Yearly Archives: 2023

X (formerly Twitter), with its 237.8 million daily active users, is a platform with a ton of potential for companies to increase awareness and build their brand personality. In recent years, big names like Netflix, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell have become X famous for their witty commentary and personable interactions with their followers.

But how can companies build their reputation as original, relatable, and dependable while still maintaining their unique voice? Social media has transformed the relationship between individuals and organizations — which is why the community management role is now so vital.

But what exactly is a community manager, anyway? Here, we’re going to explore what a community manager is and — if you’re applying or starting out in the role — how to be a great one.

Table of Contents

• What is a Community Manager?
• How to Become a Community Manager
• Community Manager Job Description
• Community Manager Job Responsibilities
• How to Be a Great Community Manager
• Community Manager Job Outlook
• Community Manager Org Chart

If you ask Krystal Wu, HubSpot’s Social Media Community Manager (@hellokrystalwu), the most critical part of the community manager role, she’ll say it’s simply “having one.”

The community manager position builds brand personality and consumer trust, which can ultimately lead to increased awareness and company performance — making it a critical component of your marketing strategy.

How to Become a Community Manager

Community managers come from a variety of backgrounds — anything from recruiting to journalism to engineering — because being successful in the role relies more on a set of skills than a degree.

First, it’s important for community managers to be knowledgeable about and across the business. Community managers should be able to rely on their experience with their organization to confidently address their audience or tap into internal resources to appropriately handle any issues that may arise.

Beyond a working understanding of the business, managers need to build productive, professional relationships both internally and externally in order to be more authentic and reliable brand ambassadors.

Community Manager Job Description

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What does it take to be a community manager? Here are some of the essential soft and hard skills you need:

1. Background in a support-related field such as customer success.
2. Strong soft skills such as communication both online and in-person.
3. Solid understanding of the organization, including product knowledge.
4. Ability to build and implement community-focused content strategies.
5. An understanding of PR-related activities.
6. Social media savvy to drive interest and engagement.
7. Event management and promotion skills, both online and in person.

In order to advocate for and preserve an organization’s brand, community managers must have incredibly strong soft skills. Above all, empathy, good listening skills, and adaptability are crucial to promoting favorable impressions of an organization.

Beyond interpersonal skills, the best community managers are actively researching trends and hot topics — by engaging with the latest industry developments, community managers are better able to connect with relevant audiences and provide them with the most updated resources and best practices.

Krystal Wu emphasized adaptability as an important characteristic for success in the role — since the position is still developing and community managers are often carving out their own job descriptions, being flexible in order to adjust to new trends and expectations will serve you in the long run.

Ultimately, great community managers understand that theirs is a customer service-based role. Actively listen to customers, address concerns, demonstrate an authentic social presence, and maintain productive partnerships with consumers. In short, be a good human being for your audience on behalf of your brand.

What does a community manager do?

Build and maintain a community.

Community managers are responsible for building and maintaining a brand’s community — both online and offline — and public perception.

The job requires engaging audiences on a variety of outlets, including online forums, social media platforms, Slack, in-person groups, and more, to reach all audiences where they are.

Since different digital spaces have unique cultures and best practices, community managers must be the consistent tone and voice of the brand.

As Krystal Wu points out, “When I speak, I am on the line for HubSpot. I’m not Krystal, I’m HubSpot.”

As a community manager, all your messaging, content, and crisis management across networks should be prompt, consistent with your brand, and empathetic to create a loyal and delighted community.

Manage public relations.

PR is another basic tenet of managing and extending a brand’s audience as community managers are engaging with all kinds of press — both positive and negative — generated about their companies.

How managers navigate legal issues or negative press can separate good community managers from great ones.

Missteps in this role can do real damage to a brand, so connecting with your organization’s legal, PR, or related teams can help mitigate problems and make sure that responses are coming out appropriately.

Create strategies.

Additionally, great community managers are constantly thinking about how they might experiment with new strategies.

For instance, Krystal Wu has learned that a tactic or test won’t run the first time, but you shouldn’t be discouraged — progress takes time. Community managers should think about the long term — the more you invest in an improved strategy, new direction, or the position itself, the more you’ll get out of it.

An easily forgotten resource is an external network of other community managers! Finding others in similar positions can be very helpful in crowdsourcing informed solutions or leaning on experienced others who’ve handled similar situations in the past.

Cultivate brand presence.

Building on the usefulness of a PR skill set, community managers must be vigilant of their organization’s brand presence and assess the potential consequences of their corporate communications.

Brand presence includes consistency of voice across platforms to keep the company on track in terms of target audience awareness and engagement.

Consumers should be able to recognize brand voice across pillars — whether they’re seeing a post on Instagram or a question on Quora.

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Track engagement.

Beyond direct interaction between the brand and its audience, community managers also record and report the engagement they see on at least a monthly basis.

Other teams that create content operate mostly on the backend, so it’s good to hear from the community manager who sees the response from consumers. They can help track whether followers are confused or what kinds of changes they are seeing within digital communities.

Krystal Wu says that she has developed an intuition about the psychology of HubSpot’s audience and can therefore evolve and tweak her outreach strategy in order to most effectively engage with target audiences.

Furthermore, community managers keep in mind their ideal audience, shaping content and communications to target the right audience rather than simply building a larger one.

Offer resilience.

