Yearly Archives: 2023

Starting your project without a kickoff meeting is like hiking without a map. Sure, you might enjoy some cool trails, but you’ll probably get lost without a map and a clear plan.

The same happens when launching projects without a kickoff meeting. Only with solid communication and a plan can you keep your project on track. It’s like a GPS helping you reach your destination.

Let’s learn more about it.

Table of Contents

• What is a kickoff meeting?
• The Benefits of Kickoff Meetings
• 4 Types of Kickoff Meetings
• How to Run a Successful Kickoff Meeting
• 6 Kickoff Meeting Best Practices

What is a kickoff meeting?

A kickoff meeting sets the stage for success by clarifying project goals, defining roles and responsibilities, and outlining the project timeline.

Altogether, this results in smooth project execution. Think of it as the official start of your project — like the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

There are two types of kickoffs — internal and external. Internal kickoffs focus on aligning the internal team, while external kickoffs bring together external stakeholders or partners involved in the project.

The Benefits of Kickoff Meetings

1. Improved Alignment and Communication

The beauty of kickoff meetings? They allow everyone to share their priorities, insights, and plans. This means your team can align and agree on critical elements from the get-go.

Sage Journals conducted a community-based study highlighting the importance of kickoff events for research projects.

These events involve collaborating throughout each meeting stage, building relationships by challenging each other’s perspectives, and sharing expertise.

Kickoff meetings are suggested to facilitate dialogue among team members and promote equitable partnerships.

Pro tip: Open up a dialogue to tap into your team’s collective expertise, generate valuable insights, and foster a sense of shared ownership.

2. Streamlined Project Planning and Execution

Kickoffs are like the starting whistle of a game — you assign roles and recognize potential conflicts.

This helps a team save an immense amount of energy and time, allowing you to hit the ground running with a solid project management plan in place.

Heather Negley strengthens this point in her book titled The Salesforce Consultant’s Guide: Tools to Implement or Improve Your Client’s Salesforce Solution:

“The kickoff meeting is one of the most important meetings on a project.

It is the time that the team makes the all-important first impression and talks to the client about their goals for the project. The project methodology is also taught to the client.

“During discovery, the project team conducts business analysis using a variety of techniques to gain an understanding of the current and future processes. Project members write users’ stories to prepare for the build phase.”

3. Clear Milestones and Deadlines

Picture a group of highly motivated individuals coming together to turn a plan into reality.

They meticulously execute each milestone from the planning stage to the final tests, keeping an eye on the clock and communicating openly about their progress.

This level of collaboration ensures a seamless process and timely delivery of the finished product. Jean Kang, strategic program manager at Figma, says:

“Launch your program with a bang by hosting a 30-min kickoff meeting.

• Set goals, introduce team members, and establish an execution plan.
• Define sources of truth for resources, who to go to for what, and the right comms channels (Slack, Intake form, Microsite).
• Share the decision-making framework like DACI, RACI, or RAPID.”

4. Early Feedback

The top five project management tools and techniques most commonly used are the “kickoff meeting,” “progress meetings,” “progress reports,” “requirements analysis,” and “activity list,” according to João Varajão, Gabriela Fernandes, and Hélio Silva.

These methods are vital for project success as they enable teams to receive early feedback and make necessary adjustments in real time, leading to more accurate and efficient project completion.

Pro tip: Use Slido’s emoji cloud to pose simple questions and get feedback by using emojis. With this gamification, you can collect qualitative and quantitative feedback and mitigate any tense and uncomfortable feelings.

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4 Types of Kickoff Meetings

Internal Kickoff Meeting

Best for: Project Team

The internal kickoff is a pivotal meeting that brings together a project team and sets the tone for the larger or upcoming project. It’s commonly called the project kickoff and allows team members to get to know each other.

Goals of an internal kickoff meeting:

• Establish clear communication channels, meeting frequency, and workflows.
• Identify potential bottlenecks and develop a timeline to mitigate them.
• Ensure all team members have the same understanding of project information.
• Align priorities and expectations for the project.

Ideally, an internal kickoff should cover the roles of team members, project background, project framework, and purpose.

Seasonal Kickoff Meeting

Best for: The Ahead Season

A seasonal kickoff helps energize the company for the upcoming season or year and also celebrates the previous year/season’s achievements.

Large companies often conduct a seasonal kickoff meeting at the start of the financial year, a new season, or a new year.

This internal event can be department-specific or for the entire company. It typically lasts for a day, though it can be completed in a few hours.

Goals of seasonal kickoff meeting:

• Strengthen company culture and team confidence.
• Set priorities and goals for the new season.
• Resolve some past issues.
• Motivate everyone for the work ahead.

New Team Kickoff Meeting

Best for: Building Trust in New Team Members

A new team kickoff, also known as the “getting-to-know-you” meeting, ensures proper introductions and alignment among new and current team members.

Typically held off-site, this meeting offers an opportunity for networking, inspiring speeches, collaborative brainstorming, and productive breakout sessions.

By the end of the day, team members leave with a clear understanding of how to work together effectively and achieve their goals.

Goals of new team kickoff meeting:

• Infuse a positive attitude.
• Demonstrate everyone’s roles.
• Decide on meeting frequency, communication channels, and more.
• Build trust and get to know everyone.

External Kickoff Meeting

Best for: Uniting With Clients

Imagine meeting a new client for the first time. You don’t know their work style, their preferences, or their expectations. That’s where an external kickoff comes in.

This meeting brings together the company and the client to align their goals, define the project’s scope, and establish a clear line of communication.

During the external kickoff, set expectations for work reviews and determine the best way to collaborate. A formal deck will be a nice addition, too. Explore kickoff meeting deck templates.

Goals of external kickoff meeting:

• Define the project scope.
• Create a project roadmap.
• Identify and engage with project stakeholders.
• Establish protocols for regular status reports.

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How to Run a Successful Kickoff Meeting

If you’ve never planned a kickoff, the following step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to do it.

1. Prep

Decide on the meeting attendants and the duration of a kickoff. The nitty-gritty details depend on the formality and purpose of a kickoff meeting. Here are some basic factors to consider during the preparation:

• Finalize the invite list.
• Schedule the duration and time, and leave some time for questions.
• Craft an agenda.

You can use this pre-project kickoff checklist.

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Pro tip: Assign a note-taker so that any absent attendees can receive a recap. Also, if the kickoff is being held virtually, record it.

2. Intros

Introducing a new team member or meeting with a client for the first time? Don’t underestimate the value of a warm introduction. Starting off on a positive note can set the tone for a productive and successful meeting.

Example:

“HubSpoters, let’s welcome our newest team member, Sarah! Sarah is a Marketing expert who can’t wait to share her wisdom with us. We’re happy to have you here!

“Sarah, would you like to tell us a bit more about yourself?”

Pro tip: Consider funny icebreaker questions to lighten up the mood. For instance, “Tell us about your worst hair day.” But make sure the responder is comfortable with such questions.

3. Project Purpose

Ensure that everyone on the team is on the same page. They all must know why the project matters and what result they can expect.

Unfortunately, a shocking 74% of employees feel disconnected from their company’s objectives. Actually, they don’t even understand how their work fits into the bigger picture, which is pretty sad. Don’t let your team fall into that statistic.

Instead, take the time to explain your goals to each team member. And most importantly, show them why their role matters in achieving success.

Pro tip: Make sure to have a 1:1 talk with everyone (if possible).

4. Project Plan

Include this super important component in the meeting agenda to allow attendees to dive into the details before the event.

During the kickoff, focus on the primary information that really matters — core deliverables, key milestones, and the project timeline.

Pro tip: Encourage questions during this phase.

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5. Project Scope

Once you’ve outlined the core project plan, clarify what’s in scope and what’s not.

This gets everyone on the same page and prevents any confusion around deliverables and unexpected surprises down the road. Then, clearly define the project’s boundaries.

Pro tip: Include landing pages, resources, objectives, and creative demands in your project scope.

6. Project Roles

Decide on your project roles — who will be the executive sponsor and the main point of contact? Will there be an approver for the project?

This will provide clarity and direction for the team. Remember, a little planning upfront can save a lot of headaches later on.

Pro tip: Share a RACI chart as an action item. It’s a useful project management framework for clarifying roles and responsibilities for specific tasks and deliverables.

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7. Project Updates and Data

We’re all prone to waste a lot of time scouring documents and collecting information. The result? Less time to focus on high-impact work.

Therefore, establish a central source of truth for the project-related information. When team members know where to look to gain the information they need, you can expect more productivity.

Pro tip: Ensure real-time updates, deliverables, milestones, and documents are accessible in an easy-to-locate place. Use Notion, for example, as your central knowledge hub.

8. Questions

After the meeting is wrapped up, don’t leave your team in the dark. Let them ask questions regarding the project. This extra step can lead to greater alignment and insights.

Pro tip: Encourage active participation by dedicating ample time for questions.

9. Kickoff Meeting Agenda

To make this all easier for you to understand, we have crafted a sample kickoff meeting agenda.

Introduction

Allow the meeting attendees to introduce themselves. Lighten things up by asking some fun and inventive questions that are bound to spark a smile or two.

Background Information

• Explain why this project is essential to your team’s goals and the company’s success.
• Share suitable information about previous projects and clients to help the team understand the scope of the project and what’s at stake.

Project Objectives

• Discuss the project scope and objectives in detail.
• Define the metrics to measure the success of the project.

Prominent Tasks & Timeline

• Keep your project on track by outlining a clear timeline with key milestones.
• Define the roles of each team member to ensure everyone knows what’s expected of them.
• Discuss the timeline and milestones in detail, and clarify the responsibilities of each team member.

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Logistics

• Establish clear communication channels and protocols to ensure effective collaboration.
• Share contact information for all team members to facilitate communication and collaboration.
• Agree on reporting tactics and frequency to keep everyone informed and on track.

Possible Assets & Challenges

• Discuss potential opportunities that may arise during the project and brainstorm ways to leverage them.
• Evaluate existing resources and determine if additional resources are needed.

You can also use the Smartsheet template to record attendance and minutes of your project kickoff meeting.

It covers agenda items, action items, follow-up plans, meeting rules, project objectives, roles and responsibilities, and potential issues.

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6 Kickoff Meeting Best Practices

Mastering meetings takes years of practice. Luckily, the last section of our guide will share nuggets of wisdom to further boost your kickoff skills.

1. Exude positive energy.

Ditch the formal attire and leave your cold exterior at the door. Instead, bring your sunny disposition and warmth to the table.

Adrian Neumeyer, Creator at Tactical Project Manager, shares his top five personal tips for achieving a phenomenal kickoff:

According to Neumeyer, the key to a great kickoff is positive energy. By embracing challenges and setbacks with a “can-do” attitude, you can motivate your team and lay the foundation for a successful project.

