelings about a brand after joining events. But memorable experiences don’t happen randomly — they’re the result of thoughtful event branding.

Whether you’re planning an upcoming virtual conference or outdoor meet-up, it’s important to consider the branding behind your event. You want to consider your company’s values and essence, yet design a unique, event-only brand that stands out.

To host an event that wows your audience and has a real impact on your business, here’s what to keep in mind. First … well, what is it?

What is event branding?

Like a company brand, event branding is made up of many elements including a logo, website, app, marketing materials, stage design, speakers, sponsors, and event swag.

Some elements are similar to an organization’s brand, but the event brand must stand on its own. Think about how branded events — like Dreamforce, INBOUND, or 29Rooms — are separate yet related to the companies hosting the events. This is possible with a combination of onsite branding (i.e., banners, booths, stage design, and swag) and digital branding (i.e., website, imagery, and marketing).

It’s important to note that event branding is a part of event marketing but requires its own skill sets and strategies.

The key to a well-attended event is to make your branding cohesive and recognizable, because a consistent brand presentation has been seen to increase revenue by 33%. Beyond a thoughtful branding plan, you need to promote the event, create memorable moments for attendees, and know how to gauge success. If you can make all of that happen, you’ll reap the rewards of a well-branded event.

Benefits of Event Branding

Think of the best event you’ve attended. You can likely picture the people you met, the food, the speakers, and even the after-parties. Branding an event shapes how everyone involved—speakers, attendees, employees, and sponsors—remembers the experience.

For example, one session in the Adobe MAX event showed me how to use new features in my Lightroom mobile app. I only learned that skill because Adobe selected speakers who provided value for the audience. They also had a moderator who shared immediate takeaways. And they sent me a follow-up email with the recorded session in case I needed to refresh my memory afterward.

I now follow that particular speaker on Instagram and even renewed my Adobe subscription after joining the event. Yes, I knowingly fell into the flywheel.

The point is, a branded event can help generate leads, build loyalty and credibility, and offer support. Attendees are more willing to buy into your brand promise (and eventually, into your product or service) if you provide a valuable experience.

So, if you do your job well, people will have a good experience — which generates positive emotions — and will become customers or advocates for your brand.

5 Event Branding Ideas

Creating a unique brand that resonates with your audience is about crafting a story that you and your attendees will tell. That’s why successful event branding carries one message throughout every touchpoint. For inspiration on how to tie your event together, look through these examples of well-planned events around the world.

1. Website 

A website is the hub of an event, so it needs to set the stage for the brand. This is the place to share information on the event’s purpose, dates, registration, speakers, sponsors, merchandise, and FAQs.

It should be easy to navigate and make people excited to sign up. This is exactly what the TechCrunch Disrupt website does; It’s straightforward, yet effective. And the no-nonsense branding is aligned with the modern style of innovative tech companies.

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2. Marketing

Every event planner’s nightmare is lackluster attendance. To make sure your event is buzzing, put time into marketing the event with social media posts, emails, and ads. Check out The Ultimate Guide to Event Marketing to dive into the details.

For event branding, ensure your messaging and imagery are cohesive across all channels. You want to give your audience multiple opportunities to learn about, sign up for, and share your event.

The #follow20 Design Festival is a great example of how consistent branding can help people recognize an event both online and in-person.

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3. Design

A solid marketing plan is nothing without consistent design. This includes colors, logos, typography, photography, graphics, swag, posters, and stage design. The studio Hybrid Design perfectly coordinated Pinterest’s Knit Con 2019 through vibrant, thoughtful touches that tied the values and creativity of the Pinterest team together.

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4. Swag

Event swag may seem unnecessary, with virtual events taking over in-person meet-ups. But that’s not entirely true. Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) estimates that promotional products are the most effective form of advertising across all generations, and over 80% of promotional products are used for more than a year.

While branded products have been held under the fire for causing environmental harm, unsustainable swag isn’t the only option these days. Digital gift cards, online workout class passes, free software, and charitable donations are all environmentally responsible giveaways.

The trick is to find swag that suits your brand, so don’t shop for stress balls and stickers if you’re hosting a tech conference. SXSW is a good example of how to choose merch that’s reusable and relevant to the event brand.

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5. Videos

Video marketing has been on the rise for the past few years, and the pandemic pushed the need for video further than ever. Wyzowl found that the pandemic has impacted how much video content 68% of consumers watched online, with 96% reporting an increase.

For event branding, the INBOUND video shown below strikes a balance between sharing event recaps, highlighting speaker sessions, and emphasizing the brand’s values.

Outdoor Event Branding

Outdoor events can be a good alternative to virtual events. This type of event is ideal for networking meet-ups, company picnics, award ceremonies, or festivals. And if you take the proper safety precautions, attendees will feel secure and enjoy the hard work you put into the experience.

There are a few things to consider when planning outdoor event branding. Depending on the season and location, you may need to weather-proof the event. Signs and banners need to stand up to conditions, and people need a place to escape the heat, chill, or rain.

Take advantage of these outdoor quirks to create unique branding moments. Set up plenty of spaces for small groups to gather that have fun opportunities for people to interact with your brand. To keep people socially distanced, consider branded floor decals to mark proper distance or give groups different colored wristbands to encourage people to stay together.

For instance, Seltzerland held successful outdoor events in 2020 thanks to creative thinking and smart branding. Seltzerland organizer Kate Levenstien petitioned to move the events to recently-opened golf courses.

She followed local COVID restrictions, brought dozens of beverage companies on board, ordered swag, and did test runs to check the safety of each space on the course. The result? Nine successful outdoor events across the US during a year of rolling lockdowns.

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As you plan your next event, remember that event branding is more than a logo and company colors. Designing a thoughtful brand for your event will not only ensure it resonates with your company, but it will also make it easier to engage your audience and let everyone leave with valuable information. There’s nothing better for next year’s attendance than a memorable experience everyone wants to share.

Facebook ads can generate awareness, bring in leads, and convert prospects … but only you can get them approved.

In our 2020 “Not Another State of Marketing Report,” we found that more than one in three marketers listed Facebook ads as their best performer in terms of ROI. That’s a higher ratio than Google Paid Search or Instagram.  

Over 3 million businesses used Facebook’s advertising platform in 2020 and 78% of American consumers say they’ve discovered products on Facebook in the past. Whether you’re already one of them, or if you’re just getting started on Facebook advertising, understanding Facebook’s ad approval process is paramount to success.

Below, we identify the common causes for rejection, what you can do if your ad is rejected, and some best practices to follow to ensure success.

How to Get a Facebook Ad Approved

In theory, Facebook’s approval process is straightforward:

1. Submit an ad that adheres to Facebook’s advertising guidelines. New and edited ads will both go through the same review process.
2. Facebook reviews ads using a combination of bots and manual reviewers.
3. Your ad is either approved or denied. You’ll be notified when the decision is made, and ads that were approved will go live.

However, the review process in step two can seem like a bit of a black box. What points do Facebook’s approval team take into account while doing reviews? How long will this process take? Let’s take a closer look at the review process, and what you can do to ensure your ad makes it through.

How long does Facebook’s ad review process take?

Most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, according to Facebook’s Advertising Policy, and you’ll receive an email or notification with the results of the review. However, it’s not uncommon for ad review to take up to a few days. That’s why it’s important to plan ahead and try to follow the rules.

• New ad campaigns tend to get reviewed for longer. However, if you have a long history of publishing ads successfully, you’ll see your review time shorten.
• Ads are manually reviewed, so if more people are submitting ads for review, there can be a longer wait time. Expect to wait longer during holiday seasons.
• If you’ve submitted an ad to go live as soon as possible, it will be published as soon as the review process is complete and the ad is approved.

Why was my Facebook ad not approved?

There are many reasons why Facebook rejects an ad, including:

• Selling products not allowed on Facebook (tobacco, illegal products or services, weapons, etc …).
• Making sensational claims, using click-bait, or promoting misinformation.
• Ads not following Facebook’s advertising guidelines, such as branding requirements and text restrictions.
• Disruptive or low quality content that negatively impacts a Facebook user’s experience.

Fortunately, you don’t need to figure out the reason for the rejection yourself. If your ad is rejected, you can review the reason for the rejection and either request another review or edit your ad to fit within Facebook’s policies. To review your ad status, or request an appeal, head to the Account Quality page in your Facebook account.  

Four Common Reasons for Rejected Facebook Ads

A number of Facebook’s advertising policies can be confusing at first glance. Let’s break down these common reasons for rejections to understand how you can get your ad approved faster.

1. There’s too much text on the image.

Facebook’s ad policy states that your image may not have text over 20% of the area. While it may be tempting to try and fit more information into your image, remember that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Images are more engaging than text-based ads and result in higher click-through rates. Even if it wasn’t a Facebook policy, we’d recommend reducing the amount of text on your ads.

2. Landing pages are not functional.

Your ad copy is not the only thing that matters when it comes to getting your ad approved. Facebook also examines the landing page to which you’re sending people. If the landing page is substantially different from what you’re advertising, you can expect your ad to be rejected.

Resist the temptation to be overly clever and pull a bait-and-switch with your ads (i.e., advertising to lose the dead weight and linking to a divorce attorney’s site). Your landing page URL should also be reflective of the copy on the page.

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Finally, make sure your landing page is functional. If customers have to click through pop-ups to get to the content, or there are dead links on the page, Facebook will potentially deny your ad.

3. Ad copy is overly personal.

Wait, isn’t personalization what customers want? Yes, but only when they have expressly given the permission for their data to be used. When an unknown advertiser (a third party) uses data, it can seem creepy or overreaching.

A study published in Harvard Business Review found that when “unacceptable, third-party sharing had occurred, concerns about privacy outweighed people’s appreciation for ad personalization.” In other words, users don’t feel comfortable when advertisers seem to have access to more personal data than they have directly disclosed with them.

This is one of the reasons Facebook won’t approve ads that directly reference a user’s personal information. According to Facebook’s policies, “ads must not contain content that asserts or implies personal attributes.”

For example, ad copy stating a user’s age or sexual orientation would not be allowed. While you may want to attract single 20-somethings to your hip new bar, you wouldn’t be able to say “Hey single lady! Your 20s are the time to live it up. Visit O-Town Pub tonight!” However, you can still narrow your ad audience to females in their 20s.

Yes, you should still try to direct your advertisements to your target audience. But avoid the “creepy” factor.

4. Facebook’s brand guidelines weren’t followed.

Facebook offers a number of guidelines about how to refer to them. In general, ads should avoid suggesting they are related to Facebook, adding the Facebook logo, or making Facebook branding the main focus of the ad. Additionally;

• Don’t pluralize Facebook or abbreviate it as “FB”.
• Don’t use the “f” or Facebook logos in place of the word “Facebook” in ad copy.
• Don’t change Facebook’s brand colors, even for animation purposes.

Four Best Practices for Facebook Ads

Creating an ad that will perform well goes a long way to creating an ad that will get approved. Facebook wants its users to have a positive experience when interacting with ads.

If users can discover new products and services through Facebook ads, they’ll continue to engage with the platform. Following these best practices for Facebook Ads will ensure a positive experience for your visitors, along with a strong conversion rate.

1. Think visually.

Facebook ads compete for your audience’s attention alongside all the other posts on Facebook: pictures of your friends’ kids, amazing pictures of nature, and tons of pet pictures. How is your ad going to catch the attention of your target customer? It has to be visually appealing.

Check out the below video from Chive, which sells plant pots. The big green plant catches your eye right away, while the motion keeps your attention. This is a great, simple but visually striking advertisement.

2. Have a clear call to action.

What do you want your audience to do next? Should they like your Facebook Page? Download a free template? Sign up for a newsletter? Having a direct call to action will promote more engagement. Tell your customers what to do next, then make it very easy for them to follow through.

According to AdRoll, adding a call-to-action button boosts click-through rate by 2.85 times. The advertisement below is taking advantage of Facebook’s call-to-action buttons by inviting users to sign up for a free virtual event.

3. Keep it relevant.

With Facebook Pixels and extensive ad targeting options available, there is no reason to promote irrelevant content or offers. The best offers are hyper-targeted to your ideal customer, based on their past site activity and their likes. For example, this advertisement for plant propagation decor is very relevant to me, because I’ve purchased from online plant nurseries before.

4. Provide value.

Why should a customer click through to your landing page? Do you have information they need? A product that is going to solve their problems? Or are you offering a deal? Know what value you provide customers, and make it clear in your advertisement.

The below example from an online grocery store offers delicious food, with a 10% discount on the first purchase. That’s worth signing up for.

Get Started with Facebook Ads

Understanding their policies will get your Facebook Ads approved faster and more reliably. Follow the tips above for better results when advertising on Facebook.

A lot of companies have employee referral programs.

The concept is simple: If you refer someone who ends up getting hired, you earn a reward (typically a cash bonus). It’s a win-win – HR gets qualified candidates while employees feel motivated to assist in the search process.

The caveat we often see is that if the employee leaves the company within a certain window, the reward is null and void. Why give out a commission if the company won’t see a return on their investment? This is the same principle behind performance marketing.

Let’s dive into how performance marketing works, its benefits, and the tools you can use to implement it in your strategy.

With a traditional ad campaign approach, there’s no guarantee you will get a return on your investment. Once your ad launches, you can only monitor its performance and make adjustments.

The better and quicker you are at identifying areas for improvement, the better your chances of maximizing your return on ad spend (ROAS). But even seasoned media buyers can have unsuccessful campaigns if there’s misalignment between the campaign and the target audience.

Performance marketing places the power back into advertisers’ hands. Because you’ll only be paying when your goals are met, you accomplish three things:

• Your campaign is less risky
• There’s a guaranteed return on investment (ROI)
• You have better control over your ad spend

Is affiliate marketing the same as performance marketing?

Short answer: yes and no.

Think of affiliate marketing as a subset of performance marketing. The terms are often used interchangeably. However, performance marketing has grown to cover more than just affiliates over the years.

It also comprises campaigns that use pay-per-click (PPC) models, such as paid search.

How Performance Marketing Works

There are three key players needed to execute a performance marketing strategy:

• A publisher or an affiliate partner
• A conversion goal
• A commission rate

You, as the advertiser, will seek out an affiliate partner, which can be an influencer or publisher.

You must then outline your conversion goals. Let’s say your marketing objective for the quarter is to gain 10,000 leads. You can instruct your partner to direct traffic to your landing page and they will only earn a commission once a user has filled out the form.

Your next question might be, “How do advertisers know which users come from which affiliate?” Advertisers typically give each partner a specific link or code to track who is responsible for that conversion goal.

For instance, if I was an influencer and I partnered with Brandon Blackwood, I would share a 10% discount code “MARTINA10” with my followers to use at checkout when purchasing an item from the brand. Every time someone used my code to purchase, I would get a percentage of the sale.

Today, performance marketing is most popular with influencers, as studies show consumers trust influencers more than brands.

Before influencers, there were online publishers, and they are still big players in performance marketing. If you search “Top Performance Marketing Tools” on Google and land on a listicle, there’s a chance one of these tools may be an affiliate link.

How can you know for sure? Well, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) now requires affiliate partners to disclose their partnerships to consumers. On Instagram, you’ll see the “paid partnership” tag, like this:

On websites and YouTube video descriptions, you’ll see affiliate disclosures, like this:

How To Create a Performance Marketing Strategy

1. Define your goals.

With any digital marketing campaign, establishing your objectives is key.

What do you want to accomplish? It may be general brand awareness, sales for your new product line, more leads, or something else.

Let’s go back to the world where I’m an influencer. Let’s say Brandon Blackwood just came out with a new product. Their marketing goal is to raise awareness of the new product and drive traffic to its product page to generate sales. In this case, their key metrics would be website clicks and unique sales.

Once you define your goals, you can develop your ad strategy and determine which metrics to track.

2. Identify your partners.

Now that you know what you want to achieve, start looking at online publishers and social media influencers whose audiences align with your own.

Identifying the right partners will require extensive research but it’s arguably the most important step.

Imagine working with a partner whose audience has no interest in your brand or product. Although they may interact at some level, they likely won’t convert.

And while you may not lose money, given that they would need to perform a particular action, it would be a waste of your time and resources.

After identifying who you want to work with, reach out to them to see if they would be interested in a partnership. During this step in the process, you’ll discuss your marketing goals, target audience, and commission rates. While some brands have standard rates, others may negotiate.

3. Generate and assign IDs.

You have solidified your partnerships. Now it’s time to get your links and codes ready to share with your affiliate(s).

The only way to correctly attribute an action to a particular partner is by assigning a custom ID, code, or UTM parameter.

It’s important to note that while you may do this manually at first, you’ll likely need to rely on a program to automate this process as you scale your business.

Top Performance Marketing Software

There are two main types of performance marketing software: those that focus on connecting advertisers with affiliate partners or publishers and those that monitor performance. Let’s go through some top tools in each category.

Performance Marketing Partnership Tools

1. PartnerStack

If you’re a SaaS company looking to develop a robust partner program, consider PartnerStack.

The platform, ranked in G2’s 2021 top 50 “Products for Sales,” helps brands recruit, onboard, and manage partners.

PartnerStack’s key features include custom forms and email flows to:

• Facilitate onboarding.
• Set up reward structures that are tailored to each partner.
• Develop an automated payment process.