When I asked Krystal if there were any challenges she faced that she hadn’t expected, she said she hadn’t anticipated the “emotional rollercoaster I deal with every day.”

The experience of engaging with a digital community can be volatile — one day might be full of positive and rewarding discussions, while the next might be hounded by complaints and disgruntled users.

It’s important that community managers maintain and control emotions in order to handle the various issues that arise.

Delight the community.

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Lastly, great community managers delight their community.

Krystal Wu makes sure to give positive encouragement to her audience through gift cards, little presents, or what she calls “delight boxes,” which are filled with a bunch of fun HubSpot swag items.

Even when things go wrong, great community managers address problems, resolve them, and send gifts to those involved.

By building positive relationships with the members of your community — whether they have a positive impression of your brand or a negative one — you’re building a reputable and trustworthy brand perception.

How to Be a Great Community Manager

Like any job that requires frequent, and sometimes intense, communication with customers and community members, being a great community manager requires passion and dedication.

By understanding the skills you need and nurturing that skill set over time, you can become a great community manager who understands exactly how to manage your brand’s presence online.

Set yourself goals and objectives.

First, it’s important to set out some clear goals and objectives.

Regardless of how far along in a career you are, good community managers know how to combine the empathy and compassion needed for the job while remaining organized and objective.

Objectives for a community manager could relate to comment response times, brand sentiment levels, or engagement rates, among other things.

In combination with customer marketing, community management also contributes towards revenue goals.

As Laurie Aquilante Faiola, vice president of marketing and community-led growth at HubSpot, points out: “If you think about your customers or that initial purchase as the end of your marketing and sales funnel, you’re leaving a whole bunch of opportunity on the table.”

Having objectives helps to prioritize your workload and strategic initiatives, and provides the ability to demonstrate the value of your role when you achieve them.

Work on your listening skills.

Data is important, but the human element of community management cannot be underestimated. Rather than generating run-of-the-mill responses to comments, try listening carefully to what your community members are saying.

This applies to positive, neutral, and negative comments. Positive sentiment should be matched with the same energy.

Help your community members get excited about their contributions and actively engage with the thoughts or opinions they’re sharing.

Meanwhile, negative comments should be met with empathy and compassion, and your responses should show that you truly understand and care about solving challenges for your community.

Foster inclusivity.

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There’s a lot that managers can do to ensure the community remains a safe and inclusive space for everyone.

All community members or contributors should be made aware that there are communication and behavior guidelines in place, including consequences for breaching these guidelines.

Whether it’s deleting comments or removing members from the space, it’s essential that these guidelines are enforced so that community members can feel safe and see that the brand is committed to their values.

Be quick off the mark.

Although community should be primarily driven by members rather than a brand, community managers should be a visible and frequent presence in discussions.

This includes timely responses to posts, comments, and reviews. With larger communities, it can be tricky to keep up. But, community managers should always strive for the fastest response times possible.

Provide value to foster discussions.

Content marketing is a huge aspect of community management. It gives you the opportunity to provide truly valuable resources to the community and can often be the spark that lights up a lively discussion.

“Consistent content creation is a cornerstone of community growth,” says Lucy Alexander, senior marketing manager at HubSpot. “To keep your community members returning regularly, they need to see new things each time they return.”

From interesting articles and industry news to scheduling events or webinars, community managers who build content marketing into their strategy can increase engagement levels and improve brand sentiment.

Community Manager Job Outlook

Brands are increasingly recognizing the importance of effective community management, whether it’s across social media channels or dedicated platforms and support hubs.

Community managers bring a human touch to a brand’s online presence — one that is appreciated by both consumers and organizations alike.

In fact, 83% of consumers on Facebook prefer brand personality. And, according to Sprout Social, 21% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that are accessible via social media.

From the organizational side, the support for community management roles is similarly robust. According to a report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of social and community managers is expected to grow by 12% between 2021 and 2031.

While the rapid advancement of AI tools is likely to bring a level of increased automation to community management, anyone on this career track should rest easy.

As a role that requires a diverse skill set (including an emphasis on soft skills), it’s likely to be a role that evolves alongside AI rather than one that will be completely replaced.

Community Manager Salary

• Average entry-level community manager salary: $41,748
• Average early-career community manager salary: $48,673
• Average mid-level community manager salary: $51,428
• Average manager-level salary: $60,413
• Average late-career community manager salary: $72,000

Community Manager Org Chart

Community management can sit within and across different functions and teams.

It all depends on the unique internal set-up of an organization. In general, however, community management sits within a dedicated community function or within the social media team.

Here’s an example of where community management commonly sits in a social media org chart:

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Beyond the org chart, the roles and responsibilities of a community manager can vary based on the team they sit in and their level of seniority within that team.

Associate-Level Community Manager

An associate-level community manager is an entry-level or junior position.

In this role, your responsibilities might include day-to-day tasks like responding to comments and requests, scheduling posts, and moderating community activity.

Team members with a junior-level customer service background can often move into this kind of role.

Mid-Level Community Manager

A mid-level community manager may take on all the tasks of an associate but with added responsibilities.

Common tasks at this level would also include creating or curating content, engaging in some strategy development, and analyzing and reporting on community metrics.

A mixture of hard and soft skills becomes more important at this level, as the manager will need copywriting, design, communication, and analytical skills.