2. Define goals.

Success means different things for every company and team, so ask yourself what the definition of success is and share it with everyone. Set a measurable goal so that team members can automatically take action and make efforts to achieve it.

Ask team members how the project can be successful, discuss the targets for each metric, and determine how to measure everything.

“A big part of any successful kickoff meeting is defining goals for the entire project. You should take this time to explain why this particular project is important and how it fits into the overall goal or mission of your company.

By doing so, everyone on the team will understand why their work matters — and be more motivated to complete their tasks accordingly,” says Thad Heiges, U.S. government contracts project manager at ANDECO Institute and PMs coach.

3. Keep tabs on how everyone feels.

Sometimes, certain members may feel that the project is veering off course or may be disappointed by the lack of collaboration. Of course, no project manager wants to have disengaged or apathetic team members.

Pro tip: We recommend sharing thoughts and feelings after the meeting to make sure everyone is aligned. If you notice a team member behaves somewhat off, take them on 1:1 as soon as possible to hear and resolve the cause.

Also, consider Stephanie Middaugh’s creative way of getting feedback from teams after events or training.

Stephanie, CEO at Phoenix GTM Consulting, turned a Kahoot! quiz into a survey and found most of the sales team wanted straightforward information.

Middaugh says it’s important to adapt to the current tough times and use various methods to gather feedback.

4. Share assignments in advance.

Share all essential documents with your team before the kickoff.

Instead of sending a dull email with a pile of attachments, organize materials in one knowledge hub. Encourage team members to explore it beforehand, ask questions, and share their thoughts.

5. Support engagement.

Yes, you might be the project manager. But that doesn’t mean that only you should talk during the meetings.

Encourage your team and stakeholders to share their thoughts and ideas. They might surprise you with their brilliant contributions.

Pro tip: Consider giving different team members a chance to run different sections of a kickoff. This not only takes some pressure off you but also makes the meeting more interactive and enjoyable for everyone involved.

6. Send a follow-up email.

Strike while the iron is hot and shoot off a follow-up email within 24 hours of a meeting. Don’t wait until your conversation partner has forgotten all about your interaction.

Use a follow-up template:

Hi everyone,

What a great kickoff meeting we had! I’m lucky to be leading such a fantastic and motivated team. Let’s keep the ball rolling by recapping our discussion and highlighting our next steps.

• Recap. During the meeting, we covered [the project timeline, team roles and responsibilities, and potential roadblocks]. We also brainstormed some creative ideas for our project deliverables and discussed ways to stay on track and communicate effectively. These are: …
• Next steps. Over the next few days, I’ll be sending out detailed action items and assignments based on our discussion. We’ll be scheduling our next team meeting to review our progress and stay connected on [date].

A big thank you to everyone for contributing to our successful kickoff meeting. Our achievements are a team effort.

Best,

Your Name

Finalize Your Kickoff Like a Boss

Boom! You’re now armed with the tools, templates, and frameworks to take charge of your kickoff like a boss. Let your energy and enthusiasm shine through and make everyone feel valued and inspired.

Nowadays, it seems like new social media platforms are cropping up while older ones crumble.

Think about how the fall of Vine gave way for Instagram videos to gain popularity and how many Vine content creators had to pivot to platforms like Instagram and, later, TikTok.

Social media influencers and content creators must always be ready to jump to new platforms or incorporate them into their marketing strategy.

This article will discuss seamlessly switching platforms as content creators or influencers while retaining momentum and gaining new followers.

7 Tips for Switching Platforms as a Creator

Go where your audience is.

Make your new platform recognizable.

Be consistent.

Inform your audience.

Post valuable content.

Collaborate with other creators.

Repurpose content.

7 Tips for Switching Platforms as a Creator

Below are tips from content creators with experience pivoting to new social media platforms.

Go where your audience is.

Podcaster Jacqueline Snyder of The Product Boss encourages creators to switch to platforms they know their audience frequents.

“Choose a platform where you know your audience is already hanging out,” Snyder said. “For example, if you know your audience isn’t into video, TikTok can be crossed off the list.”

Suppose you need to figure out what other platforms your audience frequents. Use tools like surveys, analytics, and polls to find out. You can also use this method to determine the content your followers want to see on the new platform.

Make your new platform recognizable.

Using a different profile or username on a new platform can be tempting. After all, it’s a unique environment for your content and personality.

However, you want your audience to recognize you on all platforms, so keep things like your profile photo, username, and handle consistent with other social media and your brand.

“Your username or handle should be the same across all channels,” John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneurs on Fire said, “so if you already have other social media profiles for your content, stay consistent!”

For example, if you’re a video game-based content creator who streams on Twitch and wants to switch to streaming on YouTube, use the same Twitch username and profile photo.

If you cannot use the same username or handle on the new platform, create a similar username by adding an extra digit or symbol.

Be consistent.

“Set up a posting schedule to let your audience know you’re all in,” John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneurs on Fire said. “The cadence will depend on the platform itself, but whatever you go with, stay consistent so your audience can start to rely on your content and engagement being there regularly.”

Research the best days and times to post on your new platform and try to experiment to see when your audience is most active. You may also discover specific types of content perform better at certain times.

For example, your long-form YouTube videos may perform better when posted at 9 a.m., but your YouTube Shorts may get more engagement in the afternoon.

Inform your audience.

“We just did this with Threads, so I would say make sure that you let your followers on your biggest social media platforms know you’re on another platform — and ask them to follow you,” Snyder said. “Share content from the new social platform onto your old existing platform to excite them about following you.”

Snyder also says to include a call-to-action in your content, guiding your audience to your new platform.

“Only send your audience to one place — the place you want to build. For example: ‘Follow me on Instagram or Threads for tips on [blank].’”

Post valuable content.

Of course, the most significant incentive for your audience to follow you on a new platform is high-quality content that provides value to your followers.

“Always ask yourself: ‘Is the content I’m sharing providing real solutions to my core audience?’” Dumas explained. “Your audience wants real solutions to their problems, not fluff that requires their bandwidth while providing no value.”

If you haven’t already, get to know your audience and think about the content they want to see from you and the type that offers the most value.

Additionally, try experimenting with new content styles and formats, like live-streaming, short-form videos, stories, or audio rooms to showcase your creativity. Just make sure your content is consistent with your brand.

Doing so will allow you to uniquely connect with your followers while attracting new followers who prefer to see that type of content on the platform.

Collaborate with other creators.

A great way to grow your audience after switching platforms is to collaborate with more established creators in the space. These creators can introduce you to their audience and help you carve your niche on the new platform.

If you‘re pivoting to TikTok and want to expand your audience, collaborate with a TikTok creator in your niche. Do a live stream, stitch each other’s videos, participate in a challenge, or do a giveaway.

Repurpose content.

As Dumas mentioned, you must provide valuable content to your followers to grow your audience. However, that doesn’t mean you must create brand-new content for every new platform.

Repurpose your existing content to fit different contexts to save time and money.

You can also repost content from the previous platform to the new platform to give it a second life and an opportunity to reach new people.

For example, you may have a few Instagram Reels you can repurpose as YouTube Shorts. You can also repurpose content from a podcast into a blog post or a video into a carousel post on Instagram.

Amassing followers after switching to a new platform can be intimidating, but it’s definitely possible with the right strategy. If you want to switch platforms, you now have the expert tips to start building your audience.

User empathy is at the heart of everything we do at Hotjar, and that extends into our content strategy.

It is how we grew non-branded organic search traffic by 734% in just 3 years (2022 versus 2019). More importantly, it is also how we were able to turn this traffic into 1,398% growth in new paying customers during the same time period.

Our annual non-branded new visitor numbers are now in the multi-millions, and the heights we’ve hit in the last two years in particular are a testament to the user-centric approach we’ve applied.

So how did we do it?

We’ve been able to achieve the growth we have by painstakingly balancing the needs of existing and potential Hotjar users with the demands of search engines.

We’re relentless in our commitment to satisfying our readers, but we’re not naive to playing the search engine game. To succeed at a high level there is a great deal of nuance that goes into getting this right. For us, that breaks down across a number of areas but there are a handful of core fundamentals that stand out:

• Embracing product-led content
• Clustering content around the user journey
• Powering keyword research with customer insights
• Leveraging qualitative and quantitative data
• Nurturing your historical library

Before we go deeper though, I would be remiss not to cover the very fabric that holds all this together: without deep synergy between our Strategic and Editorial experts, the growth we’ve achieved just simply wouldn’t have happened.

The creation of a candid, respectful, and ongoing dialogue between these two areas is the rocket fuel that lit the touchpaper to the growth we’ve seen. Recognizing the equal importance between these two disciplines and fostering collaboration between the two areas will be vital to how successful you ultimately are.

With that in mind, let’s dive into those fundamentals:

Embracing Product-led Content

Product-led content can supercharge your ability to convert organic visitors into paying customers, and it’s been key to Hotjar’s organic content success to date.

Start with the common pain points for your target audience and their common jobs-to-be-done. Then, use these insights to power your keyword and topic selection. Finally, structure your content to solve those pain points, and explain why your product is key to doing that.

To get this right, you have to have a deep understanding of your product. You should also be obsessed with your customers. Without these two things, you’re unlikely to succeed.

A product-led approach is central to our guides content, where we always provide several examples of how Hotjar can help with problems related to a broader topic our target audience is interested in, like behavior analytics or website tracking.

Clustering Content Around the User Journey

The age-old principle of content clustering is a method that’s driven SEO success for many years. But you can take the traditional approach to another level by inspiring readers towards a multi-touch, connected journey across the clusters you create.

This point is particularly relevant at a time where the risk of zero-click search is greater than ever. You have to do everything you can to keep people on your website and compel them to dig further into your content, particularly if they’re only at the demand gen phase when they enter your website.

At Hotjar, our content clusters are our guides, and we have a lot of these. They remain one of our core drivers of growth from SEO. As a result of this, we have a strong understanding of what works vs what doesn’t. With this in mind, there are two important things you can do to improve content cluster performance beyond the basics linked to ranking the pages:

• Build an understanding of the different points of intent a potential customer might have across one of your target topical areas
• Work with UX/UI to help funnel readers through your clusters from their initial entry point down to the point of conversion

This boils down to a simple summary. Develop a clear understanding of what the education, consideration, and purchase phases look like for your readers. Then, use UX/UI to make it as simple as possible for readers to navigate through those phases.

Powering Keyword Research with Customer Insights

It’s daunting to come up against the biggest competitors in your industry for SEO, but all of these websites started out somewhere. That was the case for Hotjar, too.

Our monthly content output might now be up to 10x higher than it was 3 years ago, but back then we were still able to dominate our most important organic verticals, despite producing just a handful of content pieces each month. We did that with a modest budget, too.