The company offers custom pricing based on the needs and requirements of each business.

2. Partnerize

Want a simple and easy-to-use dashboard to manage your partners? Check out Partnerize.

Their dashboard gives you high-level data that allow you to gather information quickly and make decisions. Beyond that, Partnerize also customizes its features based on the industry, ensuring that every brand will have what they need to succeed in their performance marketing campaigns.

For pricing information, contact Partnerize.

3. TapJoy

TapJoy is designed for brands targeting mobile app users.

The software serves as an intermediary between advertisers and top mobile gaming publishers. Brands can track key conversion goals, like video completion and in-app purchases, and only pay money on the actions that meet their goals.

To learn about TapJoy’s pricing structure, you must contact the company.

Performance Marketing Tracking Tools

1. LeadDyno

One of the biggest struggles of working with affiliates is creating and tracking links and codes for each partner. This is where LeadDyno comes in.

LeadDyno gives brands the tools needed to grow a successful affiliate program. Standout features include:

• Automated links and codes for each partner
• Option to upload social media-ready content for affiliates to share
• A customizable affiliate portal

Pricing starts at $49/month and goes up to $79/month, for access to unlimited affiliates, extensive customer support options, and more. LeadDyno also offers custom pricing for businesses with over 7,500 unique monthly website visitors.

2. AnyTrack.io

With AnyTrack, attribution reporting is easier. You can consolidate data from multiple sources (like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel) into one platform. From there, you can identify which strategies are working, and which ones require adjustments.

You can start using AnyTrack for free. Premium versions of the software are available, with pricing ranging from $50/month to $300/month.

3. Impact

The Impact tool streamlines the partnership process from initial contact to payout.

Anyone from an ambassador to a sponsor can be added to a brand’s “Partnership Cloud,” with tailored features for each type of partner.

Beyond the Cloud, Impact’s main features include:

• Partner search and discovery
• Fraud detection
• Partner management optimization

Get in touch with Impact to learn more about pricing.

Top Performance Marketing Verticals

Wondering which industries use performance marketing the most? According to a 2018 study by the Performance Marketing Association, advertisers in the retail sector spent the most in performance marketing – accounting for 50% of total spend. The financial sector followed with 35%, then a steep drop off to the travel industry with a 7% spend.

In terms of revenue, the sector with the highest revenue was retail at 73%, followed by travel with 14%. Industries like automotive, healthcare, and telecoms only accounted for 1% of the total performance marketing revenue in 2018.

However, despite having the big spend and highest revenue percentages, the retail industry didn’t offer the best ROAS. According to the report, the travel industry offered the best return with an 18:1 ratio, followed by the entertainment sector with a 15:1 ratio.

Any industry can have success with performance marketing. It’s all about collaborating with the right partners and setting up a robust program to reach your marketing goals.

Today’s buyer’s journey includes a number of interactions across various touchpoints and channels. There’s rarely a conversion of sale that occurs based off a single interaction.

Rather, conversions and sales often stem from a mix of interactions via a variety of sources such as blog articles, social media posts, webinars, in-person events, conversations with reps, content on your website, email marketing campaigns, and more. All of these touchpoints play a role in getting your customers to convert.

Attribution allows you to give credit for conversions to those marketing touchpoints and channels throughout the buyer’s journey. Multi-touch attribution takes this a step further.

Multi-Touch Attribution

In this blog post, we’ll cover the definition of multi-touch attribution, what makes it unique from other types of attribution, and multi-touch attribution models. Let’s get started.

What is multi-touch attribution?

Multi-touch attribution, which may also be referred to as fractional attribution, is how you determine the value of each touchpoint throughout the customer journey that results in a conversion.

In other words, it’s when credit for a conversion is given to every touchpoint that a customer experienced throughout the buyer’s journey.

Why is multi-touch attribution important?

The reason multi-touch attribution is so important is that it allows you to pinpoint all of the channels that contribute to a conversion and which of those channels have the most impact on a conversion. It gives you a clear picture of how your channels and touchpoints influence every conversion.

This is valuable information that you can use to enhance those touchpoints for future prospects to improve the customer experience and buyer’s journey. It shows you exactly how different touchpoints and channels work together to influence deals on an individual level.

You can also use this information to better understand what matters most to your target audience throughout the buyer’s journey and which aspects of the customer experience are most influential when they’re making a decision.

You may have heard about other types of attribution before, such as first-touch and last-touch. Let’s talk about what makes multi-touch attribution unique next.

Multi-Touch Attribution vs. First-Touch Attribution vs. Last-Touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution is unique from first-touch and last-touch attribution because it doesn’t attribute a conversion to the first or last marketing touchpoint a customer has prior to converting.

For example, say a HubSpot customer read a blog post, attended INBOUND, interacted with a social media post, and then became a customer.

First-touch attribution would conclude that the blog post that the customer read gets the credit for their conversion whereas last-touch attribution would give the credit to the social media post they interacted with. Meanwhile, multi-touch attribution would consider all of these touchpoints and assign credit to each of them.

Meaning, multi-touch attribution is unique because it takes all touchpoints into consideration and then assigns credit to each of those touchpoints based on the amount of influence it had a customer’s decision to convert. First and last-touch attribution — which may also be referred to as single-touch attribution — do not. These methods feel slightly outdated when compared to multi-touch attribution because they don’t account for the many touchpoints and channels that exist for prospects and customers to engage with.

Multi-Touch Attribution Models

There are a number of attribution models that you can use to determine which touchpoints are the most important in the buyer’s journey — and different multi-touch attribution models weigh the multiple touchpoints in different ways.

Here are four of the most common multi-touch attribution models to help you get started.

1. Linear Attribution

A linear attribution model, also known as an even-weighting attribution model, gives equal credit for a conversion to every touchpoint in the buyer’s journey. This can be considered the “standard” when it comes to multi-touch attribution models.

Who should use linear attribution?

Linear attribution is great if your prospects are often in the consideration phase of the buyer’s journey for an extended period of time because it shows you the impact that all of your content and messaging has during that extended phase.

It’s also ideal if you want to know the ways that your touchpoints work together to influence a deal or if you’re new to multi-touch attribution and don’t have a baseline understanding of how your touchpoints tend to do among your audience.

2. Time Decay Attribution

A time-decay attribution model is when you organize your touchpoints based on their percent influence on a conversion so that the least-influential touchpoint (with the lowest percentage) is first and the most-influential touchpoint (with the greatest percentage) is last.

Who should use time decay attribution?

Time decay attribution is ideal if you’re measuring the success of short-term touchpoints like campaigns.

3. U-Shaped Attribution

A U-shaped attribution model, also known as a bathtub model, gives the first and last touchpoints in the buyer’s journey a higher percentage of credit than the touchpoints in the middle.

Who should use u-shaped attribution?

U-shaped attribution is ideal if your team wants to focus on the impact of the first and last of your multiple touchpoints. There’s less emphasis on touchpoints that support the middle stages of the buyer’s journey.

4. W-Shaped Attribution

W-shaped multi-touch attribution gives credit to the first and last touchpoints in the buyer’s journey as well as gives value to the touchpoints that occur in the middle of the buyer’s journey. Then, all remaining touchpoints are assigned equal credit.

Who should use w-shaped attribution?

W-shaped attribution is helpful if you want to understand which touchpoints actually convert leads but also identify the touchpoints that encourage customers to engage and continue to move through the buyer’s journey.

In addition to the four multi-touch attribution models above, you can also create customize your multi-touch attribution model using attribution software.

Multi-touch attribution software — like Wicked Reports — has the power to make the process of identifying which of your marketing touchpoints are succeeding or failing among your prospects simple.

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In fact, Wicked Reports gives you a complete view of how customers interact with your brand and tracks incoming clicks against your CRM and sales data so you can identify the most important clicks in relation to your team’s unique marketing goals.

Pro Tip: Seamlessly integrate Wicked Reports with your HubSpot CRM platform.

Use Multi-Touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution is a powerful process that marketers can use to identify the various factors that influenced a purchase decision for a customer. It also helps marketers understand which of those factors were the most influential in their decision.

This information can be used to improve the buyer’s journey and the marketing content and communications shared throughout it as well as provide an understanding of what matters most to your business’ unique prospects when making a buying decision.

A few years ago, I got hired as a content marketer at a small web design company.

At the time, I thought one skill — and one skill only — would serve me well enough to succeed: the ability to write.

I was a proud English graduate who had no idea how to make it successfully as a content marketer.

Fortunately, I’ve picked up some critical skills over the years that’ve enabled me to grow as a content marketer. Most of those skills have nothing to do with writing.

Whether you’ve been a content marketer for years or you’re looking to get hired for your first content marketing role, you’re in luck. Here, let’s explore the skills you’ll need to hone to excel as a content marketer in 2021 and beyond.

Content Marketing Skills

1. Copywriting

More likely than not, the vast majority of your role as a content marketer requires you to create content that converts leads and drives sales. To do this successfully, you need to be a good copywriter.

However, it’s important to note — copywriting for marketing purposes requires different skills than it might if you were writing for non-business purposes.

For one, copywriting for a business requires a consistent commitment to writing in a brand’s unique voice.

This can get particularly difficult if you’re a freelance content marketer who creates content for different businesses and industries. However, it’s critical you develop the ability to write in different styles depending on the needs of a business.

For a sales blog, for instance, you might need to write short, concise, straightforward sentences, since salespeople are often strapped for time and need answers immediately.

Marketers, on the other hand, have a bit more time to appreciate writing for writing’s sake, so you can take the time to use more creative, long-form sentences.

Additionally, how you write a video script for an insurance company varies significantly from how you write social copy for an e-commerce business.

Developing a brand voice — and knowing how to alter your writing style depending on business needs and audience persona — is a critical skill in content marketing.

2. Editing Skills

Along similar lines as copywriting, it’s vital you become a proficient editor if you want to succeed as a content marketer.

Good, clear writing can be powerful enough to persuade hesitant prospects to buy. And, on the flip side, messy, error-prone writing could cause new visitors and prospects to abandon your site entirely.

In short, the ability to edit is the difference between mediocre writing and compelling, engaging, high-converting content.

No pressure, right?

Learning how to create content quickly is a critical skill of any content marketer, particularly if you’re responsible for creating content across a variety of channels for your business. Editing, then, is a mandatory step for cleaning up that copy and making it sound as professional and polished as possible.

3. SEO Skills

This skill was a tricky one for me to master, but it is vital for ensuring my content ranks online and reaches the right audience when they need it most.

As a content marketer, your role isn’t just to create high-quality content. It’s also to create content that converts readers, listeners, or watchers into customers.

And to do this, you need a basic understanding of SEO.

For instance, if you’re a content marketer who’s in charge of your company’s YouTube page, you’ll want to know how to conduct keyword research to discern what people are looking for on YouTube, and then write compelling, SEO-optimized titles and video descriptions to attract viewers to those videos.

Alternatively, as a blogger, you’ll need to know how to create SEO-optimized content — including using appropriate alt-text in your images, using relevant keywords in your section titles, and thoughtfully incorporating keywords throughout your content (rather than keyword-stuffing).

Ultimately, SEO ensures the content you work hard to create is served to the right audiences, at the right time. Without an SEO foundation, then, it will be difficult to succeed as a content marketer.

4. A Talent for Interviewing

As a content marketer, you’re often tasked with creating content around unfamiliar or complex topics.

It can feel daunting to do the research necessary to create an informative, helpful piece of content on a topic for which you’re a novice at best. This is where interviewing can help you level up as a content marketer.

For instance, when I needed to write about Google’s rel=nofollow announcement last year, I knew I’d have a hard time determining why it mattered to our audience if I didn’t speak to an SEO strategist. Which is why I interviewed my colleague, Victor Pan, to add expert advice and help my audience understand the topic on a deeper level.

5. Time Management & Organization Skills

One of the most important skills any content marketer can foster is the skill to stay organized even under tight deadlines.

Being a content marketer means publishing content on a consistent, effective basis to ensure you’re reaching and converting audiences into leads for your sales team every month. As such, being organized and adhering to a content calendar that aligns with your company’s goals is a critical aspect of your role.

Additionally, writing can get tiring, so time management is important for avoiding burnout. For instance, if you’re required to write four blog posts per week, it will be helpful if you can block off time in your calendar for “Writing Time” during your peak productivity hours. Writing those four blog posts the night before the posts are due won’t set you up for success as a content marketer.

Consider using project management software to ensure your content remains organized even as your team scales. 

6. Data & Analytics Skills

If you don’t have the skills necessary to analyze how your content is performing, then it will be difficult — if not impossible — to iterate on your strategy over time and achieve new levels of growth.

A content marketer’s role includes the ability to analyze industry trends, keep up-to-date on your audience’s preferences and behavior, and use all that information to make strategic decisions and expand your brand’s reach.

When I first started creating content for HubSpot’s Blog, I was vehemently opposed to data. I enjoyed the creativity of content creation, and data felt like the exact opposite of all that.

However, over time I realized it didn’t matter how creative or unique my content was if no one read it.

This is where data came into play. It helped me iterate on the types of content I was writing, choose new topics to tackle that I knew my audience liked best, and stay ahead of industry trends to ensure my content aligned with conversions happening with marketers across the globe.

Ultimately, data is vital for ensuring you have a strong, effective content strategy. 

These are just a few skills you’ll need to master as you level up as a content marketer. Ultimately, the ability to remain flexible and figure out the needs of your own company’s unique goals is critical to succeeding as a content marketer for the long-haul. 

In an ideal world, marketers would have limitless budgets to invest in experimental initiatives and new programs. After all, the customer acquisition and retention landscape are evolving faster than ever. The challenge, however, is that marketing budgets are often limited around what’s proven to work — which tends to look different from company to company.

That’s why it’s so important to have access to industry data. By knowing where we stand against our peers and competitors, we’re better positioned to uncover areas of opportunity. And, given that overall marketing spend is expected to grow by 14% in 2021, you definitely want to know what your competitors are doing.

In this post, we’ll discuss data-backed areas that marketers are focusing their investments in 2021.

What Marketing Leaders Are Investing in This Year

Growth Marketing

The HubSpot Executive Marketing Leadership Survey posed the following question to respondents: “What areas of your marketing do you wish your team invested more in 2021?” Most respondents said they wanted to spend more time on growth marketing.

In brief, growth marketing describes the experiments and resulting processes that businesses used to build and retain a customer base over time. This can involve running A/B tests to ensure that all of your marketing efforts directly result from data that clearly explains your best practices in terms of converting and retaining customers. It’s closely related to conversion rate optimization, where you’re updating your content to increase acquisition.

Growth marketing can also involve using design elements and unique content to connect your brand with your audience to help you stay adaptive, consistent, and recognizable to your target market.

Featured Resource: A Data-Driven Approach To Growth Marketing

Reacting At Speed

63% of marketing leaders say that the coronavirus pandemic has impacted their teams’ productivity and responsiveness, and 11% say that responding to global environments is a barrier to productivity.

Because of this, marketers report that they will be investing more time in 2021 in being able to adapt and react at speed. Not only to changes within their industry but also to global challenges, which has proven to be more critical during the current pandemic.

Marketers say that the main issues to reacting at speed are developing unique, creative content at a fast pace and adapting quickly to trends.

They say they’ll combat this issue by taking stock of their current content and coming up with an action plan for future adaptations, interviewing their audience about their struggles, restructuring teams, and simply being ready to making changes when issues arise, even at a moment’s notice.

Investing in Marketing Technology

60% of marketers indicated that they are set to increase their marketing technology spending in the next 12 months. Investments in marketing technology are directly related to the above marketing trends of reacting at speed and growth marketing, as it will help marketers retain and delight their audiences and react at speed when necessary.

As a refresher, marketing technology, often referred to as martech, is a term used to describe the software and technology used to attract and retain customers. As of 2020, there are 8,000 different martech tools to choose from, ranging from data analytics platforms to CRMs, to internal team collaboration tools.

Regardless of the tools they use, a martech tech stack helps marketers streamline their processes and take a systematic approach to their day-to-day activities. And, as remote work becomes more commonplace, access to these technologies makes it easy for teams to work together, regardless of physical location.

Featured Resource: How to Stay Current on Emerging Tech

Continued Investment in Diversity Marketing

Early 2020 brought many businesses to a reckoning, as increased attention to social justice issues was at the forefront of conversations during the first few months of the year.

Consumers care now more than ever about the stances businesses take on public issues, demanding change and awareness from brands on diversity, equity, and inclusion. One of the ways they want to see this represented in businesses is diversity marketing.

It’s an effective practice for marketers to commit to, especially considering that people are more likely to consider a product after seeing an ad they think is diverse or inclusive, and 64% actually take action after seeing an ad they believed to be diverse and inclusive.

Thus, marketers will make a continued and improved effort to focus on diversity marketing in 2021 and be representative of the communities they serve that drive their revenue and keep their businesses afloat.

However, in the same vein, it’s even more critical that businesses are genuine about the diversity measures they take. Consumers can see through the fluff, and a recent survey found that 59% of consumers think that companies need to follow up on their statements on diversity with concrete action, or they risk being seen as exploitative and opportunist. Read this post to see examples of businesses that have exemplified the practice of inclusive marketing.

Personalization

Personalization is the way you interact with your audience and customers in a way that feels individualized, as you use data and buyer personas to create content that tailors to their likes and interests.