Team Lead Community Manager

Next up in the org chart is typically the team lead level.

Overseeing mid-level and associate community managers, the community team lead is typically responsible for coordinating initiatives and strategies, setting and operationalizing community objectives, and guiding and supporting junior team members.

On top of other community-based skills, team members at this level also require leadership skills, project management knowledge, and strategic development capabilities.

Senior Management Level

At the senior management level within community management, responsibilities shift to a broader perspective.

Team members at this level need to understand organizational objectives and ensure the community strategy and tactics are fully aligned with these goals.

They’ll work closely on strategy development, budget management, and reporting on the team’s overall success and performance to the rest of the organization.

A robust knowledge of growth management, strategy, budget management, and stakeholder management is needed here.

Delight Your Community

Whether you’re just starting out in community management or looking to move up to the next level, take some time to analyze what you need to do to take your resume to the next level.

From hard skills like content creation and data analytics to crucial soft skills like communication, there is always something to learn in a role as diverse and exciting as community management.

And don’t forget to keep the end goal of your role in mind: to delight your community.

Nostalgia marketing is the advertising equivalent of comfort food.

In a time where most marketing focuses heavily on the future, nostalgic commercials and ads transport us back to a simpler place where our current problems don’t matter.

Instead of anticipating the next great thing, nostalgia marketing urges us to focus on what we already know works.

To inspire your campaigns, we selected 22 examples of nostalgia marketing that play on the bittersweet pangs of days gone by.

The Power of Nostalgia Marketing

“When you play on nostalgia, you’re bringing people back to a simpler time, and the familiar comfort that comes with a shared experience with your peers,” says Jones Krahl, Deloitte Digital’s co-head of creative brand and advertising, along with Milton Correa.

“While playing into nostalgia isn’t new, putting your own spin on nostalgia has become increasingly popular,” Correa adds.

We know at a gut level that nostalgia gives our lives a feeling of meaning and continuity, but you may be surprised to learn it can also make us looser with our wallets.

A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that nostalgic feelings made participants more willing to spend money on consumer goods and services — making nostalgia marketing a major win.

22 Examples of Nostalgic Ads

We rounded up some nostalgic commercials that induce a fondness for a bygone time by calling upon pop-culture elements of the good old days.

Incorporating famous characters and scenes from the past in modern advertisements is a tried-and-true way to generate positive feelings in your target audience, making them more likely to open their wallets.

1. Nintendo

Many children of the ‘80s and ’90s remember playing Nintendo-based video games with their siblings. And many people also recall the sad feelings related to growing apart or drifting away from a relative.

This commercial highlights both memories by telling the story of two Nintendo-loving brothers who grow apart, argue as teenagers, and then happily reunite as adults to play the new Nintendo Switch together.

This nostalgic commercial not only reminds people of what it was like to grow up with siblings, but it also reminds you of the great fun you had playing video games as a child.

Then, because the brothers connect and chat virtually as they play Switch games at the end, it shows how Nintendo’s technology has evolved to connect old friends and relatives worldwide.

2. Australia Tourism Board

Instead of promoting a traditional ad showing Australia’s most beautiful destinations, Australia disguised a tourism ad as a star-studded trailer for a fictional reboot of the ’80s film Crocodile Dundee.

As those who watched the original Dundee series get excited by clips from the film, starring Chris Hemsworth and Jason Sudeikis, it‘s revealed that Hemsworth tricked Sudeikis into a tourism ad. Despite the trickery, Hemsworth and Sudeikis agree that their trip to Australia was still the best vacation they’d ever taken.

This was a clever way to embrace the television and movie reboot trend of 2018 and 2019 while still highlighting the best Australia has to offer for tourism. Because it features famous actors in the present day, it’s also hilarious for both people who followed the Dundee films or the main characters in the fake reboot.

3. Spotify

In 2016, music-streaming service Spotify unveiled a new spokesperson — er, spokes-dragon — in a 30-second ad produced by Wieden + Kennedy New York.

Falkor and his boy companion Atreyu (now a heavily bearded 44-year-old man) are both characters from the beloved 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story.

W+K even got the original actors to reprise their roles (Noah Hathaway as Atreyu and Alan Oppenheimer as the voice of Falkor).

The pair appear just as the film left them over 20 years ago: gliding through the clouds while the movie‘s dramatic theme song plays in the background. “I can’t believe people still listen to this song!” Atreyu exclaims. His dragon agrees; they share a laugh, and the two speed off into a grainy, ’80s-quality CG sky.

4. Freia

The tagline of Freia, a Norwegian chocolate company, is “Et lite stykke Norge” (A little piece of Norway). This spot for the company produced by SMFB Oslo fully encapsulates the sentiment in a simple, joyful way.

The plot follows a Norwegian expat in New York navigating a hectic life as a fashion stylist. When he returns home to his apartment one evening, he finds a half-eaten bar of Freia chocolate in his otherwise empty fridge.

After just one bite, he’s inspired to hop on a plane back to Norway to visit his father and soak up the majestic landscape of his homeland. The ad ends with the stylist discovering a modest hair salon for sale in what is presumably his hometown.

The message is clear: A taste of Freia chocolate is inherently connected to Norway, no matter where in the world you may be.

5. Adobe

Bob Ross, the beloved ’80s painting guru who passed away in 1995, experienced an unexpected resurgence in popularity in 2016 after Netflix added his classic TV show, The Joy of Painting, to its streaming lineup.