Success for us then was reliant on the same things it is today: identifying a niche set of customer-driven verticals at the intersection between projected business value, satisfying search engines, and solving common audience problems.

Our approach here has enabled us to establish authority with Google, but it’s also ensured that we’ve built deeper trust with our audience. This ultimately translates to more conversions. More conversions means more potential to spend, and with that additional investment you can strengthen your position.

Getting the balance right here still requires constant collaboration between our content, SEO, product, and product marketing teams. Without this, we wouldn’t be able to create content deeply relatable to our ICP.

It sounds obvious, but too few companies still fail to start with that. Customer needs must always come first. Without a deep understanding of what your audience needs, you’ll never build a content library that satisfies them or Google.

Be Obsessed with Data — and Balance Qualitative and Quantitative Data Usage

True SEO success is reliant on data analysis and manipulation. For a lot of companies, that ends up being primarily quantitative. This is clearly an important part of the analytics picture, but quantitative data only tells you what’s happening. It doesn’t tell you why. That’s why you need to take care of the qualitative part too.

I won’t deny that I spend more time with quantitative data. But I am forever surprised how qualitative analysis can help to reduce bias and assumptions that are based on numbers alone. It’s something we discuss and act on a lot at Hotjar.

We believe in the importance of user feedback and our content and SEO staff regularly use our own product. Recordings, heatmaps, surveys, and on-site feedback help inform our team with everything from topic to format selection. We also actually speak to customers. This is so often neglected but it’s so important.

On the numeric data, we use 40/20/40 attribution to try and build a fairer reflection of the increasingly multi-channel/multi-touch conversion journey. Of course no attribution is perfect, but this at least helps to spread credit more realistically.

Our SEO team spends hours every day with this data. We’ve built filtering around demand gen vs demand cap, target themes, user personas, and much more. This all helps us to refine how we select content topics that can power our growth.

Nurture Your Historical Library

The need to drive growth is constant, and it can be hard to hit the pause button on the creation of new content. Often, though, your greatest organic opportunities are hidden in the content you’ve already created. So don’t be afraid to slow production occasionally to allow time to improve the content you already have.

At Hotjar, we now have a library of more than 1,000 content pieces. Nurturing that content effectively is becoming increasingly time-consuming, but it’s also where we find some of our biggest wins.

There are so many reasons to spend time auditing and updating your content. It boils down to ensuring that what is right for Google remains right for your readers. Here’s how we think about it:

• The needs of our readers are constantly changing. What was helpful to them several years ago may no longer be
• Just because Google still ranks a piece in position 1, doesn’t mean the content is still doing its job. In fact, if the piece includes outdated information, you actually risk damaging your brand perception
• Our product is constantly evolving. Old features may reach the end of the line and new features may enhance former capabilities. When you have hundreds of pieces talking (or not talking) about those features, it becomes a problem if you don’t update your content accordingly
• Search algorithms are transient, particularly when it comes to how the SERP displays. For example, failure to appreciate a new snippet type could mean you still hold position 1, but you’re losing traffic due to someone else holding the snippet

Ultimately, we spend considerable time and effort crafting each piece we work on. We care deeply about what we deliver to our users, and how the search engines perceive that. So nurturing the content we already have is just as important to us as building new content streams.

Place Customer Needs at The Heart of Your Approach

Whilst the fundamentals laid out in this piece are not all-encompassing, they are the foundations that continue to support Hotjar’s success with organic search. Woven throughout all of them is a commitment to placing customer needs at the heart of our approach. Not only does this help us to build trust and transparency with our audience, it also means we do a better job of driving business growth.

As a marketer, you‘ve likely noticed data’s importance in decision-making and strategizing. You’re also probably tired of being bogged down with manually collecting and reporting data.

Data science is integral to the marketing world, but time is money, and the time you spend working with large datasets could go toward performing other tasks, such as content marketing.

Fortunately, artificial intelligence can blend with data science in many ways to make your job as a marketer easier without neglecting essential practices like data reporting.

We will explore the connection between data science and AI and tools you can use as a marketer regardless of your skill level in data analysis.

Difference Between Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

Data science is an umbrella term that describes analyzing, managing, and interpreting large amounts of data to inform decision-making.

Artificial intelligence is a field in which a computer or a robot completes tasks that typically require human intelligence and discernment.

Though data science and artificial intelligence are different fields, they often combine to streamline tasks, improve efficiency, solve problems, or increase productivity.

For instance, AI often depends on data scientists to study, clean, and feed data so the machine can learn and improve. However, data science is less dependent on AI since the science can analyze and explain datasets on its own.

However, AI can extract information from data in a way that isn’t possible with typical data science techniques. This is especially the case with rich data types like video or large volumes of data.

Examples of AI in Data Science

Below are some examples of AI in the world of data science.

AI in Survey Drafting

It’s common to use surveys to gather data and information about your audience and consumers, and AI is often leveraged to automate many aspects of the survey process.

AI surveys eliminate the need for human intervention in tasks such as data entry and survey report analysis.

Leveraging AI with survey drafting and execution allows organizations to automatically collect responses from various channels like online forms and chatbots.

From there, AI can categorize the information based on predetermined criteria, analyze patterns and trends, and generate a report based on its findings quicker than if done manually.

AI in Data Collection

One way AI typically works in data collection is web scraping, which involves using automated bots or scripts to extract data from websites. AI allows these bots to quickly and efficiently pinpoint patterns and insights in the data.

In turn, organizations can make data-driven decisions about their products, services, or marketing strategies.

AI data collection also helps deliver a more personalized user experience on a website. AI can collect user behavior and preferences data to recommend products or content tailored to each visitor.

Personalized experiences improve the likelihood of conversion and engagement. This process is prevalent and helpful to e-commerce websites.

Many e-commerce sites use AI to collect and analyze data on customer behavior and use that information to provide personalized product recommendations or targeted campaigns.

Data Tools that Use AI

Here are some helpful AI tools for collecting and analyzing data you can leverage in future projects.

1. Tableau

This analytics and data visualization tool allows users to interact with their data and is an excellent platform if you have little to no coding or data analyzing experience.

With Tableau, you can create and share reports across desktop and mobile platforms.

Tableau also supports complex computations, dashboarding, and data blending, which combines data from various sources into one helpful dataset.

2. GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is a programming assistant that provides autocomplete suggestions to coders. Developers can use GitHub Copilot while writing code or using basic natural language prompts that tell Copilot what they want it to do.

The data tool can complete many coding tasks and is proficient in many coding languages, such as Python, Go, and JavaScript. Even better, you don’t have to know how to code to use it.

3. ChatSpot

ChatSpot is HubSpot’s conversational CRM bot that sales, marketing, and service professionals can connect to HubSpot to boost productivity and streamline different processes — data reporting.

Professionals can use chat-based commands to direct ChatSpot to pull reports, create new segments, and manage leads.

4. Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft’s business intelligence platform lets users sort through and visualize data for insights. Users can import data from almost any source and build dashboards and reports immediately.

Furthermore, Microsoft Power BI allows users to build their own machine-learning models and use other AI-powered features to analyze data.

5. Akkio

Akkio’s business analytics and forecasting tools help users analyze their data and predict potential outcomes. The tool is meant for beginners and is especially useful for sales, marketing, and predictive analysis.

With Akkio, you can upload your dataset and select the variable you want to predict, which helps Akkio build a neural network around that variable.

How to Pick the Right Tools

Finding the right AI tool to help you collect, manage, and analyze data can be challenging, but it isn’t impossible. You must assess your skills and preferences to find the best tool for your next data science endeavor.

Ask yourself what part of the data process you are trying to streamline or improve. How proficient are you in reporting or coding? What is your skill level?

For example, if you‘re familiar with programming languages like Python, you’ll want to find tools that are compatible with this language. If you’re currently using tools like Microsoft or HubSpot, find compatible or built-in tools.

You don’t have to be a scientist or a masterful coder to use AI in your marketing or sales data projects. All you need is the right tools that fit your knowledge and needs.

We’re inundated with email daily — making it hard to keep track of tasks and manage your workflow. However, organizing your emails doesn’t have to be a pain. In fact, it’s possible to get your Gmail inbox to zero in as little as 15 minutes.

While we can’t stop new emails from coming in, we can help you organize it better.

I stumbled upon Andreas Klinger’s inbox zero method for Gmail years ago and his method still works for me to this day. In this post, I’ll show you how to organize your Gmail inbox according to Klinger’s method so it’s clean, systematized, and easy to navigate — making you a more efficient, productive, and overall happier human being. I’ll also show you how I adapted his labeling system for content marketers.

Skip to:

• Zero Inbox Methodology Overview
• Zero Inbox Step-By-Step Guide

How to Get to Inbox Zero in Gmail

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s go over the basic methodology:

• You set up multiple inboxes in Gmail and give each of them a name, like “Needs Action/Reply” and “Awaiting Response.”
• Your general inbox will then appear on the left, and your labeled inboxes (which Gmail calls “panes”) will appear on the right, like so:

• You know that yellow star icon you can press to mark an email as important? Turns out you can turn on other colored stars and icons in Gmail, too, like bangs (i.e. exclamation points)and question marks. Gmail calls these icons “special stars.” In this methodology, each pane is represented by a different special star.
• Every time you get a new email in your inbox, you’ll want to:
  • Reply to the ones you can right away. For those you want to keep track of as “Awaiting Reply” or “Delegated,” mark with the appropriate special star.
  • Label the emails you need to deal with later by marking them with the appropriate special star.
  • For the ones that you don’t need to deal with or aren’t current, either archive them without special stars or delete them entirely.
• In the end, archive everything. This way, your inbox stays at zero and everything else is either in its designated pane, archived, or deleted.

The result? A clean inbox that’s easy to navigate and lets you triage new emails with little effort.

Here’s how to set this up in Gmail.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Getting to Inbox Zero in Gmail

Step 1: Prepare for your new inbox layout.

To make this whole process work, you’ll need to get rid of the Social and Promotions tabs. (Pro Tip: If you’re worried about getting an onslaught of social notifications and promotional emails in your inbox each day, then take this opportunity to set up filters so your social notifications are automatically archived or deleted, and mass unsubscribe to the promotional emails you don’t read using a tool like Unroll.Me.)

In “Settings,” go to the “Inbox” tab and do the following:

1. Change the Inbox Type to “Default.”
2. Deselect all the tabs (except “Primary”).
3. Choose “No Markers.”
4. Choose either “Use my past actions…” or “Don’t use my actions…” — it won’t directly affect your new system.
5. Choose “Don’t Override Filters.”

Click “Save Changes,” and Gmail will automatically reload.

Step 2: Make the display density of your inbox compact.

Click the gear icon and choose “Compact” from the dropdown menu.

Step 3: Enable multiple inboxes.