While 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences, marketers like the practice; 96% of them say it helps advance customer relationships. Given this, Think With Google names personalization as an area of focus for marketers in 2021.

How can marketers prepare? By leveraging the other trends on this list — investment in marketing technology that helps you with personalization, like powerful data analytics platforms to learn about customer preferences and email marketing services that help you personalize the messages you share with customers. In addition, a focus on and commitment to diversity marketing also ensures that your audiences are interacting with material that they can relate to and is relevant to their interests.

Join other market leaders in leveraging these trends.

Although not an exhaustive list, marketers are focusing on and investing in the trends mentioned above for 2021. Understand how each one will affect your business, and join other marketers in these investments.

To learn more about the state of marketing in 2021, read this post to hear directly from marketing experts about trends they expect to see throughout the year.

Whenever I’m driving and see a Herb Chambers billboard, I smile.

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At this point, I can recognize the short, humorous, memorable ad copy as a Herb ad without even needing to see the brand name.

 And, after years of seeing those ads, I feel like I know the Herb brand, and can describe it like an old friend: He’s funny, likes a good pun, and doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Now that’s the power of brand voice: the power to make your brand come to life.

Consumers prefer brands with strong, unique personalities. In Sprout Social’s 2020 Index, for instance, 40% of consumers listed memorable content as a factor that helps brands stand out on social; 33% voted for distinct personality; and 32% said compelling storytelling.

What do memorable content, distinct personality, and compelling storytelling have in common? Brand voice.

Here, let’s explore what brand voice is, and examples of some of the most powerful brand voices today. Plus, how you can create your own.

What is brand voice?

When a friend calls you, consider — beyond the name that appears on caller ID — how do you know it’s her?

More likely than not, you can deduce this information from how she speaks. The common phrases she uses, how she tells a story, her tone and inflection, and even what information she chooses to include (and exclude) in a given sentence all highlight her unique voice and personality.

Alternatively, think about the last time you chatted with a stranger. In mere minutes, I bet you start to get a sense for their personality. Through a brief conversation, you can start to deduce whether they’re outgoing or shy, serious or funny, and more.

Ultimately, a person’s voice is synonymous with their personality, as it relates to how they communicate.

And brand voice isn’t much different.

Brand voice is the personality your brand takes on in all of its communications.

Brand voice is a critical factor for creating consistency across communication channels, regardless of who creates the content. For instance, brands with strong voice will sound the same on social media, email communications, and blog posts — even if three different teams create content for those channels.

Good brand voice makes your brand stand out from the noise, and helps consumers remember and relate to your brand. This, in turn, creates stronger brand loyalty.

Plus, brand voice can help attract new prospects before they even learn about your product or services.

For instance, consider the humor used in MoonPie’s social posts:

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Before I’d even purchased a MoonPie for the first time, I followed them on Twitter. Why? Because I liked the brand’s voice — it made me laugh, and felt relatable.

Of course, a brand voice doesn’t have to be funny to be powerful. Other powerful brand voices can be inspiring, emotional, bold, casual, formal, poetic, or direct.

To see this in-action, let’s take a look at some impressive examples of brand voice, next.

Brand Voice Examples

1. Spotify

Whether you’re watching a TV ad, driving past a billboard, or scrolling Spotify’s social accounts, you’ll see consistently funny, edgy, direct, and concise language used to develop Spotify’s brand voice.

For instance, take a look at this video, which is part of a Spotify advertisement campaign from 2019, ‘Let the Song Play’:

As you can see, Spotify doesn’t take itself too seriously. The ad makes fun of people who get so emotionally-invested in a song that they won’t resume their plans until the song ends.

You’ll see a similar brand voice play out on Spotify’s social channels. On its Twitter account, for instance, the brand often posts tweets related to new music in a casual, friendly manner, like this one:

If I were to describe Spotify’s brand voice as a person, I’d say she’s witty, sarcastic, and up-to-date on today’s pop culture references. You’ll see that personality play out across all of Spotify’s communication channels.

2. Mailchimp

For this next example, we can look at Mailchimp’s Content Style Guide to derive important information related to Mailchimp’s brand voice.

In the Style Guide, Mailchimp writes, “We want to educate people without patronizing or confusing them. Using offbeat humor and a conversational voice, we play with language to bring joy to their work … We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Even in the Style Guide, you can hear Mailchimp’s brand voice shine through. The brand consistently achieves a conversational, direct, playful voice in all its content.

For instance, in this blog post, the brand writes about various “highly unscientific personas”, including the fainting goat, which links out to a hilarious video. “When startled, its muscles stiffen up and it falls right over”, strikes the appropriate casual tone that is a staple of the brand’s voice.

As you can see from this example, you can evoke brand voice in subtle yet effective ways. If the blogger had instead written, “If a goat is scared, it becomes nervous. The animal’s muscles contract and it faints as a result”, the writer would’ve evoked a voice more aligned with a scientific journal than Mailchimp.

3. Fenty Beauty 

On the About Us page for Rihanna’s beauty company, it says, “Before she was BadGalRiRi: music, fashion and beauty icon, Robyn Rihanna Fenty was a little girl in Barbados transfixed by her mother’s lipstick. The first time she experienced makeup for herself, she never looked back. Makeup became her weapon of choice for self-expression.”

It’s clear, even just through this short snippet, that Fenty Beauty’s voice is bold, direct, and poetic, using language like “transfixed by her mother’s lipstick” and “her weapon of choice for self-expression”. However, the tone is also undeniably casual — the way you might talk to your best friend.

You’ll see this voice play out across all Fenty social channels, including this YouTube video description: “The blur is REAL! Rihanna wanted to create a light coverage, easy-to-apply, flexible skin tint that instantly evens out your complexion and gives a flattering blurred effect. Eaze Drop, paired with Fenty Skin’s HYDRA VIZOR for added SPF protection, is the perfect combo for a natural, no-makeup makeup look, or for when you want to look effortlessly put together.”

The first statement, “The blur is REAL!” — along with phrases like “No-makeup makeup look”, and the shortening of the word “combination” — all evoke a sense of friendliness. The brand voice matches its target audience perfectly: youthful millennials and Gen-Zers who care about makeup as an opportunity for authentic expression.

4. Clare Paint 

Clare, an online paint site, has created a mature, spirited, and cheerful brand voice to evoke a breezy, girl-next-door feel to their branded content.

For instance, consider the title of one of their recent blog posts, “6 Stylish Rooms on Instagram That Make a Strong Case For Pink Walls“.

The post — which uses phrases like “millennial pink”, “pink walls have obvious staying power”, and “designers and DIY enthusiasts alike have embraced the playful shade with open arms” — uses a friendly, chic, professional tone to relate to its readers while simultaneously demonstrating the brand’s home decor expertise.

This voice is clear across channels. Take a look at this Instagram post, for instance:

“When baby’s first bedroom is on your grown-up vision board” makes the brand feel like a good-natured older (and more fashionable) sister, and the reference to the COO’s baby boy is another opportunity to make authentic connections with Clare followers.  

5. Skittles

Skittles often posts hilarious social media posts that strip away any promotional, phony language so you’re left with something much more real.

Take a recent tweet, for instance, that reads: “Vote Skittles for Best Brand on Twitter so we can keep our jobs!”

The brand voice, which is clever and original, does a good job making prospects and customers feel like they’re chatting with a mischievous employee behind-the-scenes. The Oh my god, I can’t believe they just posted that factor keeps the content fresh and exciting.

Plus, the brand does a good job referencing pop culture references, like this Mean Girls reference, to highlight the brand’s youthfulness.

Now that we’ve explored five impressive examples of brand voice, let’s dive into how you can create your own brand voice.

Creating a Brand Voice

1. Start with your company’s mission or value statement.

Your brand’s mission or value statement can help you determine some key characteristics of your brand voice.

For instance, consider A Good Company’s Values page:

You’ll see these values — transparency, eco-friendliness, and modern instead of traditional — embedded in every piece of content you read from A Good Company.

For instance, take a look at this blog post, Agood Recommends: The Best Second Hand and Rental Marketplaces:

The writing is clear, straightforward, and direct, to support the brand’s transparency values. The writer takes the angle of eco-friendliness in the opinions expressed throughout the piece (i.e. “so much stuff already exists in the world”).

And, finally, there’s a casual, informal tone to the voice, hinting at a company that isn’t old-school and doesn’t take itself too seriously (i.e. “pick up some ‘on fleek’ style bargains).

You’ll want to consider your own values when creating a brand voice. Those values can become key characteristics of your voice.

2. Research your audience and use your buyer persona as inspiration for brand voice.  

Your audience will be the ultimate test of whether you’ve created a successful brand voice. If your voice doesn’t resonate with your audience, then it probably isn’t the right voice.

When creating a brand voice, then, it’s vital you consider your buyer persona.

What is she like? Does she like to read more formal, journalistic-style pieces, or casually skim funny memes on social media? Does she like humor in the content she consumes, or would she prefer the content be straightforward and to-the-point?

Your buyer persona will influence the voice you create.

Additionally, audience research can help you determine other types of content that perform best with your audience, which is undeniably helpful when creating a strong voice. For instance, perhaps you survey your audience or use an analytics tool like Google Analytics to determine other sites your readers frequent.

Figuring out what else they consume is helpful here — your voice should be different if your readers often consume Buzzfeed content, versus the New York Times. The Buzzfeed audience might prefer more casual, funny writing, while the latter probably likes more academic-style content.

3. Look at best-performing pieces and consider why they work.

If you’ve already been publishing content for a few months or even years, then take a look at your top-performing pieces and write down key characteristics of the voice used in those pieces.

Is your top-performing piece more poetic? Does it include trends and pop-culture references? Does it dive deep into a topic and include original research to back up its claims?

Ultimately, these pieces are already resonating with your audience, and it’s likely (at least in part) due to voice. Take note of which aspects of the voice you feel can, and should, be replicated across your brand as a whole.

4. Make a do’s and don’ts list.

Oftentimes, determining brand voice starts by asking: “What don’t we want our brand voice to be?”

Figuring out what you don’t want your brand voice to be is a critical step in choosing the right voice for your brand.

For instance, perhaps your team brainstorms the following statements:

• Our brand voice is not uppity or pretentious.
• Our brand voice is not too serious.
• Our brand voice is not grandiose.
• Our brand voice is not unfriendly.

Once you’ve taken a look at these statements, you can begin forming the antithesis to this: 

Our brand voice is down-to-earth and authentic. It’s funny and casual. It’s humble. And it’s helpful.

5. If necessary, use a third-party agency to determine brand voice.

Forbes’ BrandVoice is a media partnership program that helps brands reach and resonate with their audiences through expert consultancy and direct access to Forbes audiences.

Take a look at how Cole Haan worked with Forbes to create content related to style, arts, travel, social impact, and more. Each piece uses a unique voice to target the intended audience for that category.

Consider the voice used for a staycation, travel-related piece:

… Versus the voice used for a style-related piece that highlights a sustainable home goods company:

As you can see, different voices are necessary for reaching and resonating with these very different audiences. And Cole Haan, with the help of Forbes’ BrandVoice program, is able to use both.

If you’re struggling to create a unique brand voice or you need to use different voices for different aspects of your business (like a Sales blog versus a Marketing blog), consider using a program like BrandVoice or a third-party content marketing agency to hone in on a voice that makes the most sense for your business.

6. Create a communications document so all of your content is aligned on brand voice.

Once you’ve created your brand voice, you’ll want to ensure your entire company is aligned in using that voice when creating any marketing materials.

If your company only uses internal writers, consider creating a training course for new writers to learn how to write for your brand. If you work with external guest contributors as well, you’ll want to make public-facing guest contributor guidelines to ensure all your writing captures the appropriate voice.

7. Fill out a brand voice template with 3-5 core voice characteristics.

Use a table to formalize your process. Write down the 3-5 core characteristics you’ve determined are important for your brand’s voice, and how your writers can use these traits in their writing.

This step is important for translating ideas into action — how can your writers create a “humble, authentic voice” in their writing? Give some examples or tactical advice to make it easy for your brand voice to come through in all of your content, regardless of byline.

To explore what a template will look like in-practice, let’s take a look at the following brand voice template — along with a downloadable version, so you can get started right away.  

Brand Voice Template

Looking to make one of these for your own brand? Click here for the blank Google Sheet template so you can copy-and-paste your own brand voice characteristics, fill out the remaining cells, and send along to your team. (It’s important to note, you’ll be prompted to make a Google Drive copy of the template, which isn’t possible without a Google account.)

And there you have it! You’re well on your way towards building a strong, compelling brand voice for your own business.

Remember: A good brand starts with good content. And good content, always, starts with voice. 

In 2020, I looked up more recipes than I ever have. Mostly Italian if you’re wondering.

I also spent a lot of time watching videos on YouTube, letting the autoplay feature take me down a rabbit hole of videos covering all kinds of topics.

Most consumers were doing the same thing.

So, what should marketers expect on YouTube in 2021? Read on and find out.

Consumers want videos that reflect their daily life.

If 2020 showed marketers anything, it was the necessity for agility and authenticity.

Every marketer had to shift their priorities and deliver marketing collateral that reflected the time we were all living through.

YouTube data from July 2019 to July 2020 shows a 215% increase in daily uploads for content with “self-care” in the title. From the viewer’s side, TV screen watch time went up over 180% for videos relating to well-being, such as fitness, meditation, and yoga.

Now, in 2021, consumers are still seeking out content that reflects their current state of mind.

This isn’t to say that your brand should start a “30 Days of Yoga” series. It’s to highlight how closely tied current events are to the type of content we consume. If you stay in tune with how your audience is feeling and the type of content they’re seeking out, you can embed it into your YouTube strategy.

“Viewers really want content that not only educates them but also engages them. Our new style is putting big stock in the authenticity and personality of its presenters,” said Jamal Meneide, associate video producer/editor and on-screen talent for HubSpot’s YouTube Channel.

Brands must now pay attention to the social climate and general consumer feelings, and incorporate these elements into the content.

Not sure how to keep your finger on the pulse? Jump to this section to learn how to research YouTube trends. [JUMP].

Short-form video is growing in popularity.

In September 2020, YouTube launched “Shorts” in India, a new short-form video platform on YouTube. It’s now making Shorts available in the US, as of March 2021.

Similar to other short-form platforms, videos on Shorts are formatted vertically to be viewed on a phone. Although it’s still in beta, users can create 15-second clips, edit them with several tools and add music from YouTube’s music library.

According to a Search Engine Journal article, Shorts already gained steam, gaining over 3.5 billion daily views. But why would YouTube, a platform known for long-form content invest in this strategy? Meneide has a theory.

“YouTube is trying to compete with TikTok, which is evident in their play to introduce ‘Shorts.’ For a time, it felt like there was a pendulum swing toward really long, unedited content,” said Meneide.

“While this is still prevalent,” he adds, “it seems like we’ve swung back the other way with short to mid-length content really killing it. Viewers want easily consumable, entertaining content that won’t be as demanding on their time.”

This is an opportunity for brands to experiment with short-form content on YouTube and see what audiences are responding to.

One strategy is using Shorts to create teasers for your upcoming videos or create condensed, shareable versions of your long-form videos.

But long-form videos aren’t going anywhere.

Even with the push toward shorter videos, consumers still enjoy the traditional long-form approach.

In June 2020, YouTube reported that 46% of survey respondents said they were more likely to watch videos over 20 minutes long than they were six months ago.

Some YouTubers creators credit long-form video content for their engagement rates, and they’ve got data on their side.

A 2019 Pixability study found that branded videos over 10 minutes long had higher engagement than shorter videos.

But length won’t be enough to keep your audience’s attention.

“Driving music and animation also play a big part in building engagement. Whenever you see animation as a viewer, you know it’s either reinforcing a key concept or adding to a joke,” said Meneide.

“In either case, you’ve been delighted by that extra visual we decided to throw in. With music, we can shift the tone and mood of a video – from driving hip hop beats, to chill jazz.”

He adds that music creates a sonic bed for the viewer to situate themselves on, inviting the audience to lean in as you speed things up or sit back and relax as you slow things down.

“These kinds of stylistic and production choices are ones that many large channels on YouTube have decided to make,” Meneide said. “While content with a more ‘homemade’ feeling still crushes it, there is also an audience who wants to see well-produced, highly engaging content.”

Marketers will start leveraging audio ads.

In November 2020, YouTube introduced audio ads, a new way for brands to reach consumers.

It was a surprising announcement, given that the platform is known for video content. However, according to a Think With Google article, over two billion people go to YouTube for music.

The article also reported a 100% increase in watch time for live music performance between July 2019 and July 2020. This sets the stage for marketers to include YouTube as an ad platform for their audio content.

How To Research YouTube Trends

We’ve covered a few YouTube trends for 2021, but marketers need to know how to identify trends as they come.

“On the HubSpot YouTube team, we’re always looking at trends, which we corroborate with monthly search volume and keyword research to help define our content strategy,” Meneide said. “We want to serve our audience content that they’re looking for when they’re looking for it, and being sensitive to when a topic bubbles up is key to the process.”

Your first resource is Google Trends, a free online resource that is updated with real-time data on the popularity of certain topics and search terms on YouTube.