After his Netflix debut, Ross became a trending topic on Instagram, and Adobe took notice. They decided to pay homage to the late painter in a series of tutorial videos promoting their new Adobe Photoshop Sketch for the iPad Pro.

Authenticity was central to this nostalgic campaign. Adobe and agency Lekker Media collaborated with Bob Ross Inc. to make sure every detail was accurate, even going as far to make sure it properly displayed the clothing Ross wore on his show.

Children‘s book illustrator Chad Cameron, who plays Ross in the series, perfectly channels the artist’s relaxed, unpretentious demeanor.

“Bob’s wish was to inspire as many people as possible to be creative and to share it with others,” Joan Kowalski, media director at Bob Ross Inc., told Adweek. “Adobe’s ‘Joy of Sketching’ series reminds us that a company as big as Adobe shares in that hope.”

6. Oikos

Although it originally aired from 1987-1995, Full House has become a nostalgic childhood symbol for multiple generations thanks to syndication.

But before Netflix revived the show with a 2016 reboot, Dannon reunited a few of the show‘s stars in an ad for Oikos, the company’s line of Greek yogurts.

John Stamos is joined by his former cast members Bob Saget and Dave Coulier in this Y&R Vinizius-produced spot. The trio doesn’t explicitly reprise their Full House roles, but the dynamic is undeniably reminiscent of their days on the sitcom.

7. Adidas

In 1973, Billie Jean King won a tennis match against male player Bobby Riggs, coined “The Battle of the Sexes.” The historic tennis game was the first time a woman tennis player was matched against a male.

In and before the late 1950s, men were seen as superior athletes. Before the tennis match with King, who was only 25, even Riggs said he could beat a woman at the age of 55.

King’s tennis match win proved Riggs wrong. It also proved that men and women could compete equally on the tennis field and in other sports.

On a bigger scale, it further empowered women, who were often stereotyped as wives, homemakers, or secretaries at the time. With King’s win, it became harder to ignore that gender stereotypes were false and that women could win and even lead amongst men.

King wore an iconic pair of blue Adidas tennis shoes during the match. Years later, to celebrate the 45th anniversary of King‘s win, Adidas launched a limited edition line of BJK shoes with the tennis legend’s face and initials on each pair.

To announce the shoe line, Adidas launched a series of simple commercials showing Billie Jean King spray-painting piles of shoes blue. Here’s an example of one of the ads:

To further promote the line, Adidas also had booths at the U.S. Open tennis match where fans could bring any brand of shoes and have an artist paint them blue with Adidas’ unique BJK logo.

According to Adidas, the overall campaign led to a 20% boost in tennis shoe sales. And, now that the campaign is over, people are auctioning off these limited edition shoes on eBay for upwards of $1,000.

8. Tesco

Nothing screams nostalgia like old home movies. In this extended holiday ad from British grocery chain Tesco, we watch a family grow and age over the years through the lens of their Christmas home videos. Set to a poignant theme, the ad is intended to stir up fond holiday memories for viewers.

“We wanted to show what a real Christmas is all about — not a perfect, airbrushed one — but the ones we recognize from our own lives,” David Wood, former marketing director at Tesco, told Adweek. The ad was produced by Wieden + Kennedy, London.

9. Microsoft

Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is no more, this 2013 spot for the web browser earned viral recognition and a Webby Award nomination.

“You might not remember us,” the ad‘s narrator begins, “but we met in the ’90s.” The commercial highlights all things ’90s — fanny packs, Tamagotchi, bowl haircuts — even the Oregon Trail PC game makes an appearance.

Column Five Media, the creative agency behind the ad, set out to create a nostalgia-driven viral ad that would reintroduce Internet Explorer to ’90s kids.

“The idea of a brand like Internet Explorer being forward-thinking enough to make such a story-focused, Gen Y-centered commercial was pretty newsworthy,” the agency wrote in a behind-the-scenes blog post.

“Focusing that story on ’90s nostalgia, which we knew was popular with Gen Y and not yet fully realized in video form, is what made [the ad] shareworthy.”

10. Chili’s

Chili’s ads are usually characterized by close-up shots of glistening hamburgers, sizzling bacon, and french fries still glowing with fryer oil.

So this 2016 ad produced by Boston-based agency Hill Holliday was a departure from the casual dining chain’s typical go-to formula.

The commercial depicts Chili‘s origin story through a series of retro vignettes. We see the laid-back founders playing ring toss, lounging on the hood of their car, and, of course, flipping classic Chili’s burgers in their first restaurant.

The ad taps into traditional Americana — a form of nostalgia for small-town American life, middle-class values, and neighborhood restaurants.

11. Apple

Apple regularly features celebrities in their advertising, but they made a throwback casting decision for this iPhone 6s nostalgic commercial.

Everyone’s favorite sweet-toothed Muppet, Cookie Monster, might have switched to a more balanced diet, but he appears whipping up a batch of his favorite chocolate chip cookies in this ad.

TBWA/Media Arts Lab is the agency behind the ad, and they even released a series of “bloopers” featuring the beloved childhood character.

12. Target

The nostalgic force is strong in this Target video promoting Star Wars: The Force Awakens merchandise.