Click the gear icon and choose “Settings” from the dropdown menu. Go to the “Labs” tab, and enable multiple inboxes. (These are the different”panes.”)

Scroll to the bottom and click”SaveChanges.”

Step 4: Turn on the right special stars.

In “Settings,” go to the “General” tab and scroll down until you see the section labeled “Stars.” Add the stars you want to use to represent each of your panes.

As a content marketer, I chose:

• Yellow bang: for “Needs Action/Reply”
• Red bang: for “Needs Action/Reply” items that are urgent
• Purple question mark: for “Awaiting Reply” (so I can follow up if needed)
• Greenstar: for “To Write”
• Bluestar: for “To Edit”
• Orange guillemet (double arrow): for “Delegate,” meaning emails I delegated to someone else (so I can follow up if needed)

Not a content marketer? Klinger uses the pane names “Needs Action/Reply,” “Awaiting Reply,” “Delegated,” and “Scheduled” (for arranged meetings, flights, event tickets, scheduled calls, and anything else he might need to reference quickly).

Scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes.”

Step 5: Set up filters to pull emails with your special stars into the right panes.

In “Settings,” go to the “Multiple Inboxes” tab. Each panel represents one of your multiple inboxes (up to 5), and you can name and arrange them any way you choose.

Here’s what I did:

Notice how I used “OR” so different stars could go into the same pane: yellow bang for important action items and red bang for urgent action items.

Here’s a list of all the possible search queries:

• has:yellow-star
• has:red-star
• has:orange-star
• has:green-star
• has:blue-star
• has:purple-star
• has:yellow-bang
• has:red-bang
• has:purple-question
• has:orange-guillemet
• has:green-check
• has:blue-info

Pro Tip: If you use the Gmail mobile app frequently, Klinger suggests using the default yellow star for important action items because it’s the only special star supported by the mobile app.

While you’re still in the “Multiple Inboxes” tab, make the maximum page size whatever you’d like (I do 20 conversations per page), and position panels on the right side of the inbox.

Click “Save Changes,” and you’ll be taken back to your inbox.

Now for the fun part.

The Road to Inbox Zero

Everything you’ve done to this point is to set yourself up for getting to an empty inbox. Right now, you’re probably looking at hundreds, maybe thousands of emails in your inbox.

Don’t be overwhelmed.

You will get to zero, but you need to take care of it right now. It’s actually not that hard. And trust me, it feels good. Here are Klinger’s helpful instructions:

Go through the first two or three pages of your inbox.

Do one of three things with each email:

1. Mark it with a special star, and then archive it. This will send it to the appropriate pane while removing it from your general inbox.
2. Archive it without using a special star. This will keep the email saved, but it’ll clear it from the home page.
3. Delete it.

One of the best parts about special stars (as opposed to labels) is that you don’t need to click into an email or follow multiple steps to mark it with a special star.

Instead, simply click the blank star to the right of the sender name — and keep clicking to scroll through all your special stars until you land on the one you want.

It’ll take a few seconds, but that email will then show up in the appropriate pane. Remember to archive the email once you’ve marked it with a special star so it clears from your general inbox.

Once you’ve gone through the first few pages of your inbox and you feel like you don’t have any more important emails, it’s time for what Klinger calls “the daring move.”

Archive everything else.

Select all of your emails by clicking the check box on the top left. Confirm that you really did mean all those thousands of emails, not just the current page.

Then, click “Archive.”

POOF.

Fin

Tadaa! You’re finished. I’ve been able to maintain an empty inbox pretty easily ever since. Emails aren’t slipping through the cracks like they sometimes used to. I’m also able to keep better track of all the emails I’ve sent that need a reply or that I have to follow up on in some way. Use this method to declutter your inbox and better organize your workflow.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Creating a marketing strategy is essential to effectively nurture your customers, improve your business’s bottom line, and increase the ROI of your efforts.

A marketing strategy is especially critical if you want to use the highest ROI trends for 2023: short video, influencer marketing, and branded social media. To get powerful results, you must carefully weave both emerging trends and proven strategies into your plan.

Let’s dive into the critical components of a complete marketing strategy in 2023, followed by some examples for inspiration.

A completed marketing strategy typically includes brand objectives, target audience personas, marketing channels, key performance indicators, and more.

A marketing strategy will:

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

The last one is especially important. Keeping up with marketing trends is important for your strategy, but could be a full-time job.

Why? Because almost 80% of marketers say this industry changed more in the last three years than it has in the past five decades. In short, what worked for your marketing strategy in the past might not fly today.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy outlines the long-term goals and overall approach, while a marketing plan covers the specific actions and tactics to achieve those goals.

Phrased another way, marketing strategy guides the overall marketing efforts of a business. It includes goal-setting, market and competitor research, as well as messaging and positioning for a brand.

For example, say you’re creating a marketing strategy for a new fashion brand. Your strategy might target young urban professionals and position the brand as trendy and affordable.

But a marketing plan is a detailed tactical roadmap. It outlines the specific actions and tactics that should achieve the marketing strategy’s goals.

For example, the marketing plan for the fashion brand mentioned above might include:

• Targeted social media campaigns
• Influencer partnerships
• Online advertising timeline

Both a marketing strategy and a marketing plan are essential for a business’s success.

To succeed in the fast-paced marketing world — and maintain a sense of relevance with your audience — it’s vital to stay ahead of the curve.

To help ease some of that uncertainty, we’re going to show you step-by-step how to create a comprehensive marketing strategy. But first, let’s go over the individual components that make up a strong marketing strategy.

1. Marketing Mix

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The marketing mix, also known as the 4 Ps of marketing, is the preliminary document you must create to understand what you will be marketing, where you’ll be marketing it, and how you’ll be marketing it. The following P’s make up this framework:

• Product: What are you selling?
• Price: What is the price?
• Place: Where will you be selling the product?
• Promotion: Where will you be promoting the product?

You can then extrapolate this information into a full-fledged marketing plan for each promotional channel. It’s important to lay out the information in broad strokes so that you understand the overall direction of your marketing strategy.

2. Marketing Objectives

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You can set your marketing objectives in conjunction with your 4 Ps, or right after. Either way, you should outline your marketing goals before building upon your strategy. Why? Because your goals will inform other components of the plan, including the budget and content creation process.

With every objective, you should aim to be as specific as possible. Try to create SMART marketing goals divided by channel or promotional tactic, and don’t forget that you can always come back and revise your goals as your priorities change.

3. Marketing Budget

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A marketing budget is an essential element of your strategy. Without allocating funds to hiring the right talent, using the right software, advertising on the right channels, and creating the right content, your marketing strategy won’t have a powerful impact. To get a high return on investment, you must first invest.

Remember that you can always start small — hyper-focusing your budget on one or two efforts — and build upon them once you generate an ROI.

4. Competitive Analysis

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Knowing your competition is key when creating a marketing strategy. Otherwise, you risk “yelling into the void” without measurable results. Worse, you won’t know whether you’re differentiating yourself enough from the competition and effectively drawing the attention of your intended audience.

You might already have an idea of who your competitors are, but it’s still essential to sit down and find them. You might end up uncovering a surprise competitor who’s vying for your target buyer’s attention and engagement.

5. Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) refers to the process of delivering “more relevant, personalized messages to target audiences.” In other words, rather than publishing posts and advertisements on a whim, you’ll go through a methodical process for creating content that resonates with your target buyer.

During the segmentation, targeting, and positioning process, you’ll take three steps:

• Identify your target audience. This process not only entails interviewing your current customers, but carrying out market research and creating buyer personas.
• Target a segment of your target audience. It’s best to speak to a narrow group of highly qualified buyers than to send your message out to everyone.
• Position your brand alongside other brands. What do you do better than your competitors? It’s essential to map this information when creating a marketing strategy.

6. Content Creation

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Once you have your budget, competitive outlook, and STP information, it’s time to create your marketing content. But it’s essential to be strategic. For one, you don’t want to publish random content that doesn’t solve for the customer, and for two, you must aim to capitalize on emerging trends so that your brand enjoys high visibility in the marketplace.

The competition is fierce across all formats. According to HubSpot Research, “half of marketers are using videos, with 47% leveraging images, followed by 33% posting blogs articles, infographics (30%) and podcasts or other audio content (28%).” Of these, video has the highest ROI.

Click here to see a larger version of this image.

It’s even more essential to invest in trends that have a high ROI, such as short-form video, influencer marketing, and social media DMs.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest in blogging, one of the most proven content marketing techniques. It’s simply important to know where to allot the most resources, especially if you have a limited budget.

7. Metrics & Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

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Last, but certainly not least, your marketing strategy must include metrics and key performance indicators to understand how well your strategies are working. The KPIs you choose will vary depending on your business type and preferred customer acquisition channels. Examples of KPIs include:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• Organic Traffic
• Conversion Rate
• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Now, let’s dive into why it’s important to follow the steps of a marketing strategy.

Why is a marketing strategy important?

Without a defined strategy, you’ll essentially be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. And that process will cost you money, time, and resources.

But a robust marketing strategy will reach your target audience. It has the power to turn people who’ve never heard of your brand into loyal repeat customers.

Here are just a few of the top reasons a marketing strategy is essential:

Offers Direction

A marketing strategy outlines clear goals and defines the path to achieve them. It pulls together all marketing efforts within an organization for optimal effects.

Targets the Right Audience

A well-defined marketing strategy helps you find and understand your target audience. This helps your business tailor your messaging and positioning to reach the right people at the right time.

Builds Brand Identity

A marketing strategy helps you create a consistent and cohesive brand identity. This makes it easier to align all marketing initiatives for increased brand recognition and loyalty.

Maximizes ROI

With analysis of market trends, competition, and customer behavior, marketing strategies help businesses find the most effective marketing channels and tactics to invest in. This helps businesses get the maximum return on investment.

Evaluates Performance

A marketing strategy defines key metrics and performance indicators. This makes it easier for your business to measure and track the success of marketing initiatives. It also gives you what you need to make data-driven decisions and optimize future campaigns for better results.

1. Conduct market research.

Before you can begin creating your marketing strategy, you need to gather useful data for making informed decisions. Market research is like playing detective, but instead of solving crimes, you’re uncovering juicy details about your customers.

Market research will help your businesses make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategy. It also makes it easier to understand your target market, find gaps, and make the most of your resources.

This process is essential for understanding your customers and adapting to changing trends. If you’re new to this process, this complete market research guide and template can help.

Once you have the data you need, you’ll be ready to set some marketing goals.

2. Define your goals.

What do you want to achieve through your marketing efforts?

Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or diversifying your customer base, well-defined goals will guide your marketing strategy.

Your marketing strategy goals should reflect your business goals. They should also offer clear direction for marketing efforts.

For example, say one of your business goals is to increase market share by 20% within a year. Your goal as a marketer could include expanding into new target markets, updating your brand, or driving customer acquisition.