You can also rely on tools like VidIQ and TubeBuddy to determine which ideas are worth pursuing. A good rule of thumb, according to Meneide is asking what big “how” or “why” questions you can answer for your viewers.

Then, you have keyword research – this tells you what consumers are searching for and if it’s worth your time and resources.

For instance, let’s say your brand wants to cover the latest tech apps in your next video. You go to Google Keyword Planner and find out that it has a monthly search volume of about 100. This may indicate that while there is some interest, it’s not high enough to warrant a whole video.

It’s also important to look at the news and see what topics are trending. However, know the difference between something that’s just in the news cycle and a trend worth incorporating into your YouTube strategy.

One way to decipher between the two is asking, “How far does this reach, and will it matter in a few weeks or months?”

“Hopping onto news can be just as explosive for growth or your marketing strategy as trends, but makes it a bit harder when you’re always relying on the latest, ‘hottest’ news piece to inform your content strategy,” Meneide said. “By focusing on longtail trends, you can ride out a wave of sustained interest in a topic, rather than capturing what could potentially be a fleeting interest.”

As we navigate through this year, more trends will likely pop up and might inform your YouTube strategy. What’s most important is being flexible and knowing when something is worth exploring further.

Choosing the right pricing for your product is a little bit like Goldilocks.

Too high, and you risk alienating a large majority of your potential customers.

Too low, and you likely won’t have enough revenue to run a sustainable business. Plus, consumers might not value your product or brand as highly if they see a much lower cost than competitors’.

But how can you get it just right?

That’s what we’re going to explore in this post. Let’s dive into the pros and cons of A/B testing your pricing — and how to do it. Plus, some alternatives to A/B testing your pricing if you’ve determined the weaknesses outweigh the strengths. 

Product pricing is undeniably one of the most important decisions for your company.

Your price can determine how consumers see you in the marketplace — for instance, Ray Bans’ expensive sunglasses suggests they’re higher-quality than the ones I can find at CVS. Sure, the price might limit the amount of total consumers Ray Ban attracts, but the price also attracts high-intent prospects based on perceived value.

This premise is known as value-based pricing: a strategy that chooses pricing based on how much a consumer believes a product is worth. I believe Ray Ban sunglasses are high-quality, and more importantly, I have a good perception of the brand, which makes me feel the sunglasses are worth the hefty price.

Value-based pricing is most impactful if your brand reputation is good. If you’re a newcomer to the marketplace, it might be harder to persuade consumers that your product is worth the expense — people need to know (and love) your brand, first.

There are a few other factors to consider when choosing a price, including what competitors’ are charging (competition-based pricing), or how much it will cost you to produce your product or service, plus how much you want to profit (cost-plus pricing).

To learn more about different pricing strategies, take a look at The Ultimate Guide to Pricing Strategies.

However, even once you’ve chosen a pricing strategy that works for your business, you might be unsure if the specific dollar price is going to return maximum revenue.

For instance, your pricing strategy might show a range of $50-$60 is best for your product. However, you need to find the “sweet spot” within that range. Charge it for $50, and you might be missing out on the revenue you could’ve received if you’d charged it at $60.

Charge it for $60, alternatively, and you might limit the amount of people willing to purchase your product — which could also decrease the amount of revenue you can receive.

This is where A/B testing comes into play. Let’s explore how to A/B test your pricing, next. 

How to A/B Test Your Pricing

It’s important to note — many advise against A/B testing your pricing, for a few reasons.

There are a few major disadvantages or pitfalls associated with A/B testing a price. These include: 

• It introduces an element of unfairness to buyers. It doesn’t seem fair that person A is able to purchase your product for less money than person B, which could cause harm to your brand’s reputation. Plus, it could ultimately dissuade a potential buyer from purchasing — for instance, if a prospect pitches a new software solution to her boss for $30/month, and then her boss logs onto the site and sees the product is $50/month, the confusion and frustration over the increase in price could prevent them from purchasing your product at all.
• You’ll have a group of customers paying an outdated price for your product. Let’s say you ultimately decide to go with the $30/month variant of your test — but you already have 40 customers who are paying $50/month. What do you do with them? You’ll need to either migrate them to the $30/month plan and potentially deal with reimbursement requests, or keep them on an outdated model … which could cause frustration and high turnover rates when those customers learn they’re paying more than others. 
• It can be difficult to get statistical significance. You need a certain amount of people to purchase both price options for your test to be statistically significant, rather than pure chance. For many SaaS companies or companies that work with larger clients or more complex deals, you likely won’t have enough people to ensure your results are even useful.
• It requires the development of multiple SKUs and other systems functionality, which can be a large (and potentially unrewarded) effort.

However, if you are going to A/B test your pricing, here’s how you’ll want to do it.

1. Choose two different products (or plans) within the same category type.

To ensure you’re being ethical and fair with your prospects, you don’t want to test two different prices on the same product. Consumers will eventually catch that you’re charging different users varying prices, and it could permanently damage your brand’s reputation.

One alternative to this is testing two different products, or plans, within the same category type to see how much people are willing to pay for your product.

For instance, if you sell social media software, you might choose a Basic plan and charge people $50/month. Within this plan, consumers receive 10 social accounts and 1 user. Then, you might choose your Professional plan, and charge people $140/month, which includes 20 social accounts and 2 users.

By doing this, you’re testing how much people are willing to pay for a social management tool, and whether there’s a cut-off. Technically, the Professional plan offers double the value of the Basic plan, but charges more than double each month ($140/month for 20 accounts and 2 users can be broken down to $70 for 10 accounts and 1 user — whereas a Basic plan is $50 for 10 accounts and 1 user).

Then, you’ll want to track if the conversion rates are higher or equal on both Basic and Professional. If there seems to be a drop-off of buyers for the Professional tool, you might want to lower your pricing on that product and see if it can positively impact revenue.

2. Figure out the price points you want to test.

You’ll want to determine the prices you want to test within a given range based on a variety of factors, including competitor pricing and operational costs.

You’re hoping to gauge price sensitivity, or the degree to which demand changes after a certain price point. For instance, you might find if you price your product at $100, the amount of people who will purchase your product drops dramatically.

Ultimately, you want to choose realistic price points to figure out the highest price you can go, while still maintaining the highest number of potential customers.

3. Measure revenue to determine price.

A small but important detail — measure revenue, not conversions, to determine which price wins out on your A/B test.

You’ll likely have much higher conversion rates on lower-priced products, but that doesn’t mean you’re able to hit your revenue goals. If you price a product too low, you might still struggle to meet revenue goals even with thousands of additional customers. This is why it’s important to measure revenue, not conversions. 

4. Iterate on results and re-test two new price points, if need be.

If you’ve tested $30/month against $50/month and found $30/month equates to the most conversions and possible revenue, consider re-testing between $30 and $40, or $30 and $35.

Iterating on your results enables you to find a highly specific price point that will provide you with maximum revenue. 

5. Choose the price that equates to maximum revenue.

Finally, choose the price point that suggests maximum revenue by determining the highest price that still converts enough customers to meet your business goals.

Alternatives to A/B Testing

If the potential risks associated with A/B testing pricing outweigh the benefits for your own business, there are plenty of alternative options to test a product’s pricing.

For one, you could try A/B testing the pricing page — including different layouts and CTAs — to figure out the best page for optimal conversions and monetization. Maybe your pricing isn’t the issue, but your landing page is.

Alternatively, if you’re releasing a new product, consider launching the product in one market only to gauge market reaction and performance, before rolling the product out on a broader scale. This enables you to make tweaks to your pricing or product before releasing the product to the entire marketplace.

Finally, you might consider conducting a survey and simply asking prospective customers how much they’re willing to pay for a similar product in the industry.

For instance, if you’re selling a website design tool, you might ask: “What features are most important to you in a website design tool?” and, “At what point would a website design tool be too expensive?” or “What is the maximum price you’re willing to pay for a website design tool?”

Ultimately, pricing is about determining your product or service’s value, and how much consumers are willing to pay for that value. It’s an incredibly important factor to consider when running a business, but it’s not something you can A/B test — at least not without potentially losing consumers or damaging your reputation when consumers find different prices every time they visit your site.

If you are interested in A/B testing, we’d suggest using the process to test out the design of your pricing pages or product landing pages. Perhaps by altering how you display your product’s value on a page, you’ll raise the amount consumers are willing to pay.

Since its inception in 2009, real-time bidding (RTB) has become one of the most popular ways to purchase ad inventory online.

But even for experienced marketers, this type of programmatic advertising can be a very confusing concept. I, for one, get intimidated just by reading the word “programmatic.”

So let’s break down what RTB is, how it works, and the pros and cons of using it – all while keeping it jargon-free.

Before we dive into RTB, let’s cover a few basics.

An impression, which is when an ad is displayed on a user’s screen, is the currency used in RTB. Publishers – i.e., the owners of the webpages and mobile apps on which ads are displayed – typically charge for every 1,000 impressions the ad gets. Advertisers know this as the cost per mille (CPM) and place their bids based on the value of each impression.

How do you determine that value? By evaluating the user against your targeting parameters (more on that later).

Are there real-time bidding platforms?

There are no RTB platforms because real-time bidding is a method of purchasing impressions, not a channel. Still confused? Let’s picture a real auction.

Imagine you want to bid on a car. You hire someone to go to the auction for you – that’s your demand-side platform (DSP). The person putting the car up for auction is the publisher and the venue is the marketplace. Raising your hand to indicate a bid is your real-time bidding process.

To purchase ad inventory through RTB, you’ll have to use a DSP, which is a media buying platform on the advertiser side that facilitates the purchase of an ad campaign and monitors its performance. Learn more about that here.

How The Real-Time Bidding Algorithm Works

To understand how the algorithm works, you’ll need to first understand the platforms involved in the process.

On the advertiser side, marketers use DSPs to set up their ad campaign and track its performance. Publishers, on the other hand, use supply-side platforms (SSPs) to list their ad spaces (also known as ad inventory) and the price they charge. They then meet in the middle at the ad exchange, the marketplace where the real-time bidding actually takes place.

To determine what ad inventory to bid on, advertisers will set targeting parameters. For instance, a brand may only want to take users who are in a specific region or have visited their website recently.

So, advertisers, or specifically their DSPs, evaluate ad potential in real time and decide whether or not to place a bid and how much to bid.

So, now that we’ve covered the key elements needed for a real-time bid, let’s go through an example of how it works.

Let’s say Silk is a UK-based beauty brand that just launched a new brow line and is running a campaign. They set up their campaign on a DSP and are targeting users who regularly shop for makeup products, are located in the Manchester area, and are between 18 to 30 years of age. The brand also wants its ads to only show on sites related to beauty and lifestyle.

A user visits a publisher’s site. The publisher’s SSP sends a bid request to the ad exchange where Silk’s DSP will be evaluating the value of the impression. The DSP will then determine if the user meets the parameters outlined in the campaign. If so, the DSP will submit a bid.

If Silk has the winning bid, the user will see the ad once the page loads. This process happens thousands of times on different webpages during the length of Silk’s ad campaign.

Silk’s paid ads manager will also be monitoring their ad’s performance on the DSP to see if it’s reaching the desired audience, or if the parameters should be adjusted.

The Benefits of The Real-Time Bidding Process

Better Tracking

With RTB, advertisers can monitor their campaigns easily without relying on vendors. No need to reach out to multiple publishers and ask for reports, you can get them yourself on your DSP.

This also gives marketers the agility to pivot quickly if their campaign isn’t performing as expected. For instance, you might find that switching out one keyword for another may boost your campaign’s performance and align better with the audience you want to reach.

Better Targeting

When purchasing ads through RTB, you buy one impression at a time. This means that every time a website visitor or mobile app user visits a publisher’s site, you’re able to assess that person’s particular profile and see if it matches your target audience.

It makes for more accurate targeting as you can ensure your ads are only reaching the right people at the right time.

More Cost-Effective

The precision of the real-time bidding algorithm allows marketers to spend their ad dollars on high-value impressions.

Too often, brands launch marketing campaigns that only reach a portion of their target market, leaving the rest of the budget wasted on users who don’t fit the profile.

In addition, RTB takes much of the manual labor out of the online advertising process, allowing marketers to focus on other efforts.

Challenges of Real-Time Bidding

Brand Safety

Where your ad shows up is as important as who sees it. This is because consumers judge brands’ ads based on the surrounding content.

A 2019 Ad Colony survey reported that 60% of consumers have a negative perception of brands whose ads appear near inappropriate, hateful, or offensive content. This can be anything from a site that hosts pirated movies to sites promoting hate speech.

Due to the nature of RTB, there is a risk your ad may appear on a site with content you wouldn’t want your brand associated with. However, brands can limit this issue by putting certain keywords and sites on a deny list. This protects brands from showing up on webpages or mobile apps that don’t align with their identity.

Ad Fraud

Cheq estimated that in 2020, ad fraud would cost digital advertisers $35 billion, with 10.5% of digital ads reaching bots.

Beyond cost, the rising sophistication of bots can also cause brands to gather inaccurate data on their campaigns.

Some deceitful publishers fabricate impressions to steal from advertisers. One way to combat this is by using a DSP or ad network with fraud detection software.

Real-time bidding makes the online advertisement process fast and easy. Marketers can skip the back-and-forth previously associated with ad buying and focus on tracking the results.

When you’re developing or launching a new product, service, or business, you’ll want to have a general sense of how receptive your target market will be to it.

Typically, this is done through extensive market research — and one key component of the research process is running a focus group.

A focus group is a small group of people, typically representative of your target market, with whom you share ideas and ask questions about your product, service, or business. The individuals who make up the focus group should be a mix of current customers and people who’ve never made a purchase but might in the future. The ideal outcome is a stronger understanding of how the subject of the focus group would be received by a wider audience, and what changes (if any) should be made before the formal roll-out.

In this article, we’ll highlight a step-by-step process for conducting a focus group, planning your questions in a focus group questionnaire, following an agenda for your focus group session, and incorporating the findings into your launch strategy.

Follow Along With a Free Focus Group Questionnaire Template

HubSpot’s Market Research Kit includes everything you need to run an effective round of market research, including a focus group questionnaire and a guide on how to run focus groups. Download the kit now to incorporate the steps in this post into your focus group strategy.

How to Run a Focus Group

1. Choose your topic of discussion.

Going into a focus group, your discussion should be narrowed down to one or a few topics. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to thoroughly address every area you want to discuss in one short focus group session.

Because of this, it’s not uncommon for companies to run multiple rounds of focus groups around different topics. For example, if you’re launching a new product, you could center one focus group around the product’s marketing and brand positioning, and another one around the usability and functionality of the product itself.

2. Choose your questions or discussion prompts.

Once you determine the topic of discussion for your focus group, create a list of questions and discussion prompts that will help you gather the data you need.

Let’s return to the product launch example from above. If you’re running the product marketing focus groups, you could ask questions like:

• What do you think of the packaging design?
• How much money would you spend on a product like this?
• What other companies do you think of when you see a product like this?

Meanwhile, for a focus group about the product itself, you’ll want to ask about the product’s functionality, ease of use, and perceived favorability.

Also, remember to ask open-ended questions — “Do you like the product?” and “What do you think of the product?” may seem similar in nature, but the latter will produce more detailed results.

3. Prepare your focus group questionnaire.

After you’ve chosen your questions and discussion prompts, organize them on a focus group questionnaire. Be sure to leave enough space on the questionnaire for overall notes, a list of common responses, and one or two noteworthy responses that really stood out.

Download this Template for Free

4. Appoint a notetaker.

Your focus group discussion should be facilitated by at least one person, while another person on your team should be a designated notetaker.

Why? The facilitator’s job is to facilitate — to guide the discussion and foster new ideas from participants. This task can get easily derailed if the facilitator also needs to pause the discussion to write down big, bold ideas and reactions from participants.

To avoid this possibility of disruption, appoint a notetaker before going into the focus group who can focus solely on jotting down the general consensus from the group, unique and noteworthy individual responses, and the key takeaways for the business.

5. Recruit and schedule participants.

One of the most challenging parts of running a focus group is getting people to actually show up. After you select a time and a place, you’ll want to start spreading the word to participants.

Here are a few ways to find them:

Reach out to existing customers.

If you’re doing market research for an existing company, reach out to your customers through account managers or an email database. Since current customers will likely be the first to use what you’re launching, this will be the perfect opportunity to gauge early reactions for the official launch.

For incentives, you could offer free or discounted services or reward them on a customer advocacy program like Influitive.

Advertise on social media.

Looking for middle-aged males or senior citizens in the greater Ann Arbor area? No problem! Social media advertising offers advanced targeting options for you to reach your target market.

You should also think about which sites are most used by the people you want in your focus group. If you’re interested in surveying middle-aged working professionals, you’ll probably have better luck on LinkedIn than you would on TikTok.

Try location-based promotion.

If you’re hyper-targeting a location, supplement your recruiting efforts with advertisements that will only be seen by those in your area. A few examples include:

• Billboard Ads
• Public Transit-Based Ads (Trains, Busses, Taxis, etc.)
• Ads in Local Publications and Newspapers

Be prepared to offer incentives.

People rarely do anything for free. In your advertisements and promotional assets, highlight the incentive you’re prepared to offer — which could be cash, a gift card, or a discount on whatever you’re selling.

If you’re strapped for cash, consider hosting a raffle or giveaway for participants. That way, if you host a focus group of eight people, you could offer a chance at a $100 gift card (rather than a guaranteed $25 per participant) to save you $100.