As part of a more extensive campaign to encourage fans to share their Star Wars memories online, Deutsch LA produced this two-minute compilation of Star Wars fans’ home videos.

In the nostalgic commercial, young fans dressed as little Princess Leias, Luke Skywalkers, and Han Solos brandish lightsabers and give their best Chewbacca impressions, all while the classic Star Wars theme plays in the background.

The result is an endearing campaign that will resonate with longtime fans and new converts alike.

13. Bacardi

For its 150th anniversary in 2012, Bacardi released a series of print and television ads showcasing the brand’s party-starting heritage.

The trip down memory lane was intended to give the company a shot of authenticity, reminding consumers that Bacardi has stood the test of time.

The goal, according to Leo Premutico, co-founder of WPP agency Johannes Leonardo, the agency behind the ad, was “to depict a moment in time that lives in history” and offer “an eye to what’s next, an exciting future.”

14. McDonald’s

When McDonald’s removed antibiotics and artificial preservatives from their chicken in 2016, they wanted an ad campaign that informed consumers about these changes and tapped into nostalgia surrounding their famous nuggets.

“There’s an undeniable level of nostalgia tied to the McDonald’s brand and its food,” Britt Nolan, Leo Burnett USA’s Chief Creative Officer, told Adweek.

“We set out to capture that relationship in a sincere, simple way that today’s parents can relate to and feel good about sharing with their own kids.”

15. Uber Eats

To support local restaurants and build hype around their product, Uber Eats turned to beloved local access show hosts and rockers Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar for their Super Bowl 2021 spot.

The dynamic duo from the 1992 classic Wayne’s World appealed to nostalgic millennial audiences while also nodding to the present with a Tik-Tok-dancing Cardi B cameo. While the Cardi B cameo is self-awarely shameless, it illustrates a valuable strategy of leveraging nostalgia while acknowledging modernity.

Limited Re-Releases of Nostalgic Products

Some products are so classic that the mere mention drums a swell of warm, fuzzy nostalgic bliss. Think Tamagotchi and Beanie Babies for 90s kids or Cabbage Patch Dolls from the 80s.

Companies lucky enough to score a hit product back in the day have capitalized on it in the present by offering limited re-releases of those beloved past items.

Here are a few examples of limited re-releases of nostalgic products.

16. Crystal Pepsi

Pepsi released Crystal Pepsi in 1992. Despite a less-than-stellar reception and resulting discontinuation in 1994, Pepsi’s quirky, clear soda remains a warm and comforting memory for many who yearn for simpler times.

Pepsi ran a limited rerelease of the drink in 2022 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its failed yet nostalgic beverage.

However, Crystal Pepsi was never available for purchase. Nostalgia fans entered a social media competition and used branded hashtags to show off their favorite 90s photos, with winners receiving 20 bottles of the storied soda.

In addition, Pepsi recently unveiled its first rebrand since 2008, complete with a new logo and visual identity that pays homage to vintage Pepsi branding of the 70s and 80s.

17. Motorola Razr

In the early 2000s, before smartphones, one of Motorola’s most popular cell phones was a tiny, flat flip phone called the Razr. Despite its number-based keyboard and a small screen, people loved it for its design and simplicity.

In 2019, Motorola gained buzz when it re-introduced a new and improved Razr featuring a folding touchscreen.

In the commercial announcement, you see an old-school Razr lifting off a table and flying through the air as its old layers peel off to reveal a new design. The phone then opens to reveal the Android-like touch screen.

Partnering with Nostalgic Brands

Your brand may not have been around back in the day — and that’s okay! However, that doesn’t mean you can’t draw on nostalgia in your marketing efforts.

Partnering with a classic brand is a win-win scenario that draws nostalgia fans toward a new product and reinvigorates awareness of the older brand.

Here are a few examples of modern companies partnering with nostalgic brands to supercharge their marketing efforts.

18. Hotels.com x Lisa Frank

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Hotels.com partnered with Lisa Frank and Barsala to offer a pop-up flat that fulfills the nostalgic fantasies of ‘90s kids who loved their rainbow-clad notebooks and unicorn pencil pouches.

“We wanted to design a room that celebrates all things ’90s, and nothing screams childhood nostalgia more than these iconic designs,” shared Adam Jay, President of Hotels.com.

The room was exclusively bookable on Hotels.com for a short time in 2019 and proved to be a successful example of nostalgia marketing, especially as it appeals to millennial audiences.

The hyper-stimulating and nostalgic design generated lots of press and even more Instagram hype from happy guests basking in the warmth of childhood wonder.

19. JNCOs x Goldfish

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Jalapeno poppers were big in the ‘90s, and so were ultra-wide-leg jeans. So, it was only natural for Goldfish to partner with JNCO for a limited edition pair of nostalgia-inducing jeans to promote their new jalapeno popper-flavored snack.

Brand partnerships are a great way to market new products and reach wider audiences. If your partnership can evoke sentimental emotions in a specific audience, that’s a recipe for success.

20. AirBnb x Blockbuster

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Few 90s memories are as sacred as wandering into Blockbuster on a Friday evening and being greeted with a labyrinth of movie titles and games to choose from — perhaps even some candy at journey’s end.

Sadly, only a single Blockbuster remains in Bend, OR. However, AirBnb partnered with the lone video rental store to offer a 90s-themed experience to Blockbuster lovers looking to relive their nostalgic memories in the form of an overnight stay.