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

Defining clear goals provides direction and clarity, guiding marketing efforts toward desired outcomes. It helps with resource allocation, decision-making, and measuring the success of marketing initiatives.

This SMART goal guide can help you with more effective goal-setting.

3. Identify your target audience and create buyer personas.

To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand who your ideal customers are. Take a look at your market research to understand your target audience and market landscape. Accurate customer data is especially important for this step.

But it’s not enough to know who your audience is. Once you’ve figured out who they are, you need to understand what they want. This isn’t just their needs and pain points, it’s how your product or service can solve their problems.

So, if you can’t define who your audience is in one sentence, now’s your chance to do it. Create a buyer persona that’s a snapshot of your ideal customer.

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

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

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

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

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

Buyer personas should be at the core of your strategy.

4. Conduct competitive analysis.

Now that you have an understanding of your customers, it’s time to see who you’re competing with to get their attention.

To begin your competitive analysis, start with your top competitors. Reviewing their websites, content, ads, and pricing can help you understand how to differentiate your brand. It’s also a useful way to find opportunities for growth.

But how do you know which competitors are most important? This competitive analysis kit with templates will walk you through the process. It will help you choose and evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies of your competitors.

This process will help you find market gaps, spot trends, and figure out which marketing tactics will be most effective. Competitive analysis can also offer valuable insights on pricing, positioning, and marketing channels.

5. Develop key messaging.

You’ve figured out who you’re talking to, what they’ve already heard, and what they want to hear. Now, it’s time to share your brand’s unique value proposition.

In this step, you’ll craft key messaging that shows the benefits of your product or service and resonates with your target audience. This process should show off the research and work you have done up to this point. It should also incorporate your creativity, inventiveness, and willingness to experiment.

Well-crafted key messaging:

• Sets businesses apart from the competition
• Resonates with the target audience
• Is flexible enough to be consistent across all marketing channels
• Builds brand credibility
• Creates an emotional connection with customers
• Influences buying decisions

The key messaging in your marketing strategy is critical to driving engagement, loyalty, and business growth. These value proposition templates can help if you’re not sure how to draft this important messaging.

6. Choose your marketing channels.

You know what you have to say, now decide on the best marketing channels for your message. Your top goal for this stage of your strategy is to align your channel choices with your target persona’s media consumption habits.

Start with media channels you’re already using. Then, consider a mix of traditional and digital channels such as social media, TV, email marketing, podcast ads, SEO, content marketing, and influencer partnerships.

To streamline this process, think of your assets in three categories — paid, owned, and earned media.

Paid media

Paid media is any channel you spend money on to attract your target audience. Most of this spending is advertising. This includes online and offline channels like:

• Television
• Direct mail
• Billboards
• Social media ads
• SEM (Search engine marketing)
• Podcast advertising

Owned Media

Owned media refers to (mostly) online channels your brand owns, including:

• Blogs
• Websites
• Organic social media

It also refers to the media your marketing team creates such as

• Videos
• Podcasts
• Ebooks
• Infographics

Earned media

Another way to say earned media is user-generated content. Earned media includes:

• Shares on social media
• Posts about your business on X or Threads
• Reels posted on Instagram mentioning your brand

To decide which marketing channels are best for your marketing strategy, look carefully at each channel. Think about which channels are best for reaching your audience, staying within budget, and meeting your goals.

For example, a business targeting a younger demographic might consider using TikTok or Reddit to reach its audience.

Don’t forget to take a look at emerging platforms and trends as you complete this review. You may also want to look at the content you’ve already created. Gather your materials in each media type in one location. Then, look at your content as a whole to get a clear vision of how you can integrate them into your strategy.

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

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

7. Create, track, and analyze KPIs.

Once you have a clear outline of your marketing strategy, you’ll need to think about how you’ll measure whether it’s working.

At this stage, you’ll shift from marketing detective to numbers nerd. With a little planning and prep, your analytics can unveil the mysteries of marketing performance and unlock super insights.

Review your strategy and choose measurable KPIs to track the effectiveness of your strategy. Create a system that works for your team to collect and measure your data.

Then, plan to check and analyze the performance of your strategy over time. This can help you refine your approach based on results and feedback.

Analyzing KPIs helps businesses stay agile, refine their strategies, and adapt to evolving customer needs.

8. Present your marketing strategy.

A finished marketing strategy will pull together the sections and components above. It may also include:

Executive Summary

A concise overview that outlines the marketing goals, target audience, and key marketing tactics.

Brand Identity

You may want to create a brand identity as part of your strategy. Brand positioning, voice, and visual identity may also be helpful additions to your marketing strategy.

Marketing Plan and Tactics

Your marketing plan is the specific actions you’ll take to achieve the goals in your marketing strategy. Your plan may cover campaigns, channel-specific tactics, and more.

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

Download for Free

Budget Allocation

Defining a budget for your marketing strategy helps you show that your planned resource allocation aligns with business goals.

Timeline and Milestones

Marketing strategies can be complex and difficult for stakeholders to understand. Creating a timeline that outlines the different tactics, milestones, and deadlines can help.

Your marketing strategy is a living document. It will need constant reviews, revisions, and optimizations to meet your long-term goals. Prepare to revise your marketing strategy at least once a year to address market trends, customer feedback, and changing business objectives.

Recommended Resources

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

1. HubSpot Marketing Hub

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

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

With custom reporting and built-in analytics, you can analyze your data and plan out your next move. Plus, HubSpot Marketing Hub integrates with over 700 tools.

Pricing: Free; Starter, $20/month; Professional, $890/month; Enterprise, $3,600/month.

2. Trello

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

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

Pricing: Free; Standard Class, $5/month; Premium Class, $10/month for 100 users; Enterprise, $17.50/month for 250 users.

3. TrueNorth

TrueNorth is a marketing management platform built to help you hit your marketing goals. Built specifically for marketing teams, TrueNorth turns your marketing strategy into a visual projection of your growth, which is used to create monthly milestones that help you stay on track.

One of the key benefits of TrueNorth is that it centralizes all your ideas, campaigns, and results in one place, with everything tied back to your goal.

Pricing: $99/month (free for 14 days).

4. Monday.com

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

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

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

5. SEMrush

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

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

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

Pricing: Pro, $129/month; Guru, $249/month; Business, $499/month.

6. Buzzsumo

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

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

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

Pricing: Content Creation, $199/month; PR&Comms, $299/month; Suite, $499/month; Enterprise, $999/month.

7. Crazy Egg

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

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

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

Pricing: Basic, $29/month; Standard, $49/month; Plus, $99/month; Pro, $249/month; Enterprise, contact for pricing.

Examples of Successful Marketing Strategies

1. Regal Movies

Digital Strategy: Owned Media

This “Guess the Monday Movie” question is a fun, interactive way to get followers invested in Regal’s content:

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Regal’s Instagram post is an example of owned media because the company was in full control of the answers followers gave (and, apparently, they’re hoping for fewer horror movies).

Regal kept true to their brand by asking viewers to guess the secret movie. And this is a popular type of post for this brand. In only two hours, it has over 800 likes and 64 comments.

2. La Croix

Digital Strategy: User-Generated Content, Earned Media

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

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

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

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In this case, the consumer is creating a handmade needlepoint featuring the brand’s product.

3. Small Girls PR

Digital Strategy: Owned Media

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Small Girls PR is a boutique PR company based in New York, and one of the company’s talents is connecting with amazing clients. This post on Instagram is an effective marketing example, as it boosts awareness for your brand and offers social proof by featuring high-profile clients.

4. Superside

Digital Strategy: Paid Media

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

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

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

5. Target

Digital Strategy: Owned Media, Influencer Partnership

If you’ve got the time for influencer partnerships, take full advantage of it.

Influencer marketing is when you partner with influencers, to promote your content on their site. By doing this, your content reaches new audiences you might not be able to reach organically:

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This post from Target highlights new apparel from a trusted partner. More social channels are offering ways for shoppers to purchase in-app or close to it, driving sales and boosting exposure for brands.

What to Expect After Following Your Marketing Process Steps

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

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

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

Have you ever gone on social media with the intent of scrolling for entertainment, but left the app with a new purchase?

When I scroll through my TikTok For You page, I come across videos with products that pique my interest, not realizing that the button for me to purchase that item is right above the caption. As a consumer, I love how effortless shopping can now be. But what about businesses — what do they think about social commerce?

To help brands navigate social commerce features and determine if they fit into their strategy, I surveyed 512 social media marketers who leverage social commerce tools like active community engagement and user-generated content to learn if they’ve provided ROI. Here’s what I discovered:

General Trends of Social Selling

Social commerce is a growing channel for both buyers and sellers.

As seen in our Consumer Trends survey, social media is the future of shopping. Within Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X, social media is the preferred channel for product discovery. Among all consumers, there is a growing number of social media users who buy on social media.

In this survey, 87% of sellers say that social selling has been effective for their business this year. 59% say their company is making more sales through social media this year when compared to last year. Some marketers who sell on multiple channels felt that social media is the best at targeting potential customers and provides one of the best ROI.

Precise audience targeting is a key benefit, in ways beyond advertising.

Over 50% of social sellers mentioned audience reach when asked about the benefits of social selling. They also say that the ability to advertise to your target audience is the most important feature a platform should have, as you can reach markets that would otherwise be untapped.

Paid ads are often the first thought when it comes to targeted advertising. But luckily, social media has more than that. Brands can reach their targeted audience through other pull marketing methods, such as the following:

• UGC: Creators reach a community of people who share similar interests to the creator and would likely be part of the brand’s target audience.
• Word-of-mouth marketing: One-click sharing on social media makes WOM easier, also reaching people with similar interests.
• Active community engagement: Posts with high engagement tend to land on discovery pages, which are tailored to users based on their interests.

Social sellers still diversify where they sell.

Social selling is not seen as a replacement for other channels, but rather, as a complementary channel. 94% of social sellers also sell on another digital channel, such as their own website or a third-party online marketplace.

This is likely because social shops can easily be integrated from e-Commerce websites and connected to third-party online marketplaces. The ease of implementation and high returns of social shops makes it a worthwhile investment.

Sellers struggle to build trust, but UGC can help.

Out of the businesses we surveyed, 3 in 4 repost UGC. 87% say UGC increases their sales, and 92% say it increases brand awareness. Businesses feel strongly about UGC, so we’ll dive a little deeper into why it’s so essential.

In our Consumer Trends surveys, we see that consumers don’t fully trust social shopping. Just 47% of social media users feel comfortable buying through social apps, with the main concern being that companies aren’t legitimate.

Similarly, when we asked social sellers about the challenges of selling on social media, many shared the difficulty of convincing customers to trust their brand/shop. Given that many social shops are smaller businesses and that there’s a rise in both sellers and scammers on social media, building trust is hard.