6. Get consent and start the discussion.

Before you start your focus group discussion, remind participants of the purpose of the group and hand out a consent form. The consent form should reiterate the purpose of the event, outline the participants’ rights, identify the compensation, list the facilitators’ contact information, and prompt participants to sign.

After everyone signs off, it’s time to run the focus group.

7. Have everyone introduce themselves.

To break the ice and get people talking, start the discussion off by introducing yourself and inviting the participants to do the same.

This is another chance for you to learn more about your target market. In addition to having participants say their names, consider asking them to share their industry or interests to get a more personal understanding of how your product, service, or business could play a role in their everyday lives.

8. Ask your questions.

Remember, this is not an interview! Before the focus group begins, you should prepare a list of five to 10 questions.

That being said, it can be easy to tie yourself to your list of questions or discussion points, but sticking too closely to this can hamper natural and effective conversations. If the group takes a slightly different turn than you were expecting, don’t be afraid to allow the conversation to veer off-course if it seems productive.

running a focus group to solicit multiple ideas, so only hearing from one or two people defeats the purpose of the exercise. Be ready to jump in when someone has been quiet for too long and say something along the lines of “Isabella, what’s your input here?” or “Raheem, what do you think about what Isabella said?”

The point of a focus group is not just to confirm information you think is true, but also to uncover what you don’t know.

So long as it’s not too far off-topic, allow the conversation to happen naturally and use an agenda as a guide rather than a point-by-point checklist of topics to cover.

Additionally, you may not ask every question on your list, depending on the direction of the conversation. Make sure you ask the most important questions first, and follow-up on certain discussion points to keep things flowing rather than hosting a pure question-and-answer forum.

9. Seek equal representation from the group.

Remember, this is not an interview! You’re running a focus group to solicit multiple ideas, so only hearing from one or two people defeats the purpose of the exercise. Be ready to jump in when someone has been quiet for too long and say something along the lines of “Isabella, what’s your input here?” or “Raheem, what do you think about what Isabella said?”

10. End the meeting in a reasonable amount of time.

Exhaustion and the law of diminishing returns are real, so keep them in mind when planning the time frame for your focus group.

At the start of the session, in your advertisements, and/or on your consent form, you should specify how long the focus group will last. It’s your responsibility to moderate the discussion in a way that ensures the time frame is not exceeded.

Now, if the exercise lasts for an hour and five minutes and you promised an hour focus group, that’s totally acceptable. However, if you promised a 45-minute session and it goes well over an hour, your attendees could be resentful and less likely to offer valuable feedback.

When the discussion is over, thank your attendees for their time and deliver the promised incentive, if applicable. Additionally, remind them of your contact information if they decide they have more feedback or comments they’d like to provide.

11. Analyze and incorporate feedback.

Ideally, your focus group has provided you with plenty of responses, unique angles, and actionable ideas to help your business thrive. After all of your focus groups have taken place, have your team compile and analyze the commonalities of the ideas presented and what changes, if any, are applicable to the product, service, or business in question.

Focus Group Agenda

To get started with your focus group, you’ll need an agenda to stay on task during the meeting. First, you’ll want to welcome the participants in the focus group and introduce yourself and other researchers who may be present. This step is important as it establishes rapport with the group and builds trust.

Next, ask participants to introduce themselves. This does a few things: it continues building rapport among the group members and it confirms the pronunciation of everyone’s names — you don’t want to spend the next hour or more together saying everyone’s names incorrectly!

Before asking questions, establish some ground rules for the group. If a topic could become controversial, let that be known and set boundaries for how far a discussion can go. If you’ll be asking for information that isn’t normally shared in a group setting, assure the cohort that the findings won’t have names or identifying data attached to the responses. Finally, if your company is reimbursing expenses or providing payment to the focus group participants, let them know how and when they’ll receive their disbursements.

Now, here’s the fun part. Although you may have one broad topic to discuss during the focus group, it’s very likely that you’ll have several subtopics that need to be addressed separately. Structure your questions in such a way that the flow of the conversation makes sense. This could be by theme, chronological order, or the current-future state of your business.

Once you’ve reached a stopping point during the conversation, wrap up any lingering questions and ideas within the group. Finally, thank everyone for their time and end the session.

If you need those steps organized in a handy agenda, we’ve got you covered. Download the PDF below and save it for your next focus group.

Focus Group Example

Now that you have a step-by-step guide for conducting a focus group, it’s time to see one in action. Using the steps above, I’ve identified a recent focus group example that follows most of the guidelines we’ve recommended.

Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service conducted a focus group with first-time voters after the 2020 election. It could have been very easy for this focus group to get off track and into political affiliations; However, you’ll notice in this example that the researcher had a topic in mind — the first-time-voter experience — and didn’t deviate from that topic. She asked probing questions and sought out a variety of perspectives from the group.

Watch this focus group to get a better understanding of how to start these conversations and keep them going to get the insights you need.

The information can now be studied for political research thus helping guide future campaigns for first-time voters.

Running a Better Focus Group

Taking this methodical approach to running a focus group can produce better and more insightful feedback from your participants. To keep your questions, thoughts, and responses organized, we developed a focus group template, which you can use to run a better focus group. Download it for free now to get the most out of your marketing research.

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

While certainly a source of entertainment, YouTube is also an incredible platform for marketers to use, especially since it is the second-largest search engine in the world. Its users take action based on the videos they see, as 70% of them report buying from a brand after seeing their content on YouTube.

Aside from product purchases, how do you keep viewers interested in your channel and watching more videos? End screens. In this post, we’ll explain what an end screen is, outline how to create one, share high-quality examples from existing channels, and recommend template options that you can use to create your own.

These elements are shown over the top of the last few seconds of your videos’ playtime. They are different from YouTube’s automatically generated annotations because you can choose the content yourself.

How to Make a YouTube End Screen

You can create YouTube end screens directly in your YouTube account, and below we’ll go over how to add end screen elements to your videos.

1. Sign in to your YouTube account.

2. In the top right corner, select your account icon, then YouTube Studio.

3. On the left-hand menu, select Content.

4. If you want to add an end screen to an existing video, select the video, click the pencil icon (shown below), and skip the next step.

5. If you want to add an end screen to a new video, select the Create button on the top right of your screen to upload the video file.

6. After completing either step four or five, select the Video elements tab, as shown below.

7. You should then see the option to Add an end screen by importing from an existing video or adding your own.

8. Select the end screen elements you want to add to your video, fill in the required information, and click Create Element.

9. For further customizations, you can adjust the size and placement of each element on the end screen and the length of time each will be displayed.

10. You can preview the end screen by selecting Preview on the top left corner or simply select Save to finalize your end screen.

YouTube End Screen Examples

Claire Saffitz Dessert Person

The example below is an end screen from Clare Saffitz’s channel, Dessert Person. While it may seem basic, it gets the job done through a CTA directing viewers to other videos on the channel and a subscription button.

Source

New York Times Cooking

The NYT Cooking channel also uses a simple end screen for their videos that feature a simple subscribe button. This is the benefit to end screens, as they can contain any of the preferred actions you’re hoping for your viewers to take, from subscribing to your channel to watching your other videos.

Source

Food52

You might have noticed that this list is surprisingly food-themed, but that’s what I watch on YouTube. Food52 fits a lot onto their outro with links to other videos, a click to subscribe button, and a link to their webshop. Since their website isn’t a YouTube-approved link, they’ve just added it onto their end screen template as a text element.

Source

History Channel – Ancient Recipes

History Channel uses all four elements of an end screen: links to playlists, other videos, a subscribe button and a link to their website. So many choices for their viewers!

Source

Vice Munchies

Vice uses a unique, animated end screen to capture their viewers’ attention. The words “Watch More” flash on the screen in different languages, as well as links to two other videos.

Source

Standard YouTube End Screen Dimensions

The instructions above detailed how you can create an end screen within YouTube’s Creator Studio, but you can also upload your own. When doing so, it’s essential to make sure that it is the correct dimensions.

Standard sizing is 1280px by 720px, and standard HD aspect ratio is 1920px by 1080px. The image below is a sample end screen template that you can use to create your own. Below we’ll recommend more templates to use.

Source

YouTube End Screen Templates

While you can certainly design one on YouTube or from scratch, there are various templates you can use that will help you create a high-quality end screen that meets your branding needs. Let’s go over some resources below.

• Adobe Spark: Includes various templates to customize to meet your individual branding needs and further your YouTube reach. The site walks you through the process, so it is simple and easy to use.

• Canva: Create a personalized end screen with a pre-built template or from scratch. You can include illustrations, icons, stickers, and even animated effects.

• Snappa: Free and customizable YouTube end screen templates that have been professionally designed. Simply select a template, create an account, and you’re good to start designing.

• YouTube: Many channels have uploaded pre-built templates that are available for download. You can browse through videos, select your preferred template, and navigate to the description box and download your favorite option.

YouTube End Screen Length

End screens play for the last five to 20 seconds of your videos. Make sure that the elements you choose to include appear at the right time to maximize the impact of your end screen cards, as the goal is to entice users to take additional action with your channel and generate more views and engagement.

If you want to add CTAs to other parts of your videos, you can do so with YouTube cards. Here is a tutorial on how to create cards from YouTube’s Creator Academy.

How To Disable YouTube End Screen

If you want to remove an end screen from your YouTube video, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your YouTube account.

2. On the top right-hand corner, click on your account icon and select YouTube Studio.

3. On the menu screen on the left-hand side of your page, select Content. You should then see a list of all of your YouTube videos.

4. Select the pencil icon on the video you want to remove the end screen from.

5. Click on Video elements.

6. On the end screen, click Edit element.

7. Click delete.

As the creator, you’re the only one that can remove end screens from your videos, so you can ensure that users are seeing what you want them to see.

Use high-quality end screens to re-capture audience attention.

If your audience has watched your videos to the end, you’ve captured their attention. However, you don’t want to lose their attention once the video is over; you want them to stay engaged.

End screens will help you re-capture audience attention and inspire them to watch another video or convert them into subscribers. If you’re interested in spending more time on the platform, learn how to make money on YouTube and essential YouTube stats for marketers to know.

An annual report offers a comprehensive overview of your business’s yearly operations. As the content in these reports is heavy-hitting, it’s essential to present it in a way that helps your audience understand and visualize your successes.

These reports also incorporate various design elements that support your metrics and create a unique, creative, and visually appealing story of your business activities.

In this post, we’ll outline annual report design best-practices, provide a template you can use to create your own, and go over examples of annual reports from other businesses that you can use for inspiration.

What is an annual report?

As a refresher, an annual report is a document created by businesses that display yearly performance, including successes and challenges. It gives a big-picture view of operations and strategies while also going in-depth on key performance metrics.

Annual reports differ from weekly reports in that they address anything and everything that has happened over the past year, including content you’ve already mentioned in weekly, monthly, or any other style of report you’ve made.  

Designing an annual report is a careful process, as it is crucial to find a balance between powerful graphics and clarity and understanding. Most reports contain data visualizations, like charts and graphs, to enhance the experience and really call attention to heavy-hitting metrics.

Below we’ll provide a template that you can use to design an annual report for your business and outline the sections that should be included in every report, regardless of industry.

Annual Report Design Template

The template you choose to use to design your annual report should be based on your individual business needs and the metrics you’re hoping to include.

However, you can adapt most templates to fit your business needs, like this template offered by HubSpot. The image below features two pages from the downloadable template, including a company overview and a yearly performance analysis.

Image Source

The template allows you to go in-depth into aspects of your business that the annual report will discuss, whether it’s marketing campaigns or yearly sales performance. Despite this, there are specific elements that should be included in all annual reports, and we’ll discuss those below.

1. Summarize your yearly goals and strategies.

The first section of your annual report should summarize your yearly goals and strategies. This provides your audience with an overview of your annual focus and gives the information necessary to understand and contextualize the rest of your report.

Essentially, it sets the tone for the rest of the report as it explains the intention behind your operations. If you’re a marketing business creating an annual report, this section could outline your marketing goals and the campaigns you created to reach those goals.

2. Outline key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives.

Another portion of your annual report should outline the KPIs you used to measure successes. This section is truly the heart of your report, as you’re displaying the results of your year-long activities.

Aim to use charts, graphics, and any other creative design elements, as they will increase the impact of your words and truly demonstrate the importance of your data. For example, say one of your overall goals was to increase ROI across all channels. While you can certainly explain that Twitter ROI has increased 15% YoY, a chart that visually displays the difference between the years paints a clearer picture of success.

A strong annual report is a well-rounded annual report, so this section can also include an analysis of challenges and expected outcomes, where you explain areas that you may have fallen short in terms of achieving your goals.

3. Explain key takeaways and make future recommendations.

While the section above will go into specific detail, it will also be helpful to include an overarching summary of the most important elements of your year. You can take this time to focus on the metrics and campaigns that you think are most important for your stakeholders and audience to know.

You should also aim to make recommendations for future business activities based on your findings from the current year, which can be valuable in terms of getting buy-in from stakeholders and the teams you’re hoping to work with in the future.

Below we’ll discuss best practices for designing a visually appealing and informative annual report that contains all of the information mentioned above.

Annual Report Design Best-Practices

Clear and deliberate design will help you create a visually appealing report that captures attention. Let’s go over the best practices for designing your annual report.

Incorporate branding.

As your report is specific to your business, incorporate branding that lets viewers know that it is specifically for your business.

Branding also aids in recognizability and lets viewers know that you’re owning the successes, challenges, and overall metrics explained in the report.  

Use powerful visuals.

As mentioned before, a high-quality report incorporates visuals that aid in the understanding of your metrics. Take special consideration to create visuals for the most significant, heavy-hitting content, like yearly revenue.

Leverage color and fonts.

Another way to ensure that your report captures attention and leaves a lasting impression is by using colors and fonts to call attention to important information. The distinction between a regular metric and a great metric called out in color can go far in making a dent in your audience’s memory.

However, it’s essential to find a balance between design and content.

Don’t be too busy.

Although you can (and should) incorporate various design elements into your annual report, be mindful of standard design principles, and don’t overload your report with unnecessary colors and graphics that will distract from and out shadow the metrics you’re outlining.

A report that is busy, crowded, and filled with different fonts and colors will be harder to understand and won’t leave the impact you want it to leave. Make careful decisions and ensure that your choices are centered around showcasing successes, not simply making the report look pretty.

Annual Report Examples

Let’s look at some examples of high-quality annual reports that you can draw on for inspiration.

Google Annual Diversity Report

Google’s 2020 Annual Diversity Report is a high-quality report.

The report begins with a high-level overview of Google’s efforts to increase inclusion at the company, diversity goals, and visuals that prove the outcomes of their efforts and show that they’re committed to the task. The image below is a visual depiction of their diversity hiring efforts YoY.

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Ablynx

Ablynx is a pharmaceutical company that took a unique, creative approach to an annual report through 3D charts. The image below is an example of the charts they used to create visual representations of where the largest number of business shareholders are located to display their business’ market growth.

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Duni

Duni specializes in table-setting and takeaway packaging for restaurants and global businesses. Its annual report is straightforward, clearly organized, and minimalist but still uses color, images, and various design elements to strengthen its words’ impact.

The image below displays their YoY financial target growth that draws in audience attention with large fonts, colors, and line graph visualizations.

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Annual Reports Paint a Picture of Success

It’s essential to understand how to create an annual report that displays your business’s successes and incorporates design elements that emphasize your words’ significance and allow your audience to understand, visualize, and absorb your accomplishments.

Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. Its users are on the platform to connect with friends, watch videos, and share snippets of their own lives.

The channel is also a great platform for businesses, as many consumers report using it to interact with the brands they enjoy. In fact, in a recent HubSpot poll, 51% of respondents reported primarily using Facebook for product research.

Given this, it’s essential to understand how to leverage the platform to meet your business needs. This post will explain why businesses should post on Facebook and share an expansive list of Facebook post ideas that you can use to interact with your audience and generate engagement.

Why should businesses post on Facebook?

The decision to post on Facebook should depend on your business’s individual marketing goals, but we’ll outline some benefits below. Firstly, in Q4 of 2020, Facebook reported almost 1.85 billion daily active users on the platform, which means that segments of your audience are likely already using the network.

When your audience discovers you’re on the platform, you can work to develop a community of like-minded consumers and deepen the connection they have to your brand. When you engage with them, you’ll learn more about their likes and interests, making it easier for you to create content they’ll enjoy and interact with.

Also, maintaining a Facebook profile is a great way to show your audience that you’re active and in business. As most users use the platform to research products, stumbling upon an in-active Facebook profile may prompt them to bring their business elsewhere.

Lastly, 200 million + businesses are already using the platform to meet their business goals, so you should join them.

How often should you post on Facebook?

A recent HubSpot experiment found that, overall, businesses should aim to post on Facebook two to five times per week. While this is simply an average, it is ok to adapt your strategy depending on your audience insights and what seems to bring the most success on the platform. However, the experiment did note that posting more than five times per week can substantially decrease ROI.

All in all, spend time on the platform, learn from your audience, and use your page metrics to determine the best combination for your business.

Below we’ll list various Facebook post ideas for businesses that you can use to generate engagement, drive traffic, and boost conversions.