The sentimental stay was only available for three nights in September 2020, with proceeds going to charity. With limited availability and a strong nostalgic hook, this partnership garnered significant buzz for both brands.

Nostalgia in Design

Nostalgia in advertising can be more subtle than partnering with classic brands or featuring nostalgic pop-culture icons in advertisements.

Some brands invoke fond memories within consumers through the design of products that nod to the style and aesthetics of a time when things were just a bit simpler.

21. Levi’s

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Baggy jeans are back, and Levi’s is driving the resurgence of the 90s clothing aesthetic in their design. Their Instagram page is replete with vintage tinted filters and models who look like they stepped off the set of Dawson’s Creek.

They even offer a special line of 90s edition 501 jeans that call upon nostalgia in name and design, with their loose-fitting, mid-rise vibe that provides a blast from the past for lovers of all things 90s.

Levi’s leans into the storied history of their brand in their advertising and product design, which elicit positive feelings of the past in their customers. If you can make your customers feel good, they’ll surely want to buy.

22. Heinz’s Ketchup

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There’s comfort in consistency, and few brands recognize that more than Heinz.

The image above shows an original Heinz Ketchup bottle from 1890, which doesn’t look all that different from the current Heinz designs.

If you have an iconic logo, it might be your best bet to stick with it. Classic designs offer feelings of safety and trust in consumers, resulting in brand loyalty and sales.

Of course, we can’t all be stewards of iconic brands. However, leaning into nostalgia through the design of your products is a powerful way to garner positive feelings toward your brand.

How to Nail Nostalgia

The key to nailing nostalgia is understanding what motivates your audiences, how they were raised, and where their deepest interests lie.

To do this, research or develop buyer personas that grew up in certain generations to learn what makes them think.

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in September 2016, but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in February 2020.

Conversion copywriters — the people who write landing page copy that converts readers and delivers sales — are wonderful human beings. Their writing pulls in readers, generates conversions, and ultimately produces buckets of cash.

Wouldn’t you like to have that skill?

There’s good news here: It’s only partly skill. The rest is just technique — technique that you can learn and master. You — yes, you! — can unleash the same wizard-like conversion copy powers, as long as you understand the techniques that are at play.

You see, conversion is very much a science of the mind — how your prospect’s mind processes information, makes decisions, and decides to convert. In this post, I’ll describe eight writing techniques that are proven to work. After putting your time and resources into generating traffic, here’s how you can turn traffic into revenue by creating copy like a conversion pro.

Here are the tips we’ll cover:

1. Use customer testimonials
2. Emphasize the benefits, not the product/service
3. Spend time writing a killer headline
4. Keep your writing simple
5. Write like a human
6. Use numbers and get specific
7. Ask for readers to take action
8. A/B test your copy

8 Tips for Writing Great Landing Page Copy

1) Use customer testimonials.

One of the most powerful conversion copy techniques is not about writing at all; it’s about letting happy customers write your copy for you.

Testimonials produce conversions like nothing else can. It’s impossible to write copy as good as your customer. Why? Because good copy depends on the source, not just the style and substance. Testimonials are compelling because they show the customer what she will experience if she uses your product or service.

HighriseHQ’s landing pages are great use cases of these customer testimonials. A key to their successful, high-converting landing pages is that they place testimonials front and center, featuring a picture of the customer alongside a quote.

Now, take a look at one of Zoosk’s landing pages, where most of the copy is testimonials:

Most landing pages that do well have testimonials somewhere on the page, but ConversionXL uses a testimonial as their headline:

Remember, your best conversion writers are your customers. Let them speak for themselves — social proof is a powerful addition to your copywriting and marketing strategy.

2) Emphasize the benefits, not the product/service.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in online marketing is that customers don’t really care about your products or services — in other words, they don’t care about the “solution” you’re trying to sell to them. A group of Harvard researchers conducted a study of 1,400 B2B customers in a variety of different fields, and concluded we’ve reached “the end of solution sales.”

Traditionally, sales was predicated on the “solution-selling method.” According to this method, “salespeople are trained to align a solution with an acknowledged customer need and demonstrate why it is better than the competition’s.”

That approach isn’t working anymore for one very simple reason: Customers already know the solution they’re looking for. They are capable of learning virtually anything thanks to the internet and search engines. In fact, not only do customers know the solution, they also know the features they are looking for, the requirements the product must meet, and a benchmark pricing.

If you are pitching only your solution, you’re not giving your customers what they need and want. You need to pitch benefits. It’s okay to mention your solution, because that’s a signal to the customer that he or she is in the right place — but don’t push that solution. Instead, push the benefits.

Let’s look at an example from Unbounce, who successfully emphasizes the benefits of their product on this landing page: “Without IT”; “build a high-converting landing page now”; “we’ve doubled and tripled conversion rates.”

GetACopywriter.com leads with benefits in their landing page, pictured below. Their ideal customers are looking for copywriters, so they simply pitch the benefits of getting a copywriter through their service.

Jaybird, a company selling high-end Bluetooth headsets, uses a landing page that exclusively talks about benefits. There is very little on here about solutions. What sets the Bluebuds apart from everyone else is the benefits.

Benefits trump solutions every time. If you want to take your copywriting to the next level and increase conversion rates, put customer benefits at the forefront of your marketing efforts.

3) Spend time writing a killer headline.