That brings us to the benefit of incorporating UGC in your selling strategy. Because UGC allows customers to share their personal experiences with products, it acts as social proof that the product is authentic and valuable, with clear use cases.

Social proof guides purchase decisions: one in four social media users bought a product based on an influencer’s recommendation in the past three months. Consumers who find products interesting from UGC can easily reach the brand’s social shop from the UGC post’s tags, and make a purchase.

Sellers can encourage customers to post UGC through active community engagement and incentives.

Within the types of content that brands post on social media, relatable content is the most memorable to consumers.

Simultaneously, there’s been a growth of consumers who now consider themselves content creators. Brands can take advantage of this trust for and growth of content creators by encouraging customers to post their own UGC.

64% of social sellers said that active community engagement is most effective for encouraging customers to repost UGC, with incentives (discounts, rewards, etc.) following as a close second. Sellers have shared how beneficial UGC has been for them, as well. With social media’s vast network, one post can reach and be talked about by many.

Leveraging Inbound Marketing in Social Selling

Social media’s frictionless shopping experience supports the buyer’s journey.

If you’ve ever purchased on social media, you may have noticed how fast the process is.

Here’s an example of how social media features cover the buyer’s journey:

1. Awareness: Through push and pull marketing strategies such as targeted advertising, influencer marketing, and word-of-mouth marketing, consumers become aware of a brand’s products and consider learning more.
2. Consideration: If a consumer decides to learn more, they can peruse the brand’s profile, which contains a digital storefront, active community, and product reviews. As a community visitor, the consumer may notice the brand’s personality and how brands interact with their community. This may impact purchase intent, as we’ve seen that Gen Z especially values brands that have active communities around them.
3. Decision: Now that the consumer has “visited” the brand, they may have questions. These questions can be answered through posts and reviews, or asked through direct messaging. Once the consumer decides to purchase, they can check out in the app.

Throughout this entire process, the consumer never left the social media app. Social selling reduces the friction of traditional e-Commerce, where consumers may do research on social media, purchase on a website, make phone calls for service, and more. Consolidating these tasks into one platform simplifies the shopping process for consumers, increasing customer satisfaction and business sales.

Social selling also supports impulse buying. When asking sellers about social selling benefits, several of them mentioned “impulse purchases.” Because social media is so widely used, someone who meant to scroll for entertainment may be drawn to a product through an ad or UGC post and end up leaving the app with a purchase.

Active community engagement drives social selling success.

45% of social sellers said that the ability to build a community and actively engage with them is the most important feature a social media platform should have when it comes to social selling.

Driving brand communities are the interactions brands have with their followers, who become brand advocates.

As brands keep their customers satisfied post-purchase, they encourage customers to become promoters through methods such as posting new reviews, uploading user-generated content, or sharing the brand with their community with one click of the “share” button.

These promotional strategies align with the previous section’s discussion on strategies for awareness in the buyer’s journey, thus creating a flywheel effect.

This effect is also what HubSpot calls inbound marketing: “Once you attain enough customers and delight them, they can keep your flywheel spinning by promoting your organization and bringing new customers to you. Over time, your flywheel allows you to grow without continually investing in customer acquisition.”

Social selling covering the entire flywheel is very powerful because brands can tailor content toward multiple types of customers on one platform and build their customer base faster. With this being said, as a customer, I recommend engaging with smaller brands that you like, as it acts as social proof for prospective customers — uplifting smaller businesses.

Next Steps for Social Media Success

As you consider social selling, spend some time developing your approach toward some of the key drivers for social selling success: audience targeting, brand community engagement, and user-generated content. For more, check out these posts:

• Get started on one of the most popular social selling platforms: How to Sell on Instagram Using Shoppable Posts
• Understand challenges that consumers face with regard to social shopping: Why Consumers Still Hesitate to Shop on Social Media Platforms [New Data]   
• Read case studies of how other companies used social commerce tools: How 3 Companies Grew Revenue With Social Media Shopping Tools [New Data + Case Studies] 

Lastly, learn more about the other key trends in social media marketing with our free 2023 Social Media Trends Report below.

If you aren‘t familiar with The Hustle, it’s a media entity known for its offbeat and irrelevant spin on the news (case in point: The Corporate Marriage of Pop Tarts and Crocs).

Fans of The Hustle have struck content gold. They can subscribe to their daily newsletter, now 2+ million subscribers strong. They can listen to their podcast, or watch their YouTube videos. And if they still need an extra fix, they can hit “follow” on one (or all) of their social media accounts.

It’s no secret that The Hustle is a content engine – but with the emergence of AI, their workflow is starting to change.

Here, I spoke to the team at The Hustle to learn how they’re using AI to supercharge their content.

How The Hustle Team Uses AI

Repurposing content across social media.

The Hustle is everywhere on social media, enabling them to reach an audience that spans every corner of the internet.

As Taryn Varricchio, Editorial Manager of The Hustle’s YouTube channel, puts it, “Not every YouTube viewer is a dedicated TikToker, and vice versa. By sharing different forms of our content, we can reach these audiences and give extended life to our long-form stories,” she told me.

However, adapting their content to different platforms can be a time-consuming process. This is where AI can help.

Varricchio uses AI to convert long-form content into bite-sized YouTube Shorts. Using the tool vidyo.ai, she enters the URL from the long-form video, and the tool returns with several snippets of the video.

For example, the YouTube Short below is a snippet of a longer, seven-minute video on their YouTube channel. With the help of AI, Varricchio was able to maximize the mileage of the longer video and meet her audiences in more than one place.

Making room for more creative work.

“Fortunately, we feel like AI can’t out-creative us just yet,” Ben Berkley, Managing Editor of The Hustle, told me.

After all, it’s hard to imagine an AI chatbot cooking up such titles as How to Barbecue In Outer Space or Seaweed-Sinking Robots Are Tackling the Climate Crisis. Although this might change in the future, for now, Berkeley and his team are dabbling with AI to make room for more creative work.

He told me, “We’re taking it upon ourselves to experiment with every tool available to us — whether it’s helping us distill complicated concepts more efficiently, creating new kinds of graphics that could accompany our stories, or just simply helping us with administrative work.”

Over on The Hustle’s YouTube channel, Varricchio and her team use AI to streamline the research stage of content creation.

“As journalists, content creators, and video scriptwriters, our teams constantly need to research, read articles and reports, and sift through the clutter online to find reputable sources. AI can help us summarize research and highlight key points from articles and reports that could otherwise take hours to read through,” she told me.

However, Varricchio points out that AI doesn’t remove the need to fact-check or confirm their sources. While it streamlines the research stage, she still has human guardrails in place to check for quality.

Experimenting with AI as an alternative to stock imagery.

While most creative teams rely on stock photos, Ben Harmanus, Principal Editorial Lead at HubSpot, is experimenting with AI-generated images for videos.

One of the biggest drawbacks of stock imagery is the complicated licensing fees and agreements. For example, if you need to replace a copyrighted image in a YouTube video, you have to take it down, edit it, and then re-upload it. In the process, you lose all the views, comments, and likes from the original video.

“While we can easily swap an image on a website, this is impossible for videos. AI is often a safer way to use images,” Harmanus told me.

Not only are AI-generated copyright-free, but they’re also entirely customizable. Oscar Estrada, Motion Designer at HubSpot, has also been experimenting with AI-generated images for this reason.

“Sometimes it’s hard to find a stock image that matches the mood or the color palette that I need,” he told me. “It’s helpful to have tools like Midjourney or Runway to visualize ideas and even to replace stock imagery.”

In Estrada‘s experience, AI doesn’t just push his creative potential; it also has clear time-saving benefits.

“It helps me work on multiple projects simultaneously without having to waste time on the manual, repetitive parts of the process. In that way, I feel like it’s super valuable.”

Ultimately, tools like Runway AI could be a life-saver for teams who need content in a pinch, or a way to test out new ideas or concepts with minimal time commitment.

Getting inspiration for YouTube titles.

“I like to ask HubGPT to help our team craft engaging YouTube video titles,” Varricchio told me. She does this by pasting video scripts into HubGPT and prompting it for suggestions.

It‘s worth noting that Varricchio doesn’t simply copy and paste its responses. Instead, she uses it as a creative springboard.

“While I don’t use any title word for word, it helps inspire phrases or language for a video title I otherwise hadn’t considered,” she told me. “It can trigger a new framing for a video or consider what other information might be more useful to prioritize in the naming of a story.”

In this way, AI becomes a brainstorming partner, offering alternative angles and new perspectives. This type of collaboration is invaluable for content teams like The Hustle, and can be used in a variety of ways — from coming up with YouTube titles and blog ideas, to social media copy and more.

Above all, The Hustle team is still figuring things out.

When I asked Ben Berkley how his team uses AI, his answer was refreshingly candid.

“It’s important that we’re honest with ourselves and our readers that we’re still figuring out AI like everyone else. We aren’t sure how it’ll fit into our jobs in the long run yet, but it won’t be for a lack of trying,” he told me.

I’m willing to bet this sentiment is felt by many teams trying to navigate this new AI world. While AI is exciting, many teams feel pressure to build their entire operation around it.

However, Berkeley is embracing AI where it makes sense, and with a healthy dose of curiosity.

“We want The Hustle to be the very best and that’s only possible with more time to lean into our own creativity. We hope AI will offer us a way to do that.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, many consumers raced online to buy products they couldn’t get in-store. And, by July 2020, global retail ecommerce sites cumulatively saw a record 22 billion monthly visits.

Shopping on social media rose in popularity as well, allowing businesses to sell more items directly from their existing profiles.

Now, most platforms offer native shopping tools, but, as with any new trend, you might wonder, “Are consumers actually shopping on social media?” The question is worth asking, and we’ll answer it in this post.

Table of Contents

• Do consumers actually buy products on Social Media?
• Which social media platforms are consumers really shopping on?
• Which social platforms should you sell on?

Do Consumers Actually Buy Products on Social Media?

There are now more ways than ever to buy products on social media. But, since some social media shopping tools are still rather new to shoppers and brands, you might think consumers have barely used them yet.

When we asked consumers if they’ve purchased a product on social media, 17% said they’ve bought something directly from a social platform in the past three months alone.

The number is higher among millennials (27%) and Gen Z (22%).

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Ultimately, while social media shopping features are still fairly new to consumers, they might make sense for brands that are looking for a scalable way to enter the ecommerce world.

Among all the excitement that social media commerce brings, it’s essential to also brush up on how to build trust with your customers as a marketer. Check out our video guide here on the social scams to avoid.

Which social media platforms are consumers really shopping on?

Facebook

Among those who shop on social media, Facebook is the most popular platform consumers used to make in-app purchases in the past three months. Consumers also report it has the best in-app shopping experience.