41 Facebook Post Ideas For Your Business

1. Promote your website.

A great first-post to make on Facebook is promoting your website. When you share a link on Facebook, customers are given a full-sized preview of what the link leads to and, if you’ve designed an eye-catching website, you may entice your users to follow the link and visit your website, which in-turn drivers traffic and helps you convert leads.

2. Tell a story.

A great way to engage with your audience on Facebook is to tell a story.

This story can be about your brand, like an experience that sparked your interest, or your brand’s mission and how you became what you are today.

You’ll share a bit of backstory with your audience, give them something to relate to, and get them interested in what you have to offer.

3. Share behind-the-scenes content.

Customers enjoy doing business with you, but it’s also exciting for them to see how you do business. Sharing behind-the-scenes content on Facebook allows them to understand the day-to-day operations that generate the products or services they enjoy.

For example, if you’re a clothing company, you could share a video that shows how your products are made, or a SaaS company could share a video from a developer explaining how they built the program.

4. Ask your followers questions.

A great way to generate engagement with your Facebook audience is to ask them questions. If people reply, you’ll gain valuable insight into how they think and feel, and you’ll also have the opportunity to respond to comments and let them know you’re listening. Below is an example of a question-type Facebook post from HubSpot that reads, “What’s the weirdest job title you’ve ever seen? Major bonus points if it was yours.”

5. Post tutorials and how-tos.

Sharing how-tos and tutorials on your Facebook page is a great way to generate engagement with your audience, especially if the content is relevant to your business offerings. They’ll recognize and appreciate that you’re willing to help them succeed with your product, and they’ll continue to return to your page to seek out similar information in the future.

This type of post allows for creativity, as it doesn’t necessarily need to be text-based. You can create an informational video tutorial, infographic, or whatever best meets your needs. Below is an example of a how-to video tutorial post on Facebook.

6. Share industry-related news and content.

Your Facebook audience is following you on the platform because they care about what you have to say. Given this, it is safe to assume that they also care about news relevant to your industry, so consider posting this type of content on your Facebook page.

The example below is from Bon Appetit, a food magazine, where they’ve shared news about a haughty discussed topic in the food world: natural and artificial flavorings.

7. Share user-generated content.

A great way to generate trust with your audience on Facebook is to share user-generated content (UGC), which is content created by people who have used your products, services or have had some experience with your business.

UGC is also a valuable form of social proof, which essentially means that your audience will trust your legitimacy because other consumers like what you have to offer. In fact, consumers are 14% more likely to trust the recommendations of someone like them (another consumer) than a brand employee.

This content can be anything from product reviews and testimonials to photos that customers have shared using your products. The example below is from Hydro Flask, a water bottle company, where they’ve shared a picture of a fan using their product in-action.

8. Post videos. 

The average engagement rate on Facebook is .18%. The average engagement rate for video posts on Facebook is 0.26%, so take advantage of this and post videos on the platform.

The video below is an example from Spotify, a music streaming service, of a video they’ve posted on the platform featuring actors discussing a soundtrack from an upcoming movie.

9. Post blog content. 

Cross-posting content from your blog is a great way to drive traffic to your website and expose your blog content to an audience that may be unfamiliar with it. In the example below, virtual conference sharing platform Zoom has shared content from their blog to Facebook.

10. Use hashtags.

Like Twitter, Facebook uses hashtags to organize community conversations about specific topics all in one stream. Use industry-related hashtags in your posts to join in on conversations that are already happening on Facebook as a means of increasing visibility and engaging with a new audience.

11. Post about trending topics. 

Like using hashtags, posting about trending topics gives you an in on the conversations people are already having. People are also more likely to talk about a current trend in the moment, which can drive engagement to your page.

To leverage this tip, stay on top of relevant industry trends and general internet trends and post about topics you think your audience will be interested in.

12. Share branded graphics. 

One of the main goals of marketing is to increase awareness and recognition of your brand.

Given this, Facebook is a great platform to share branded graphics to show your audience who you are and give them the cues they need to recognize your brand and pick you out of a crowd.

13. Share product photos.

Consumers love visuals, so sharing them on Facebook is a great way to generate engagement and excitement for your brand, especially if they’re high quality.

14. Post infographics.

90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual, so infographics are a great marketing tool for educating customers and sharing relevant information.

Consider creating high-quality infographics and sharing them on your Facebook page. The example below is an infographic created by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company that directly relates to their social justice mission.

15. Host contests and giveaways.

Hosting contests and giveaways is a great way to generate engagement and interact with your audience on Facebook. The parameters of your contest can follow the same structure as any other contest you’d post on social media, but this post can help you create a Facebook-specific giveaway.

16. Announce deals and offers.

Your Facebook audience may look a bit different than your email audience or your Twitter audience, so it’s worth announcing deals and offers on all of your social platforms to ensure that everyone has the chance to experience them. Below is a Facebook deal announcement from Chipotle, a fast-food restaurant.

17. Share content from other social accounts. 

There’s nothing wrong with recycling content; in fact, it is a valuable practice. Take screenshots of tweets, Instagram posts, and even blog posts, and share them on Facebook. As different platforms have different user bases, you’re ensuring that all of your segments can enjoy what you have to offer.

Here’s another example from the HubSpot Facebook account of a cross-post from LinkedIn.

18. Post Facebook Lead Ads. 

Facebook Lead Ads allow users to submit information into a lead form without leaving the platform, helping you collect the information you need to further nurture your leads.

Since they aren’t promoted to leave the page or navigate to a different window, users are also more likely to complete these, especially since they can autofill with information already shared in the user’s Facebook profile.

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19. Post trending memes and make them relate to your business.

One of the great things about social media is how easy it is to go viral. Take advantage of trending memes, rework them to relate to your business, and share them on your Profile. Consumers appreciate this kind of content, as it displays a sense of humor, and it also shows them that you actively monitor online conversations.

The example below is from Starface, a beauty company that adapted a trending meme from the reality TV Show Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

20. Post discounts and sales. 

Similar to announcing deals and offers, cross-posting discounts and sales on Facebook is a great way to ensure that all segments of your audience are aware of your business offerings, helping you drive traffic to your website and increase sales.

21. Partner with influencers. 

80% of marketers say that influencer marketing is effective, and 49% of consumers today depend on influencer recommendations for their purchase decisions.

Join other marketers and partner with influencers to promote your business, and share the content on Facebook for interested consumers to see. The example below is a Facebook post from Taco Bell, where they’ve partnered with a famous influencer and created a humorous video advertisement.

22. Share your YouTube videos.

As mentioned before, cross-posting content from your other channels is a great way to drive traffic and generate engagement. So, share links on Facebook from your YouTube videos.

23. Highlight products.

Your customers may already be aware of what you have to offer, but why not remind them? Consider creating a Facebook post to highlight your product offerings. The example below is from the Humans Of New York Facebook page advertising a new book.

24. Announce new products.

In a similar vein, Facebook is a worthwhile platform for product announcements. Below is an example from Dove, a personal care brand, announcing a new range of products.

25. Share product reviews.

Product reviews are another form of user-generated content to post that will generate social proof and establish your authority with customers.

You can take screenshots of positive reviews on your product pages, email feedback, social media comments, or even invite customers to create reviews specifically for your Facebook page.

26. Share open job positions.

While Facebook is great for marketing, it can also help you attract new talent. Post job openings on your Facebook page, and you may find that engaged customers are also interested in becoming employees. Here’s an example of a Facebook job post by Global Fund for Women.

27. Host ‘Ask Me Anything’ (AMA) sessions.

Ask Me Anything sessions are a great way to engage with your audience. You can create a post around your desired topic and let your audience know that you’ll answer their questions in the comments and generate conversation.

28. Post answers to FAQ.

A great customer service tip is to practice proactive customer service, where you get ahead of customer questions if you notice that there are commonly asked questions.

Consider creating Facebook post(s) that answer these questions, so customers can visit your profile and find the answers they’re looking for before picking up the phone and calling a service rep. The example below is from a small farm in Gainesville, Florida.

29. Promote events.

As mentioned before, some people don’t check their email or remain active on every social channel they have, so sharing events on Facebook is another way to ensure all segments of your audience is aware of them. Below is an example of an event announcement from Mount Holyoke College.

30. Live-post events.

Live-posting isn’t something reserved for Twitter.

Consider doing this on Facebook as a means of creating more opportunities for engagement with followers that are at your events. You’ll be around to answer their questions in real time, participate in conversations, and also inspire others to show up to your next event. Here’s an example from The Golden Globes Facebook account live-posting the 2021 Golden Globes event.

31. Create polls. 

Facebook polls are a way to gain insight into your audience and their preferences. A unique aspect of Facebook polls is that results can be viewed in real-time so your followers can visualize how others are responding without needing to filter through comments.

Polls are a native Facebook function, and you can learn how to create one here.

32. Share employee generated content.

Just as people may be interested in working for your company, your followers may also be interested in who works at your company. Employee generated content posts can showcase company culture, projects, and the talent that helps run your business. The example below is from the HubSpot Facebook account.

33. Post in industry-relevant groups or pages.

While most of the posts you make will be on your own profile, it’s also worth posting in Facebook groups that are relevant to your industry. You’ll gain exposure to a new audience, and, depending on what you post, generate new leads.

34. Share a call-to-action (CTA).

Sharing a call-to-action on your Facebook profile can help you collect information on new leads, and drive traffic to your website. An example of a CTA can be encouraging your followers to sign up for a newsletter, or inviting them to sign up for exclusive access to a new product before it becomes widely available.

35. Recycle content from popular posts.

One of the great things about social media is that it is an ever evolving landscape where people are discovering new things every day. Consider recycling content from your most popular posts so newer followers and leads can learn from and enjoy that content as well. Facebook has a native sharing option that will allow you to re-share your old posts.

36. Create a themed series.

Creating a themed series is a great way to drive engagement and interaction, as those who are interested in what you have to say will keep coming back to read new posts as they go live.

The content in your themed series should be relevant to your business, but an example could be sharing information on a new industry trend, a post explaining how it relates to your business, and another post explaining how it affects your audience.

37. Share content from other industry leaders.

Your audience trusts you because they believe you provide them with something of value.

Because of this, consider sharing content from other industry leaders or businesses that you think will benefit your audience and help them succeed. The example below is from the HubSpot Facebook account sharing an industry-relevant quote.

38. Share your business’ values.

70% of consumers say that trusting a brand is more important now than ever before.

Aim to build trust with your audience by sharing your brand values on Facebook and letting them know what you care about. The example below is from Google’s Facebook page, where they commit to supporting nonprofits and social enterprises to empower women.

39. Host a Facebook Live.

Facebook Live is a native feature that allows you to broadcast real-time video to your page and newsfeed. While you can certainly emulate a Facebook live with Facebook posts, live video gives you the unique opportunity to build trust with your audience with interactive two-way conversations. Your audience can ask questions in the comments, and you can verbally reply using their name and generate a familiar relationship.

40. Promote other social channels.

While there is some overlap, most social media platforms have different audience demographics. Share links to your other accounts on your Facebook profile as a way to drive engagement and gain followers on all your accounts.

41. Share content from your other Facebook profiles.

Some companies have multiple Facebook profiles that correspond to different segments of their business. If this is you, share content from your other Facebook profiles to your main profile page to make your audience aware of the different types of content you have to offer.

The example below is from Google’s main profile page sharing content from the Google Small Business profile page.

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All-in-all, leveraging the tips on this list will help you create an engaging Facebook business page that your audience visits to learn more about what you have to offer and develop a relationship with  your company.

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Are you new to the startup game, and even newer to the content marketing game?

With all the work that goes into starting a business, there’s little time to think about marketing strategies that prove successful and are feasible for a startup’s teams to execute.

If you find yourself in this boat, don’t panic. You probably know the tools that are helpful for startup marketers to use when strategizing — a CMS, social media accounts, and graphic design software, for instance.

Now, what you need to know is how to use these tools, and similar methods, to create campaigns that align with your business goals. You may have seen other startups’ glowing marketing techniques and found yourself wondering how to create a winning strategy.

For that, we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the ways you can build a winning startup marketing strategy designed to lay the foundation for future success.

1. Use SMART goals to focus on business-critical goals upfront.

At Huble Digital, we use SMART goals. These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. For example, a SMART goal could be:

• Increase organic traffic to our website by 50% by 2022
• Create 10 new sales focused blogs by Q3

The purpose of SMART goals is to set businesses up for success. They provide a sense of direction and help to organize efforts.

And, while SMART goals are invaluable for any organization, they’re particularly beneficial for start-ups.

In most start-ups, employees have to wear several hats (often due to budget constraints or lack of resources). The founder, for instance, might be responsible for strategy, product development, and even PR, while the chief technology officer (CTO) might be involved in the design of the website, marketing, and social media. There’s just so much to do!

Of course, for all start-ups, the principal focus is product development (and always will be until the “release” stage) … but what about all the other elements that help sustain the business’ growth?

It’s here where SMART goals can really help. Instead of trying to do everything at once, focus on the most business-critical goals, put everything you have behind them, and tackle things in a strategic way. For instance, rather than spreading your time across several initiatives (some of which may not be important right now), focus on three or four that will lay a foundation for your activities or support your current efforts.

If you’re launching with a new product, for instance, focus on the development but also set goals like:

• Create 10 new blogs to build awareness of the product by X date
• Publish 2 new web pages to promote the new product by X date
• Secure 5 placements in online media using digital PR by X date

These are just some examples, but they can undoubtedly help raise the profile of your business without costing much — the only real expenditure is time. Instead of spreading your capabilities across several initiatives, try focusing on those that will support what you’re doing right now.

The key to sustained growth is consistency and focus, and SMART goals enable you to do just that.

2. Create detailed documents to distinguish who your target buyers are.

SMART goals give your marketing efforts direction and focus, sure, but who are you marketing to?

For your start-up’s marketing efforts to bring in tangible results, those efforts need to be tailored to your ideal target audience.

Now you’ll probably have a good understanding of who it is you want to do business with, but have you articulated that to the rest of your team or — at the very least — put together a document detailing who your buyer personas are?

It’s here where buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers. They’re based on market research, current data, existing customers, and a few educated assumptions. Buyer personas help you to understand the drivers, business challenges, and needs of those to whom you want to market.

It’s also important to note that buyer personas are not real people, but archetypes of them.

Now that we’ve briefly covered what buyer personas are, you might be wondering — Okay, but what makes them so valuable to my start-up? Simply put, buyer personas allow you to refine your marketing and segment your audience(s).

You want and need quick wins during the product development and release stages, so why waste time (and money) casting the widest net possible when you can hone in on those most likely to buy from you?

Your buyer personas will provide you with a good idea of who these people are. Use that information to build marketing and PR campaigns that focus on the right people, at the right time and place of their buyer’s journey.

3. Have clear, compelling messaging.

If you’ve ever seen a Ronseal advertisement, you’re likely already familiar with the following phrase: “It does what it says on the tin.”

In an age of slick, big-budget marketing campaigns and buzzwords, it falls to you to keep your messages clear and concise.

People don’t want platitudes or jargon. They want to understand what it is your product does and how it can help them solve their business challenges. In fact – and this may sound harsh – it’s not even about your business, it’s about how you can help your potential customers.

With this in mind, any messaging that your startup creates (and this applies to all businesses of any size) needs to be created with the end user in mind. It needs to be simple, informative, and compelling. This will help convert the website traffic you generate into leads.

4. Create a content marketing strategy to generate leads.

Speaking of traffic, you’ll want to have a plan for bringing prospects to your site. Content marketing is all about producing high-quality content that answers questions your prospects and customers have, and nurturing them to a point of purchase.

For instance, blogs are great for increasing your website’s organic traffic and awareness of your brand. Each blog should be optimized for a long-tail keyword term, as this will help to drive targeted traffic (i.e. people definitely interested in what you have to say) to your website. It’s a really easy way to increase your startup’s digital footprint and start building its name.

The content you create also helps to generate leads and demonstrate your expertise. You could, for instance, produce informative ebooks and gate them behind landing pages on your website. Visitors can then download your ebooks in exchange for their details.

With this approach, you know that those that do download your ebooks are interested in hearing from you. The ebooks you create will be particularly useful for targeting “early adopters”, i.e. those that want to be on the cutting-edge when it comes to new technology/software.

Over time, as more and more content is created, your website becomes a repository for information. Providing it’s all optimized for the right terms, the right people will find it time and time again.

5. Distribute the content you create.

It’s not enough to hit “Publish” and wait for customers to show up. After all, content marketing doesn’t only work for organic search engine traffic. To get the most bang for your buck, you can repurpose the content you create, distribute it on non-search channels such as social and email, and promote it to new and existing audiences alike.

Let’s take a blog post for example. If you created a listicle that outlines 10 tips, you can create a social media graphic for each of the tips and do an informational series for your followers while promoting the full article and/or a related content offer.

A social media plan like this should be part of every content marketing strategy, and every content marketing strategy should be developed with distribution in mind.

6. Run ads for short-term results.

Content marketing is a long-term play. While it can be extremely rewarding over time, you likely won’t see immediate results. As you build your content platform, you’ll need a way to generate leads and ROI in the short-term, and the best way to do that is with ads.

Ads are “pay to play,” so they’re not as scalable as content marketing, but the benefit is that your ads will be shown to users shortly after you turn on the campaign.