HubSpot’s Campaign Assistant can help you generate copy

This isn’t the best news you’re going to read all day, but someone needs to say it. People don’t meticulously read your landing page copy. They scan, they skim, and they allow their eyes to flitter across the page, but they don’t (usually) read every word.

So, what’s a copywriter to do? Go find a job where someone actually appreciates our hard work?

No. We adapt to the customer and produce copy that will compel them to convert in spite of their skimming habits. Here’s what customers do pay attention to:

• The headline.
• The subheadline (usually).
• The pictures.
• CTA buttons.

After that, customers may or may not read the following:

• Major section headings.
• Bullet points.
• Short paragraphs.
• Image captions.

That should give you an idea of what to focus on as you write your conversion copy. The most important piece of content is the ten or fifteen words in the headline. Focus on and nail that, and you’ll have come a long way. To help convert the “non-readers,” you should:

1. Make your headline big, strong, and clear.
2. Use a compelling subheadline that pushes your product’s benefits.
3. Show large pictures that demonstrate the benefits of your products and explain your message.
4. Use strong copy in your CTA.
5. Break your copy up into major sections, led by a headline with large type.
6. Use bullet points to discuss benefits of your product. Short bullet points. Not long ones.
7. Use short paragraphs, rather than long blocks of text. Any paragraph over five lines long can be hard to digest.
8. Use captions on your images.

4) Keep your writing simple.

The best conversion copy you’re going to read will come in the next two words: Be simple.

You may be as good of a writer as Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, but that doesn’t matter so much because literary prowess is useless in conversion copy. Your most powerful writing skill is simplicity. Simplicity sells.

Take Optimizely, for example. They produce some of the most brilliant landing pages ever created for their clients, but take a look at their own landing page:

Is that it? Yes, yes it is. And it’s very effective. Why? Because it’s so incredibly simple. Let’s visit another landing page service — Get Response. Here is their landing page:

Simplicity again. Did whoever wrote those landing pages sit around for hours brainstorming, testing, tweaking, standing in front of a white board with a fistful of colored markers, thumbing through a thesaurus, taking long walks in nature, and meditating on the meaning of life in order to produce such brilliant simplicity?

Nope. They just wrote the simplest, most clear statements they could.

But simplicity doesn’t mean replacing creativity with meaningless buzzwords. ConversionXL created a list of words that marketers should do their best to avoid — these are phrases that you don’t want to use:

• “On-demand marketing software”
• “Integrated solutions”
• “Flexible platform”
• “World leader”
• “Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”
• “Changing the way X is done”
• “Paradigm shifting”
• “Exceeding customer expectations”

(Click here for even more cliché marketing taglines you should avoid.) Those clichés don’t work anymore — you need to keep it simple. Here are a few tips for keeping your landing page copy simple:

• Use a simple sentence structure.
• Keep sentences short.
• Use short words. Short words are easy to understand and skim.
• Don’t get fancy with your wording.
• Be clear and succinct. Use the most basic words to describe what you’re trying to say.

If you can be simple, you can write great conversion copy.

5) Write like a human.

There’s another technique that will help you crush your competition: Sound like a human being.

At some point, a bunch of copywriters decided it would be great to produce copy that sounded strained and robotic. Who’s writing this stuff? And who’s reading this stuff? I don’t know, but I do know that no one is converting on it.

People prefer to connect with other people, not with robots. That’s why your copy needs to sound like a human wrote it. Here are some specific things you can do to make your writing more personal:

• Write the way you speak.
• Use normal words, like the ones you’d use if you were talking to a ten-year old. For example, why use “convivial” if you can use “friendly?”
• Use short sentences.
• Break grammar rules if the writing still sounds good and natural.
• Be funny.
• Use first person.
• Use expressions you’d use in a normal conversation. “Seriously.” “I’m thinking…,” “Wait a second.” “It was crazy.” “Wow.” “It was pretty awesome.” “It’s like…”

Ramit Sethi, a personal finance advisor, entrepreneur, and author of the famous blog “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” has with sky-high conversion rates and a powerful personal style. His blogs read like a personal email to a best friend. He doesn’t even mind tossing in a word or two that he would use if he was hanging with his buddies. Check out this excerpt from one of his blog posts:

Try to get yourself away from the idea that you’re writing “copy,” and think of it more as a conversation. If you do that, you’ll write better. You’ll sound like a human. Your conversion rates will go up.

6) Use numbers and get specific.

The more specific you are, the more believable and persuasive you will be. Which one of these claims is more persuasive to you?

• “Your conversion rates will explode!”
• “In the last ninety days, customer conversions have increased by an average of 78.2%.”

The second one is far more specific, and therefore more believable. Anyone can make blanket claims about awesomeness, but not everyone can cite statistics and detailed metrics.

Let’s take a look at an example. Check out this landing page example from TeamGantt. They use a specific number to promote the benefits of their product:

How effective would it be if they claimed to have “millions of tasks scheduled?” The number makes a big difference. Customers want to have specific information about benefits customers are seeing, and they want specific examples of what they will experience. Specificity is a powerful tool.

7) Ask for readers to take action.

The final killer technique of a conversion pro is the call-to-action. If you don’t ask for conversions, you won’t get them. That’s why I suggest that you start with the end goal in ind — and the whole point of your landing page is that conversion. All of your copy should be building up to that conversion. Don’t be shy!