Facebook’s online shopping popularity isn’t surprising. Even before the 2020 launch of Facebook Shops, users flocked to Facebook Marketplace to find items or products being sold by residents nearby, independent sellers, or even local stores.

While Facebook Marketplace is more like Craigslist than an ecommerce store – and still requires you to contact a seller or go to their website before buying a product, its years of success likely helped justify the launch of Facebook’s newest shopping features.

Here’s a brief rundown of the newest ways people shop on Facebook:

Facebook Shops

Facebook Shops enables business page admins to create a “Shop” featuring a list of products or product collections. Each shop can also link back to an Instagram profile, WhatsApp, Messenger, or Facebook Business Page.

Users who visit the brand’s Facebook Business Page can tap or click a View Shop button to see products, add items to their cart, and purchase them directly from a Facebook Checkout page.

Facebook Messenger

Social media users who aren’t interested in sifting through a Shop’s list of products can also message brands on Facebook Messenger. Once a brand creates a Facebook Shop, they can integrate it with their Messenger account, WhatsApp account, or Instagram account for a smooth customer purchasing experience directly in their threads.

When customers message brands with Shop integrations to learn more about specific products, they’ll receive automated messages with product suggestions from the Shop owner – as seen in the image below.

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Takeaways for Marketers

Facebook Shops is the second most popular social selling feature among social media marketers and has the second-highest ROI.

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With this in mind, launching a Facebook Shop is a valuable way to sell products on social platforms. Not only is Facebook the most used app among consumers, but it can also integrate with Instagram and WhatsApp, allowing you to easily expand to multiple social media platforms when you’re ready.

Even if you already have an ecommerce site, having a Facebook Shop can likely put you in front of a new audience. They can simply click into your shop, check out a few products, and even make a purchase with much less friction, as they never have to leave the social media app they’re already on.

Ultimately, Shops’ versatile options could be a good fit if you sell to a broad audience, are interested in expanding to Instagram or WhatsApp, or are an experienced online seller who also wants to turn social media followers into customers.

Instagram

Instagram is consumers’ second-most used platform for social purchases. Instagram Shops is also the most popular social selling feature used by social media marketers, and it offers the highest ROI and the best tools for selling directly within the app.

Although most of Instagram’s shopping features were added after Facebook Shops launched, nearly a quarter of respondents have bought products on Instagram.

Below are Instagram’s most notable shopping features:

Instagram Shops

Instagram Shops essentially uses the same design, layout, and technology Facebook Shops, but is linked to Instagram Business Pages specifically. Like Facebook Shops, you’ll also need admin access to a Facebook Business Page and a Facebook Shop to use this feature.

To leverage this feature, you merely need to go to your Facebook Commerce Manager settings, link your Facebook and Instagram Business pages, and enable your Shop on your Instagram Business profile so your visitors will see a View Shop button. Once this Shop is activated, your Instagram Shop’s viewers will see the same mini-online store they’d see if they entered your Facebook Shop on that platform.

Instagram Shoppable Posts

While you’ll still need a Facebook catalog that lists your products, you do not need a Facebook Shop to launch Instagram Shoppable posts. This feature allows you to link your Instagram feed posts and images directly to the product’s Instagram Checkout page.

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While this feature began specifically with feed-style posts, it has now stretched to Instagram Stories, Instagram Live (shown below), and – most recently – Instagram Reels.

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While an Instagram Shop allows your followers to see all the major products or collections you’re selling, Instagram Shoppable posts allow you to highlight your product with creative content, such as reviews or demos, while also linking directly to a purchasing page. This enables users to discover a product, watch it in action, and buy it almost immediately if they like what they’ve seen.

Takeaways for Marketers

Instagram’s shopping features might be useful to your brand if you already have a presence on Instagram, primarily target a Millenial audience, and have engaging or intriguing photo or video assets to market your product, brand, or service.

If you already have a Facebook Shop and want to expand your social media ecommerce strategy to Instagram, it’s also scalable and easy. Because Instagram Shops are carbon copies of pre-created Facebook shops, you only need to take a few steps to place a Shops button on your Instagram Business Page. But, if you don’t have interest in a Facebook account, you can still leverage Instagram Live Shopping, Shopping Posts, and highlight your products in the Instagram Shopping tab.

To learn more about each of these tools, how they work, and how brands can leverage them, check out this post for more details.

WhatsApp

While WhatsApp, also owned by Facebook, doesn’t have its own shopping platform, users can still chat with brands, request to purchase a product from the companies WhatsApp for Business catalog, and pay for it directly in the message thread.

The WhatsApp payment feature, shown below, is quite similar to Facebook Messenger’s older “Buy Now” feature, shown in the section above:

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Takeaways for Marketers

While buying products might take a bit longer on WhatsApp than on a Facebook or Instagram Shop, roughly 13.5% of respondents have still done it.

As WhatsApp continues to grow and expand its business features, this app might be worth keeping on your radar if you are interested in building a chat-based community and social revenue stream at the same time.

While this app might be opportunistic for conversational marketers, this app might also be beneficial if you’re looking to sell internationally. While Facebook and Instagram also have audiences around the world, most of WhatsApp’s user base lives outside of the U.S. In fact, WhatsApp’s largest audiences are from India and Brazil.

Pinterest

Until recently – Pinterest users could buy some of the products they saw directly in the Pinterest app. From 2015 to 2018, Pinterest enabled brands to create Buyable Pins that allowed you to purchased pinned products directly from the app. Next to each Buyable Pin’s “Save” button was a blue “Buy It” button. When tapped, it sent users directly to a Pinterest purchasing screen.

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While Pinterest offered its in-app purchasing feature for years, the brand pivoted to scalable Product Pins in 2018.

Product Pins send app users to a company’s website checkout page rather than a Pinterest app page. The switch meant Pinterest no longer needed to manage millions of transactions a year because the transactions don’t happen on Pinterest servers. But, users can still make quick purchases without interrupting their social media experience. The change proved beneficial to brands, as 85%of weekly U.S. Pinners have made a purchase inspired by Pins from brands.

Takeaways for Marketers

Although Pinterest no longer enables consumers to make purchases directly from the platform, you should take its product marketing opportunities, such as Product Pins, seriously, especially if Millennials are your target audience.

Aside from the brand-friendly nature of Pinterest’s platform, marketers should also take note of its consistent growth. By Q1 of 2023, Pinterest surpassed 463 million monthly active users, up from 13 million from Q4’22. Even if it doesn’t seem like Pinterest is the right platform for your brand now, it might be useful to your strategy later as its audience continues to grow, evolve, and use the platform to look for products or inspiration.

Which Social Platforms Should You Sell On?

The verdict is that, yes, consumers are shopping on social media. As more brands leverage social shopping tools, they’ll become even more accustomed to using their preferred platforms to shop.

Of marketers that have used social selling, 87% say that it has been effective for their business, and more than half say they’ve made more sales via platforms this year than last, making it a valuable strategy to consider.

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When deciding on platforms, audience reach is one of the most important things to consider, as you want to ensure you sell on a platform your audiences are already on.

For example, if your audience is made up of many different age groups, Facebook might be the best place to set up shop. Meanwhile, if your audience is primarily Gen Z, you might want to embrace TikTok.

Additionally, you should prioritize social media shopping tactics on platforms you’ve already built a following on. For example, if you have a large, engaged WhatsApp audience, selling products there might be a scalable expansion to an already-strong social media strategy.

Ultimately, the best strategy will be to determine where your audiences are most likely going to shop or surf social media and then meet them where they are with your product listings or online shop

To learn more about where your target social media audience might be, check out this helpful post on social media demographics.

Over 49% of the US population listens to podcasts. Globally, this figure stands at 383.7 million people. If you’re looking to reach these people, and more of your audience, a website can help. Having a website also helps you manage your podcast content easily. This is where WordPress comes in.

In this post, we’ll show you 25 of the best WordPress themes for podcasters. These themes will help you build a podcast site with WordPress, share your episodes, host bios, get subscribers, and more.

Here are the top WordPress themes for podcasters on the market today.

This list of our favorite podcasting themes will help you share your content and make lasting connections with your fans. To determine the theme that best suits your needs, review these 25 options, their unique features, and our key takeaways. Let’s dive in!

1. Viseo

Viseo is a podcast theme with a “latest show” section for your site pages. This lets your fans locate and listen to your newest content quickly. You can easily upload and add high-quality videos with the theme’s locally-hosted video player feature. Customizing your site pages and sections requires no coding knowledge because Viseo has a drag-and-drop builder.

Core Features

• Visitors can browse the “Latest show” section for new content
• Share high-quality video content with the locally hosted video player feature
• Customize your site with the built-in drag-and-drop page builder

2. Podcaster

Podcaster is specifically made for broadcasting and managing podcasts. Its unlimited podcast episode archive pages help you maintain your shows and seasons over a long period.

The theme’s homepage contains an audio and video player feature. This feature allows visitors to experience your latest content the moment they enter your site. There are also a variety of color palettes that help you customize your site to match your branding.

Core Features

• Add unlimited podcast episode archive pages
• Use an audio and video player feature on the site’s homepage
• Access a variety of color palettes to customize pages

3. Tusant

The Tusant theme makes managing and designing your podcast website easy. Tusant is also compatible with all major podcast plugins. That means you get access to increased functionalities.

The theme is compatible with Elementor, allowing you to edit and update your site pages with ease. You can review changes in real time before publishing them.

Core Features

• Integrate your favorite major podcast plugins
• Design your pages with the Elemntor plugin
• Display content in multiple layouts

4. Livecast

Are you already hosting your podcast on a platform like Spotify or Soundcloud? Then Livecast is a great podcast theme to build your WordPress site with.

This theme is compatible with the top music and podcasting platforms. You don’t have to host your episodes in more than one place. Livecast also has a built-in drag-and-drop editor, so you can build and modify your site quickly.

Core Features

• Compatible with the most popular podcasting and music platforms
• Drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to build each page on your WordPress website
• Edit your site in real-time using the live edit feature

5. Podcast

Podcast is a WordPress theme that supports embedding your podcast episodes from Spotify, SoundCloud, Libsyn, and YouTube. The theme comes with eight built-in color palettes, and it’s compatible with WordPress podcasting plugins like PowerPress and Seriously Simple Podcasting.

This theme has limited free features. However, its paid version lets you import demo content, allows for one-click updates, and gets you priority support.

Core Features

• One-click, automatic updates
• GDPR-friendly, local fonts

6. Podcaster Radio

Podcaster Radio is a responsive, SEO-friendly podcast theme. This theme is excellent for professionals in film, video, magazines, music, and related industries.

Podcaster Radio has many free features, making it ideal if you’re on a budget. Its free version comes with four slides, three template pages, one homepage template, and many more. Podcaster Radio is also WooCommerce compatible.