But which ads should you go with first? That will be determined by your ad strategy, but a good rule of thumb is this:

• Google Search Ads – Best when people are already aware of the product/service you sell and search Google to find the right provider/vendor.
• Social Ads – Because people don’t go on social media specifically to shop, these are best when people are not aware of the product/service and you can catch their attention in a fun/visual way. Also good for finding niche audiences.
• Display Ads – Best for brand awareness and re-targeting.

7. Implement a digital PR strategy to increase buzz around your brand.

Now if you want to get the most out of everything you do — particularly from a content creation perspective — why not amplify it with digital PR?

Digital PR effectively takes everything good about traditional PR: press coverage, events, outreach, thought leadership content — and does the same for the online space. Suddenly, the assets you’ve created for your marketing activity can be retrofitted to suit PR purposes.

In fact, digital PR goes one step further: the agency you work with will do their utmost to earn backlinks back to your website (editors and publications are notoriously difficult when it comes to keeping links in content). Subsequently, those reading your content via online publications can actually find your business, and the content itself is already optimized for search because you’ve done it already.

All-in-all, digital PR will help to increase your startup’s visibility both online and offline, helping you to get featured in key trade media relating to what you do and cause a positive stir in your industry.

8. Measure and improve customer lifetime value (CLV).

Because it’s easier and less costly to retain or re-sell to existing customers than acquire new ones, it’s critical for startups to intentionally track CLV and improve on it by:

• Enhancing the customer experience and eliminating friction
• Tracking customer satisfaction and working to improve retention
• Creating a strategy for upselling and cross-selling

9. Establish and cultivate your reputation.

87% of customers read online reviews for local businesses in 2020, an increase from 81% in 2019 (Bright Local). The internet allows customers to be more informed than ever during the buying process. A poor reputation can therefore hurt your marketing and sales efforts while a good reputation may help seal the deal.

With this in mind, you should do what you can to make a positive impression:

• Ask customers for feedback and take action on it.
• Ask for testimonials when you’ve exceeded expectations.
• Cultivate other types of social proof such as case studies.
• Respond to online reviews in a professional manner.

10. Build a referral engine.

Despite all the digital marketing strategies and tactics out there, word of mouth is still powerful.

This is especially true for those who intentionally improve the customer experience.

Referrals often happen organically, but a referral marketing strategy can help you generate them faster. For example, you can:

• Identify promoters and ask them if they know anyone who would benefit from your product/service.
• Incentivize customers to refer their friends through a referral program.
• Leverage user-generated content.
• Build campaigns that are mutually beneficial or champion a cause your customers support.

Startup Marketing Ideas

The above strategies can give you a high-level sense of where to go, but executing it is a different story. To get a sense of how a marketing strategy can produce success for your startup, we’re going to lay out some ideas. These ideas are from startups, and will help you visualize how a successful strategy can be helpful for your own marketing goals.

1. Use paid ads to build a community.

Starburst Data is a B2B company that helps companies understand their website analytics. They use a search query engine that organizes data, so customers can interpret large amounts of data quickly. This startup uses ads on LinkedIn to connect with its audience, like this one promoting their software:

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A content marketer for a company like Starburst has a good chance of finding its target audience on LinkedIn, since it’s a platform for professional networking. Part of this marketing campaign involves using LinkedIn Ads to build community and provide helpful information.

A similar B2B startup strategy could involve making use of a social media platform’s paid ads offerings to cater to your audience. Alternatively, you can upload offers for free and use hashtags to get them seen by more prospective customers, like #B2BMarketing, or #MarTech.

2. Try social media to connect with customers.

Social media marketing doesn’t have to include spending money — it can be used to grow your audience and connect with existing members. Take Paperless Parts, for example, a manufacturing company with a stellar Facebook page:

It’s free to create a Facebook Business page and optimize it so leads and customers can find it. The Paperless Parts feed begins with recommendations and reviews from happy customers, showing that the business has a dedicated customer userbase. After that, the business posts videos that go behind-the-scenes of the manufacturing process, and also post reminders for webinars and other website content.

A social media page for a startup that showcases customers provides helpful content and encourages audience participation is a free strategy to expand reach, bring clicks to your website, and show credibility in the industry.

3. Crowdfunding marketing, which can generate press.

Are you thinking about starting a crowdfunding campaign? If you do, you could earn great press from publications, expanding your campaign’s reach. Take NeighborSchools, for example, which is a child care startup. NeighborSchools offers unique daycares from licensed and experienced professionals.

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When the minds behind NeighborSchools began to seek funding to scale up their service, they turned to crowdfunding to seek out people who believed in the service and were able to invest. This tactic earned the company $3.5 million in seed funding, and the success caught the eye of major publications.

Even if you have just a few customers, you can use your crowdfunding campaign as a marketing tactic to get more people interested in your business.

4. Host a virtual meetup instead of a conference.

Mabl is a Boston-based SaaS provider for machine learning test automation. It makes the lives of developers who have to test their solutions way easier. To build a larger community, Mabl hosted a virtual meetup with industry experts.

Image Source

The meetup’s speakers educated its attendees about software testing. This idea is a cool, low-cost way to expand your professional network and provide valuable content for customers without hosting a conference.

5. Use user-generated content to tell your story.

Startups don’t usually have the revenue to produce big-budget social media campaigns. For travel agency Hopjump, their marketing team found that the best way to tell their story is on Instagram. The business page is filled with clients enjoying their destination vacations, booked using the service:

Customers who post their amazing travel pictures on Instagram can tag Hopjump for a chance to be featured on the page, and this also increases exposure for the startup. Satisfied customers can share their experiences with more of Hopjump’s target audience.

A marketing campaign that includes user-generated content is an easy, free way to work in testimonials. You can use your social media channels to execute the campaign and include hashtags for the chance to appear in more feeds.

When thinking about campaign ideas, you might not have to look that far. You might be able to turn some of the tools you already have at your disposal to boost your campaign messages. Is there a webinar you can host about a topic, or a content offer you think will resonate particularly well with your LinkedIn audience?

6. Create SEO-optimized content to attract high-intent visitors.

SEO is another free, cost-effective strategy startup marketers can use to spread word about their business.

But here’s the caveat: of all the strategies mentioned, this one takes the longest.

That’s not to say it’s incredibly time-consuming — it’s not, but it is a continuous job. The more you optimize your website, the better it’ll perform, which, in turn, will generate more leads for your company.

We have to let you know that at this point, SEO won’t net you leads or opportunities immediately, but it will lay the foundation for consistent success in the months and years to come.

The idea behind SEO is that you optimize your web pages (and content) for keyword terms you know prospects use to find products or services like yours.

Better yet, you identify long-tail keyword terms with low to medium competition and high search volume that are relevant to your product or service, and use those instead.

You main service pages will, of course, be competing with other businesses in your space on many similar terms, but you can use the content you create to link to these pages, bolstering their SEO value over time and increasing their ranking on SERP results pages.

Updating and optimizing your website will ensure it continues to grow and attract interested prospects for the long-term, so it’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss.

7. Implement a referral program.

Referral-based marketing has become the hype over the last few years as people increasingly look at product/service reviews, testimonials, and case studies to validate their purchase decisions.

The aim behind this particular startup marketing idea is to leverage those who have already bought your product/service and ask them to advocate on your behalf — whether that’s through a review, testimonial, or case study.

This kind of content is invaluable because it shows and tells your potential customers that you have solved for others like them in the past. To increase the chances of your customers doing this for you, offer them discounts or free product trials.

Additionally, you might consider giving away free keys, trials, or versions of your product to specific people. For example, a good way to gain press coverage and build brand awareness is to let tech journalists try your offering for free. They can then write a review and distribute it to the relevant online publications and link back to your website.

Lastly, make sure that you feature these reviews prominently on your website. They help build trust and authenticity, both of which are key to making sales in today’s digital-first world.

8. Offer a free or trial version of your product.

One of the best ways to get your startup out there is to offer some kind of version of your product/service for free — and it’s worked for a lot of businesses already.

Canva, Dropbox, Zapier, HubSpot — all of these high-profile tech companies offer some kind of free/trial version of their product or service to let people try before they buy (or upgrade). As people use them and realize just how great these products are, they feel compelled to buy the full, “unlimited” version for all the bells and whistles. Great, right?

Image Source

But along with getting people to use your product — and inherently talking about how good it is as a result — it’s all about lowering the customer’s costs of acquisition. What a lot of businesses do with a freemium model is offer current trial users a discount on the full price of the software. This is significantly more appealing than paying the full price and can potentially convert more leads into paying customers very, very quickly.

Also, for those who don’t convert to paying customers with this offer, it enables you to understand what features or parts of your service are lacking. You can ask for feedback, make the necessary changes, and then roll them out to see who bites on the full product offering.

For maximum effect, cross-reference what you offer against the main issues your buyer personas have in relation to technology like yours. Consider adding features to your product/service to address these problems (where possible). Maybe produce a roadmap and show people what they’ll be getting. Transparency is a great way to increase users!

Lastly, bear in mind that this approach does come with the risk that people might not want to upgrade to the full version. That said, be as clear as you can with what users can get from the full version and highlight how valuable it can be for them. Keep your coolest features under wraps!

The Best Strategies Use a Combination of Ideas and Tactics

If you want to get the best possible results when it comes to marketing, you need to focus on what works.

While there are loads of different ways to achieve your goals, you should always focus on the most high-impact and cost-effective, and as a startup owner — I’m willing to bet you already know how important that is.

The best strategies use a combination of what we’ve mentioned above and then analyze the performance of them to determine which ones require more or less investment. No matter what you do, remember that your marketing activities are only as good as your goals and targeting. Good luck!

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

These days, social media is all about documentation.

Where you go, what you eat and drink, who you see, and what’s most memorable: These are the typical fodder of Instagram Stories — seconds-long glimpses of people’s lives, shared on Instagram for only 24 hours.

Below, we’ve created a guide for you to learn what Instagram Stories are, how to share them with your followers, and how to make sure those Stories are exactly what your audience wants to see. In this post, we’ll cover the following. Feel free to click on a bullet point below to jump to that section of the article.

• What are Instagram Stories?
• How do Instagram Stories work?
• How long are Instagram Stories?
• How to view Instagram Stories
• How to Make an Instagram Story
• How to Use Instagram Stories for Business
• Instagram Stories Tricks and Hacks for Awesome Instagram Stories

Your Instagram Story is published separately from the photos and videos found in the tiled gallery of one’s Instagram profile. And although you might know the basics of sharing them, there are hidden tools within the app that can make the photos and videos you add to your Story more creative and engaging.

How Do Instagram Stories Work?

Instagram Stories can drive a ton of engagement and value — whether you’re sharing a Story from a brand account or your own personal profile.

Since launching back in August 2016, a total of 250 million Instagram users have started sharing disappearing content on Instagram Stories — contributing to the huge jump in time spent in-app every day from 24 minutes to 32.

What’s more, a lot of brands have already seen success publishing content to this platform. Instagram Stories have fueled the growth of brands like Teen Vogue, Insider, and Bustle. Whether publishers are trying to grow brand awareness, grow traffic to videos or newsletter outside of Instagram, or share sponsored content, publishers are flocking to Instagram to publish fun disappearing content that infuses brand voice and personality without taking up too much of the average techie’s dwindling attention span.

What’s more, Instagram Stories are credited with fueling the massive growth of Instagram Direct — private one-to-one messaging between users within the app. Instagram Direct has grown into one of the most popular messaging apps in the world with a staggering 375 million users.

Even more impressive, TechCrunch reports that one in five Instagram Stories shared by a brand receives a Direct reply — giving brands a direct line to connect with their audience and learn more about them.

Just as Instagram Stories only last 24 hours before disappearing, the photos and video themselves have a time limit when users view and play them.

As a blanket rule, the individual videos you add to your Instagram Story each have a maximum roll time of 15 seconds. If you add a video to your Instagram Story, for example, it’ll play for up to 15 seconds, regardless of how long the original video was, and then end.

Despite Instagram Stories’ 15-second runtime limit, there are ways to play longer videos in your Story. Specifically, you can split a video that’s longer than 15 seconds into 15-second segments and add each segment to your Instagram Story so they play one after another. Here are some mobile apps that can help you make it happen:

• Continual (iOS only)
• Storeo (iOS only)
• Story Cutter for iOS
• Story Cutter for Android
• CutStory (iOS only)

How to View Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories appear at the top of your screen when you’re on the Instagram mobile app. Because they’re often the first pieces of content users see when they open Instagram, these Stories can get a ton of engagement and help you advertise your regular Instagram photo gallery to more users.

1. Open Instagram and navigate to the home screen.

To start viewing Instagram Stories, open your Instagram mobile app and tap the home icon on the bottom-lefthand corner of your screen. Instagram Stories are not available for viewing on the desktop site.

Once you’ve navigated to Instagram’s home screen, you’ll see a series of circular icons along the top, each of which represents the active Stories posted by the users you follow. These icons are highlighted inside a red square in the screenshot below. As you can see, your own Story is available for viewing (and adding to) on the far left of the Stories you follow.

2. Tap on a circular icon to view that user’s Story.

Each circular icon you see at the top of your home screen shows you a small preview of the Story that user has posted. Tap on it to expand the user’s Story — it’ll either be a photo or a video, and the latter will play automatically once you tap on the Story.

3. Tap to navigate between a Story’s photos and videos.

A single Instagram Story can contain numerous individual photos and videos strung together in order of when the user posted them. The first piece of content you’ll see will be the most recent one. Tap your mobile device’s screen to cut to the next photo or video that user has posted to their Story.

4. Swipe to navigate from one Instagram Story to another.

Swiping left and right while viewing an Instagram Story will allow you to shuffle between Stories from different users. When you first open an Instagram Story, you’ll see the following menu:

Use the above screenshot as a reference for viewing the Instagram Stories of the accounts you follow.

You can make Instagram Stories this successful too — but it requires a few more hacks and tips to make them look like the Stories big brands and influencers share. (Some of my favorite Instagram Stories are shared by chef Chloe Coscarelli, actress Busy Phillips, mattress brand Casper, and interior design app Hutch — and don’t forget to check out HubSpot‘s Instagram Stories, either.)

But first, let’s review the basics of how to share an Instagram Story:

1. Open Instagram, and tap the camera icon in the upper left-hand corner of your phone.

2. Share a photo or video you’ve already captured by swiping up on your screen to browse your gallery.

Disclosure: Yes, I did a photoshoot featuring my cats. Can you blame me though?

3. Or, choose a camera lens to capture a photo or video in the app.

You have a few different options to choose from:

1. Live

If you toggle your screen to the “Live” option, you’ll start filming and broadcasting live on Instagram. Like Facebook Live, friends can follow along and leave comments, and when you’re done with the broadcast, you’ll have the option to let the video disappear, save it, or share it Instagram Stories for an additional 24 hours.

2. Normal

It means what it says: Tapping once will capture a photo, and holding down will record a video. Instagram Stories can be 15 seconds in length, so if you want to share a video that’s longer, film in 15-second stints, or use CutStory to split your longer clip into 15-second installments.

3. Boomerang

Boomerang mode films looping GIFs up to three seconds in length.

4. Superzoom

Superzoom is, on the surface, a video recording lens that zooms in closer and closer on your subject. But turn up the volume, and you can use Superzoom to create a dramatic soundtrack to accompany your video.

As my friend Marissa put it, “It’s like it’s BUILT for cats.”

I will forever be in love with this Insta lens!!!! pic.twitter.com/HvU6rarmNa

— Sophia Bernazzani (@soph_bern)
November 17, 2017

5. Rewind

Use the rewind lens to film a video in reverse.

6. Stop Motion

Use this lens to film cool stop-motion videos: several different still images woven together in one seamless video. Think of it like the video version of a flip book (like this example below):

Stop-motion artist Alex Unger spends months creating incredibly detailed pieces. pic.twitter.com/m6R4MNLIQj

— Business Insider UK (@BIUK)
November 14, 2017

7. Hands-Free

Use hands-free mode if you want to set up your camera to film a video for you. Make sure you prop it somewhere stable before you call “Action.” We’ll talk more about this feature in a minute.

4. Once you’ve edited your photo or video, tap “Your Story,” or tap “Next” to share it to your Story and to other friends at the same time.

You can also save your edited photo or video to your gallery by tapping “Save” in the lower left-hand corner.

Knowing how to post to your Instagram Story is one thing, but knowing what to post is a different … well, story. For businesses looking to tell their Story on Instagram, it’s important to know who your ideal followers are and what they’d be interested in seeing on Instagram. Remember, Instagram is a visual platform, but that doesn’t mean you can’t teach or promote something in the process.

Here are a few ideas for using Instagram Stories to attract followers and build a customer base.

1. Post footage of an office event.

Sometimes, the best thing a business can do on Instagram is be as human as possible. One way to do this is to post a brief video of a company function. Whether it’s an office holiday party or an award banquet, posting footage of it to your Story is easy and in-the-moment entertainment for your followers. This content also shows people you’re a relevant and friendly voice in your market.

2. Post breaking news about your industry.

Just as you might on your company blog, you can use your Instagram Story to report on the latest happenings in your industry. With the right design work, you can turn small news breaks — that don’t merit an entire article — into a Story on your Instagram account. This keeps users coming back to you to stay abreast with market trends. You can even ask users what they think, as shown in the Instagram Story by HubSpot below. We’ll explain how Instagram “stickers” can help you do this in just a minute.