Core Features

• Integrate your podcast site with WooCommerce
• Secure and optimized code
• Budget-friendly podcast theme

7. Vice

The Vice theme lets you incorporate video backgrounds on your web pages to create an interactive and fun experience for visitors. The theme’s responsive design makes your site fit a viewer’s screen, whether that’s desktop, mobile, or tablet.

Vice also has pre-made podcast page templates with players that support Soundcloud, MP3, and Mixcloud audio, allowing you to import and share your podcast in a matter of seconds without changing its format.

Core Features

• Incorporate video backgrounds on site pages
• Change your site’s format depending on a viewer’s device
• Make changes quickly with podcast page templates that support audio players

8. Audio Podcast

Audio Podcast is another podcaster theme by VW themes. This theme has similar features and functionalities to Podcaster Radio. The theme is responsive, SEO-friendly, and budget-friendly.

Its free version comes with four slides, three template pages, one homepage template, and many more. It’s also compatible with WooCommerce.

Core Features

• Compatible with WooCommerce
• SEO-friendly podcast theme
• Responsive and budget-friendly

9. Podcaster

Podcaster is a multimedia WordPress theme for creating and managing your own podcast website. This theme supports audio embeds from Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, YouTube, PodBean, and more.

If you want visitors to binge your episodes, you can showcase multiple episodes and entire seasons using the unlimited podcast archive.

Core Features

• Use a list or grid view for an aesthetically appealing layout of your podcasts
• Customize your media player so that it compliments your brand and style
• Interact with followers using the newsletter subscription feature
  

  10. Satchmo

  

  Satchmo is ideal if you’re looking for a podcasting theme that lets you share blog content in addition to your audio. Whether you’re an experienced blogger or just want to share information about your podcast, then Satchmo’s blog template pages will come in handy.

  You can add icons in your headers and footers that direct visitors to your social media accounts. This feature also lets you promote your content and increase your followers. Satchmo has 700+ Google Font options that you can use to customize the typography on your pages.

  Core Features

  • Choose a podcast or blog theme for your site
  • Attract more followers with the social media account icons in headers and footers
  • Customize your typography with 700+ Google Font options

  11. Castilo

  

  Castilo has a contact form template that lets visitors easily get in touch with you. The theme also offers a podcast statistics feature. You can monitor who’s listening to your podcasts and see a podcast’s short- and long-term success.

  Castilo also lets you know the popularity of each podcast. With this theme, you can place your custom logo in the header and footer of your pages to make for a professional and branded look and feel.

  Pro Tip: If your theme lacks a contact form plugin, you can add one to your site with HubSpot’s WordPress Contact Form builder.

  Core Features

  • Add a contact form to capture visitor data using the template
  • Capture podcast data with the statistics feature
  • Add your custom logo in the header and footer of your site

  12. GeneratePress

  

  GeneratePress is a free and open-source theme — speed, usability, and accessibility are the features that set it apart. There is an unlimited number of custom color combinations to achieve the desired look of your website.

  Performance and design aren’t mutually exclusive with this theme. GeneratePress prides itself on providing podcasters with both to bring an immersive experience to their listeners.

  Core Features

  • Get started easily with an open-source theme
  • Customize your site pages with unlimited custom color options
  • Integrate this theme with the top audio plugins

  13. Divi

  

  Divi is a popular WordPress theme that has a podcast landing page layout to go along with it. This modern design comes with seven landing page layouts, including sections for your homepage, about page, contact page, and podcast episodes.

  This modern, sleek design looks professional and inviting right out of the box. Plue, you can easily customize it to fit your brand.

  Core Features

  • List multiple podcast episodes in a single block on your landing page
  • Display audio trailers of your most recent podcast episode right on the front page
  • Upload multiple shows, videos, and music content
  • Keep the visitor listening to a podcast preview with a sticky audio player

  14. Castpod

  

  Castpod includes a MailChimp integration that lets you get subscribers for your podcast. With Castpod, you can submit your podcast to an external platform, such as Google Podcast, in one-click. The theme’s retina-ready design ensures your images are high-definition and look professional.

  Core Features

  • Integrate MailChimp on your site to manage emails
  • Submit your podcast to external services with one click
  • Get a high-definition and professional look with the retina-ready design

  15. SONIK

  

  SONIK is a responsive WordPress theme for podcasters, singers, DJs, clubs, and labels. This flexible theme has 12 custom post types, like events, videos, music charts, and galleries.

  SONIK is also WooCommerce compatible, meaning you can easily create a store to sell your products. The theme also has four ready-to-import demo sites, 600+ Google font options, and amazing customer support.

  Core Features

  • Has four demo websites
  • Responsive and SEO-optimized
  • WooCommerce compatible

  16. Audioatro

  

  Audioatro has a unique, full-width audio player called the “Audio Visualizer.” This play is placed on top of a full-width background image on your page.

  The audio player includes several 3D bars that run across the bottom of your page to show listeners their timestamps in the podcast. These bars also rise and fall with the podcast’s volume levels to add another entertaining and interactive visual element.

  Audioatro also has two podcast-specific templates to choose from and expert customer support in case you run into a challenge that you need help troubleshooting.

  Core Features

  • Incorporate the unique, 3D, video-like audio player
  • Choose from two podcast themes

  17. Megaphone

  Megaphone supports multiple shows, episodes, and seasons, as well as videos and music content. The theme requires no coding knowledge, so you can quickly. Simply design your sections in any way you want.

  To give visitors the full listening experience before they download your podcast, Megaphone includes a sticky audio player that follows them as they browse the site.

  Core Features

  • Upload multiple shows as well as videos and music content
  • Build faster and easier without coding

Keep the visitor listening to a podcast preview with a sticky audio player

18. Onair2

Onair2 is a podcast and music theme with an ecommerce store feature where you can sell your products to fans. Managing your online store is also straightforward due to the theme’s WooCommerce integration.

There is a customizable podcast page template that you can implement on your pages with an audio player that’s integrated with YouTube, Mixcloud, Soundcloud, and more. Social sharing icons are customizable. This gives your visitors the ability to find and follow your accounts within seconds.

Core Features

• Use the podcast and music theme with ecommerce store feature
• Design your podcast page template with YouTube, Mixcloud, and Soundcloud integrations
• Increase your social media presence with social sharing icons

19. Music

As the name suggests, this WordPress theme was created with artists, musicians, and podcasters in mind.

With six customizable layouts, you can build an attractive WordPress site for your podcast using Music’s drag-and-drop editor. The smart layout options take this further, allowing you to customize your menus and headers for the most helpful site navigation.

Core Features

• Non-stop music play allows your podcasts to play continuously throughout your visitor’s session
• Use the album feature to display a custom playlist of podcast episodes
• Embed video podcasts on your site to give visitors an audio + visual experience

20. Dixie

If you use your podcast to promote your business, check out the WordPress podcast theme, Dixie. Dixie is compatible with WooCommerce and Elementor, making it a user-friendly theme for building your own podcast website. It comes with a fully-featured audio player that visitors can use to download an episode or listen to it while browsing your site.

Core Features

• Two to six column grid display for a clean layout of multiple podcast episodes
• Infinite scroll pagination to keep visitors engaged as they listen
• Dedicated pages for individual podcasts to feature particular topics

21. Megabyte

Megabyte is a popular WordPress theme for podcasters. It incorporates the tools you’ll need to display your podcasts on your website. One of the coolest features of this theme is the audio-enabled megamenu that plays a featured podcast episode right on the homepage.

Core Features

• Audio-enabled mega menus for immediate podcast plays
• Responsive for tablet and mobile devices
• Drag-and-drop page builder for a no-code design experience

22. Astra

Astra is a popular multipurpose WordPress theme that’s perfect for podcasting. Its size is less than 50 kb, making it a great foundation for a fast-loading podcast site. Besides Astra’s responsive, SEO-optimized, and customizable templates, it has one dedicated theme for podcasting.

This podcasting template showcases your latest episodes, guests, and reviews right on the homepage. It also includes a newsletter subscription form for nurturing your community. Plus, Astra comes with a pre-designed subscription widget for external podcasting platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Core Features

• Showcase recent episodes, guests, and reviews on your homepage
• Use pre-designed subscription buttons to grow your subscribers across various podcasting platforms
• Grow your email list with the built-in newsletter sign-up form

23. WpCast

WpCast is a fast and responsive theme for creating user-friendly podcast websites. The theme’s homepage features a sticky audio player that remains on top of the homepage as listeners browse through your site. This theme also lets you group episodes by series.

WpCast is compatible with major podcast plugins like Seriously Simple Podcasting, PowerPress, and Libsyn. This makes managing your podcast easier.

Core Features

• Group related podcast episodes into series
• Integrate seamlessly with popular podcasting platforms and plugins like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Seriously Simple Podcasting, and Libsyn
• Keep visitors engaged with an interactive or sticky audio player

24. Rare Radio

Rare Radio features 12+ responsive and customizable pre-made demos, including three pre-made header styles. The retina readiness of the site makes it look great on any platform.

Rare Radio includes social media icons, so you can grow your social following. It also supports Instagram Feed plugins, so you can display images from your Instagram page.

Other compatible plugins include GiveWP plugin, which lets you accept donations from listeners. Its integration with Mailchimp can also help you build your email list and nurture your listeners.

Core Features

• Accept donations from listeners
• Enjoy cross-browser compatibility — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Opera
• 12+ responsive and easily customizable demos
• Compatible with Elementor and WooCommerce

25. Gumbo

Gumbo is a responsive and SEO-optimized theme built for podcasters and vloggers. Its homepage contains a full-width slider in the hero section of the header area. This lets you instantly grab visitors by presenting your most popular or recent content.

The content slider also features an audio player so visitors can start listening when they land on your site. Meanwhile, viewers can download podcast episodes using the built-in download button.

Gumbo also supports locally-hosted videos and videos from popular platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. This WordPress theme provides multiple layout options for displaying your podcast episodes. This includes the one-column list, two-to-six-column podcast grid, and the masonry grid display option.

Core Features

• Full-width content slider for showcasing recent or popular podcasts
• Multiple options for episode display layout
• Responsive and compatible with most major browsers
• Compatible with Elementor

Creating Your Podcast WordPress Website

WordPress podcast themes will help you share your hard work on a website that you’re proud of. These themes make it easy to:

• Manage your seasons and shows.
• Include descriptions about your hosts.
• Stay in contact with fans.
• Share the latest information about live shows and events in one location.

With a wide variety of features, layouts, and customization options, you can achieve any design you want with your preferred podcasting theme. Download and install a podcasting theme today so you can begin sharing your content and building lasting relationships with your fans.

Editor’s note: We originally published this post in December 2018 and we’ve updated it for comprehensiveness.