3. Demonstrate your product.

Your product might not be the simplest or sexiest product in the eyes of the layperson. Well, your Instagram Story is the perfect format for showing potential customers how that product is used. Post a long video, segmented into 15-second clips that show users what your product or service does and how it helps your customers.

If you sell software, for example, you might record a video of your computer screen, using a recording tool like Loom, that shows people how to log in, use the software’s dashboard, and navigate to the various functions included in the product.

Just remember to modify your video’s dimensions before uploading it to your Instagram Story. Remember, Instagram Stories’ image dimensions are 1920px high and 1080px wide, with an aspect ratio of 9:16.

4. Promote a company event.

Does your organization host a trade conference or attend a big one every year? Use your Instagram Story to promote the event and tell your followers to look for you there. Work with a graphic designer, or do some artwork yourself, to illustrate an event flier with all the information one would need to find you. Most of this you can do directly in Instagram. For example, use the native text options in your Story to add:

• The event’s name.
• Where the event is located.
• Dates you’ll be attending.
• Your booth number.
• The event’s official hashtag.

5. Preview one of your company’s blog posts.

Your blog posts need all the exposure they can get. Even if social media isn’t your blog’s primary source of traffic, your Instagram Story can help readers discover that blog for the first time and find it later.

In the screenshot below, Google used its Instagram Story to preview an article it published on six extraordinary young women involved in water technology. When you tap all the way to the end of the Story, Google prompts you to swipe up with your finger, where it then links you to the full blog post.

6. Mention other companies who follow or work with you.

As your Instagram following grows, you’ll eventually pick up other business accounts who want to follow you as well. Whether those accounts are your business partners or simply fans of yours, consider giving them shout-outs on your Instagram Story. This is a passive but effective way to nurture your relationships with the users that matter most to your business’s growth. We’ll explain how to link to other accounts in an Instagram Story in the tips below.

Now that you know the basics, let’s run through tips and hacks for producing high-quality, clickable Instagram Stories.

11 Instagram Story Tricks and Hacks

1. Use stickers.

Once you’ve captured a great photo or video, it’s time to jazz it up with some fun stickers. You can access these by tapping the smiling sticker icon in the upper right-hand corner of your screen once you’ve captured a photo or video — or swipe up from the bottom of your screen.

Change the size of your stickers.

You can pinch the sticker once you’ve added to your story to increase or decrease its size. You can also tap and drag it around the frame to change its position.

Check stickers every day for new and unique ones.

Instagram releases unique Story stickers often — whether it’s Monday, a holiday, or a season. Check this section every day for new and timely stickers to add to your Story.

Add location, hashtag, poll, and selfie stickers.

Boost the engagement on your Instagram Story by opening it up to other people doing the same things you are. Open up the stickers section, and tap any of these buttons to customize your story:

Location Stickers

Start typing in wherever you are, and you’ll be able to pull in a geographically-specific sticker to show where you are.

When people view your Story, they’ll be able to tap the location sticker and see other photos and Stories happening around the same place.

Hashtag Stickers

Same concept here: If you add this sticker and type in a hashtag, your Story will appear in searches for that hashtag, and viewers will be able to click it and see who else is using it. #MotivationMonday, amirite?

Poll Stickers

You can add a two-option poll to your Instagram Story, and you can even customize the possible answers so they’re more unique than “Yes” or “No.” Use a poll sticker to gauge if people are really engaging with your content.

Selfie Stickers

Open up the Stickers menu, and tap on the camera icon.

Then, take a selfie — or take a picture of anyone else’s face (that will work too). Then, you can use that face to decorate your Instagram Story. Somewhat creepy, but very memorable and funny, too.

2. Record a hands-free Instagram video.

If you’re a frequent video-recorder on Instagram, you know you need to hold your thumb against the record button for as long as you’re recording. This can make it tedious when attempting dynamic and interesting videos that require more hand mobility.

But did you know you can record these videos “hands-free“?

The hands-free video feature can be found in the carousel of camera lens options beneath the record button, as shown above. Simply tap the record button once to start the video, and again to stop it after you’ve gotten the footage you want.

3. Let viewers share your Stories.

Increase engagement and views of your Instagram Story by letting viewers share them with their friends — as Direct Messages.

Go to your profile, tap the gear icon, and navigate to “Story Settings.”

Toggle on “Allow Sharing” so viewers can DM your Story to friends to increase your audience reach. Voila!

4. Use the pen.

Use the pen to add embellishment, symbols, or more text to your Story. If you tap the pen icon in the upper right-hand corner of your screen once you’ve captured a photo or video, you’ll open up your options.

From there, you can adjust the thickness of your pen stroke or change the color you’re writing with (more on that later).

I like using the highlighter pen (the third option) to add emphasis to words — or even the highlight of my photo or video.

5. Add a background color.

If you want to share a Story with a background color — like the images I’ve shared above — you can actually select it from the color palette.

Take a picture (it doesn’t have to be a picture of anything in particular), and then tap the pen icon to open up the color palette. (Here’s Leela again — my unwitting cat model.)

You can choose one of the colors from the three available menus, or if you want a specific shade of one of those colors, you can open up the full color spectrum by pressing and holding one of the colors.

Then, scribble anywhere on the screen, and hold your finger down until you get the background color you want to appear.

If you want to get really crazy, you could use the eraser tool (the fourth option) to create new words or shapes from the background, too.

6. Mention another Instagram account in your Story.

Sometimes, it’s just not enough to send an Instagram Story to a particular person — you need to give them a shoutout in the photo or video itself. In these cases, Instagram allows you to tag up to 10 specific handles directly in your Story’s photo or video.

To mention an Instagram account in your Story, shoot a photo or video and then tap the square “A” icon in the upper righthand corner of the screen. Enter the account you’d like to tag, starting with the “@” symbol and the account’s first letter. Scroll through the suggested accounts that appear below your cursor until you find the account you have in mind, and tap it. See what these options look like below.

Once you post this Story, the person or account you’ve tagged in the photo or video will receive a notification of your shoutout, regardless of whether or not you send the Story to them.

7. Make your text funkier.

The text on Instagram Stories is pretty basic — jazz it up with these tricks.

Customize your colors.

If you’re unsatisfied with the color palette Instagram offers, create your own from one of the colors in the photo or video you’ve captured.

Open up the text icon, and tap the eyedropper icon in the lower left-hand corner of your screen.

Use the dropper to sample a color from somewhere in the image you’ve captured, and use it when typing out text or using the pen tool.

Add a drop shadow to your Story’s text.

If you want to add some extra drama to your text, add highlighting or shadowing by retyping or rewriting your text in a different color. I recommend choosing black or white to add emphasis to a bright color you’ve picked. Then, move the text above or underneath the brighter text to add some drama to your words.

Turn your text into a rainbow.

This one’s tricky, but you can actually turn your text into a gradient rainbow.

Tap the text icon, and type out your message to add to your Story. Then, highlight your text.

This is where it gets tricky: Turn your phone to the side so you can hold one finger down on the right side of your text, and with another finger, tap on a color and hold until the color wheel pops up.

Then, slowly drag both fingers across both the text and the color wheel from right to left to create rainbow text. Go slowly, letter by letter until you’ve created a rainbow. (This one took me several tries before I nailed it, and I succeeded using both thumbs to highlight the text and the color wheel.)

I wonder if Leela knows she is my model for when I write step-by-step instructions in blog posts pic.twitter.com/OgcKhmIdNV

— Sophia Bernazzani (@soph_bern)
November 19, 2017

Gradually add text to a Story.

Sometimes, you might want to add text or stickers to an image to build on it — perhaps to promote a content offer or event, or to encourage viewers to swipe up to read a link you’ve shared (this is only available to verified accounts).

Start editing the photo you want to share, post it, and save it to your camera roll. Then, swipe up on your screen to add the screenshot to the next installment of your Story — adding new text or stickers on top of the first photo. Keep doing this for as long as you want the Story to last — just make sure to keep taking screenshots of your latest photo so you can add to it.

8. See who has viewed your Instagram Story.

Snapchat users have always been able to see which of their friends have viewed their snapped Stories over the 24-hour period that the Story is visible. Well, Instagram Stories can do the same thing — in exactly the same way.

To see who has viewed your Instagram Story, navigate to the homepage of Instagram on your phone and click on the circular icon denoting your Story. See what this looks like in the screenshot below.

Image by Mari Smith

Click on “Your Story” from the Instagram home screen and swipe up from the bottom of your open Story. This will pull up a list of all the accounts that have viewed this content.

Seeing who’s viewed your Story might be an ego boost to personal Instagrammers, but business users can learn a lot about what their followers are interested in this way. By looking at which users view which Stories, you can figure out which types of photos and videos you should keep posting.

9. Center your text and stickers.

When you’re moving around text and stickers on your story, you’ll see blue lines appear vertically or horizontally in the frame. These are guiding lines you can use to make sure you’re keeping everything centered.

Don’t put your text too high or too low on the screen.

That said, make sure you don’t add anything to your Story too high or too low in the frame — or it will be cut off when viewers scroll through your Story, when Instagram adds things like your name and how long ago your story was posted that could block out your carefully-crafted text.

10. Add music to a Story.

This one’s easy: Turn on music using your phone’s native streaming app, and record a video Story. Once you get ready to edit and share, make sure the sound icon isn’t muted so your viewers can jam with you.

Alternatively, if you’d rather your video be muted, tap the sound icon so an “X” appears over it.

11. Upload Instagram Stories from your phone’s camera roll.

Great Instagram Stories aren’t just created through the Instagram app. You can also upload photo and video content from your mobile device’s native camera roll.

To upload a photo or video for use as an Instagram Story, open your Instagram Story’s camera lens and tap the little square icon on the bottom lefthand of the screen. See what this looks like below.

Tapping the icon shown above will call up your phone’s native media gallery, where you can select any photo or video to publish as an Instagram Story. It’s that easy.

We hope these tips help you post killer Instagram Stories your audience won’t be able to stop following. There are lots of hidden ways to take your Stories to the next level — some we may not even have covered here. Our best advice? Keep clicking around and see what you can do with the latest updates from the app. Happy ‘gramming!

Having gone to many meetings, I can definitely say that I sometimes get overwhelmed. While I enjoy the content being discussed, I can feel tired and wish for a break to decompress before throwing my mind back into absorbing the information.

I’m sure I’m not alone in these feelings, that many of us want to absorb all we can while still having the opportunity to temporarily disconnect and let our minds wander.

What we’re looking for is a breakout session, where meeting hosts understand and accommodate for the need to take a break and specifically carve out time for them. This post will explain what a breakout session is, explain how to plan for a successful one, and present ideas that you can incorporate into your next meeting.

These sessions are less structured than general meeting sessions, and typically allow attendees to participate instead of simply sitting in the audience and listening. While these sessions can be related to the overall meeting content, they can also focus on unrelated topics.

Breakout sessions can happen during both in-person and virtual meetings. The former typically send attendees to different areas of a conference venue, and the latter use breakout room functions native to virtual conferencing tools. These sessions are especially important during virtual meetings, where there is already an element of built-in disconnection as attendees are in their own respective locations.

Below we’ll go over some ideas that you can use to incorporate engaging breakout sessions into your upcoming meetings.

Breakout Session Ideas

There are various breakout sessions you can plan for, like those directly related to meeting content and others that are entertainment-focused and involve attendees playing games with each other.

Lightning Talks

Lightning talks are a great way to break up meeting sessions. They’re short so people can attend more than one, and a facilitator takes a set amount of time to give brief talks on a subject of their choice related to overall meeting content.

However, lightning talks can also be adapted to allow facilitators to present on any topic they’re passionate about, helping attendees get to know more about each other and let their minds drift elsewhere before re-focusing on meetings.

Speed Networking

Speed networking breakout sessions allow attendees to meet each other and establish professional connections. You can divide people up, set expectations, and instruct participants to spend a set amount of time talking to one person and moving on to another once the time is up.

Games

Games can help participants let loose and de-stress, especially when they’re interactive and encourage engagement with others. These sessions are different from the other ideas on this list as they can be less related to meeting content than others.

During in-person sessions, you can organize bingo games, team people up to solve puzzles, or even play charades. Virtual games are possible as well.

Goal-setting Sessions

Goal-setting sessions are great as they can encourage participants to think in-depth about meeting content in a relaxed setting where they can have conversations with others and express their thoughts. You can assign a facilitator to each breakout room, and they can initiate a conversation about general meeting content and encourage participants to relate the content to their desires.

For example, suppose your larger meeting is focused on introducing a new business-wide workflow. In that case, attendees in these sessions can set goals surrounding what they want to accomplish with the new strategy over the next year.

Ask Me Anything (AMA) Sessions

AMA sessions are an excellent breakout idea, especially if you don’t have the chance to answer everyone’s questions.

Participants can be separated into different rooms and groups and ask questions or express their thoughts about what has happened during the meeting, and an experienced facilitator can be there to answer them.

Outdoor Activities

Outdoor activities are best suited for in-person meetings where groups of participants can go outside together. They can be less content-focused and involve something like a scavenger hunt, but general breakout sessions can also be held outdoors to give participants a change of scenery.

However, making use of an outdoor session during a virtual meeting can involve encouraging participants to log off for a few minutes, go outside, and come back and tell the group about something they saw while they were out there, or to share a photo of an item you asked them to find and identify outside.

Open Mic Session

Open mics are always exciting, and they can be great for encouraging engagement and giving attendees a moment to have fun and learn about their peers. Open mics can center around meeting content, like having service representatives share customer stories, or unrelated and attendees stand up and share a hidden talent.

Drop-in Discussions

Drop-in discussions are a great idea as you can schedule multiple different sessions for attendees to choose from. They’re also a low-pressure format for engaging in conversation and networking. People can navigate to a room where the content is related to their interest, and even pop-in to multiple sessions if they can’t decide.

While this is not an exhaustive list of ideas, they can certainly be used to create and design engaging breakout sessions for your next meeting.

Breakout Session Examples

Below we’ll go over some real-life examples of breakout sessions that can serve as additional inspiration for your planning.

Nonprofit Leadership Center

The Nonprofit Leadership Center is an organization that supports other nonprofits. It hosts a yearly leadership conference that includes multiple breakout sessions led by industry leaders that attendees can choose from.

A Breakout session from their 2020 conference, Courageous Conversations: Understanding & Confronting Unconscious Bias with Margarita Sarmiento, discussed how to create work environments that were inclusive and positive for all to be part of. The breakout session related to the overarching theme of the conference, which focused on leading courageously.

Building On Our Momentum (BOOM)

Mount Holyoke College hosts an annual diversity conference called Building On Our Momentum, where community members are encouraged to attend events and learn about diversity, equity, and inclusion in live talks and recorded content.

The 2021 BOOM conference incorporates various breakout sessions to help attendees engage with content in smaller groups and decompress from hard-hitting topics that they may be learning about.

One of the sessions, Tuesday Crafternoon: Zines, encourages attendees to get creative and create a zine while simultaneously learning about their history and use in marginalized communities.

INBOUND

INBOUND is HubSpot’s annual marketing conference that features a wide variety of opportunities, including breakout sessions. During these sessions, attendees can decompress, further engage with content, and connect with other participants.

Meetup: Black at INBOUND, an INBOUND 2020 breakout session, created a safe space for Black attendees to meet other professionals, network, and discuss topics of interest.

Breakout Session Template

Given the benefits that they can provide, it’s essential to understand how to plan for, and lead, a successful breakout session. Let’s go over some tips.

1. Set designated time frames.

As breakout sessions are specific periods between main meeting sessions, it’s crucial to set specific time frames in which they will occur. Take note of the session’s activity, how long it will take, and aim to stick to that schedule.

2. Set session goals.

Breakout sessions that are specifically designed for attendees to decompress are great, but, regardless of intention, it’s essential to set goals, so participants know what to expect.

Maybe it’s simply just to network and make conversation, but it could also be to outline personal goals. Letting people know what to expect helps you ensure that these sessions stay focused and attendees can accomplish everything within the desired time frame.

3. Design seating to complement the breakout format.

This tip is more related to in-person sessions, but essential nonetheless. It’s important to create seating arrangements and set up meeting spaces that complement and facilitate the session intent.

For example, a room filled with round tables wouldn’t be conducive to a speed networking session where two people are in discussion with each other. Understand what you want participants to accomplish during the decision, and design a meeting space accordingly.

4. Use the correct equipment.

Using the right equipment is relevant to both in-person and virtual breakout sessions, as you’ll want to ensure you have everything you need ahead of time. For example, suppose you’re leading a breakout session game. In that case, you want to make sure that you have all the necessary materials to run the session smoothly, like enough pieces for all participants and printable instructions to refer to during the game.

Having the right equipment is also important because these sessions are meant to help people decompress, so you don’t want to leave people waiting or stressed about what is about to happen, especially during virtual events.

All in all, breakout sessions are valuable aspects of meetings, both virtual and in-person. They give attendees a chance to connect with other participants, think deeply about meeting content, and generally have fun and engaging conversations.

Leverage the tips on this list when planning for your next meeting, and you’ll likely receive feedback from attendees that the sessions were engaging, exciting, and have inspired them to attend your next event.