Similarly, writing CTA button copy is just as important, if not more so, than the rest of the copy on your page. Remember, how I mentioned that CTA buttons are one of the copy that people actually read? It matters. Simple changes in wording can create huge conversion increases, like in this example:

For more ideas on CTA copy that drives clicks, check out these 14 real-life examples of great CTA copy.

8) A/B test your copy.

Get started with HubSpot’s free landing page builder

A good conversion copy writer isn’t just writing — you’ve got to be testing, too. How else will you know what kind of writing converts higher or lower for your audience?

There are all kinds of A/B tests you can do on a landing page — images, placement, flow, layout, etc. Usually, however, the biggest gains come from changes in the copy. If you want to gain higher and higher conversion rates, you’ll need to be testing your copy along with the other elements of your landing pages.

Don’t expect to hit a homerun on your first at-bat. You will succeed by carefully, methodically, and intentionally testing every variation. Here are some of the things you can test:

• Headline variations
• Subheadline variations
• CTA copy
• Lists of benefits

Test small things, too, A single word change in the headline could make a huge impact in your conversion rates. You won’t know unless you test it out. (Don’t know how to run an A/B test? Click here to learn.)

You can use HubSpot’s free landing page builder to test page variations against each other. 

Get Started With Writing Landing Page Copy

All in all, boosting conversion rates starts with killer copy. A whole lot depends on the words that you type with your keyboard. Thankfully, it’s not some insurmountable task — anyone can learn how to do it. With the right copywriting techniques firmly in place, you can achieve higher conversion rates.

What techniques do you use to write your conversion copy?

 

Throughout the holiday season, we at Google have annually watched shoppers move between 4 distinct mindsets, or what we call the ‘4Ds:’ deliberate, deal-seeking, determined, and devoted.

What are these four Ds?

• Starting in July, consumers are deliberate, thoughtfully planning their holiday purchases and wishlists.
• From October to November, they’re deal-seeking, hunting for deals and prioritizing quality and value.
• By December, they become determined to complete their shopping ahead of the holidays and are using all days and resources to get it done.
• And finally, by January, consumers become devoted as they continue to shop past peak season.

Check out this quick short where we highlight these trends:

What Do the 4Ds Mean for Your Brand?

With December fast approaching, we’ll start to see the determined shopping mindset emerge followed by devoted buyers in January.

Leveraging these three strategies has helped us, and will also help you, align with these busy shoppers:

1. Keep momentum in December and beyond
2. Connect with customers across touchpoints
3. Build long-term brand loyalty

Keeping Momentum in December — and Beyond

The opportunity for retailers doesn’t end with Cyber 5, the peak deal period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.

According to a Mastercard analysis we ran with BCG from October 2022 through January, 46% of U.S. consumer holiday spending occurred between Cyber Monday and Christmas Eve in 2022. These shoppers also spent over $47 billion in retail in the two weeks after December 25th. 

So what’s driving consumer demand in December and January? We partnered with Ipsos on a few surveys between October 2022 and January 2023 to find out:

In December, shoppers are more motivated than ever to finish holiday shopping. Last year, the average US shopper still had 50% of their shopping left to do after “Cyber 5.” Gen Z-ers had even more left to complete than other generations. [4] 

By January, consumers can now shop for their own enjoyment and less-so out of gift obligations. According to our data, 50% of consumers enjoy shopping shortly after Christmas.

Connecting with Customers Across Touchpoints

In-store shopping climbed to record heights last year, topping $1 trillion for the first time ever.

A key driver behind these high rates of brick-and-mortar shopping is shoppers’ use of digital resources before going to a physical shop. These digital offerings are helpful to in both deciding on and fulfilling them. 

One company that saw this was cosmetics chain, Ulta Beauty, who spoke with Google about their holiday performance:

We also see consumers increasingly tapping into multiple digital channels over the course of the season.

An online study we ran with Ipsos from October 2022 through January 2023 revealed more than half of shoppers used five or more channels, like video and social media, to shop over a two-day period in 2022. That proportion of shoppers increased in December.

And we actually see shoppers use even more digital resources to make purchases after the height of the holiday season, with the average number of digital resources used increasing post-holiday. From our research, we see that this includes Google properties, like Search, Maps, Youtube, whose already high usage throughout the season increases significantly post-Christmas.

Not only are shoppers continuing to shop, but they’re shopping across more digital properties. This means brands that use omnichannel experiences to connect with customers across touchpoints can stand out from the crowd.

Build Long-Term Brand Loyalty.

In a Google-commissioned study we ran this October, we learned there’s an even larger opportunity to build long-term brand loyalty, especially as almost half (47%) of shoppers say the time after Christmas enables them to shop for brands they love. 

Consider promoting loyalty or rewards programs, which are top of mind for shoppers during this period.

In January 2023, we observed a noteworthy 50% surge in search interest regarding loyalty programs, which includes searches like ‘reward program’ and ‘loyalty points’, compared to December 2022.[11]

In data we gathered between September 2022 and January 2023, we also saw the search volume for gift-related queries, like ‘gifts’ and ‘presents,’ remained high in January 2023 — a 45% and 15% increase compared to the early holiday months of September 2022 and October 2022, respectively.

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve learned about these key holiday trends, start getting ahead of the Black-Friday buzz by preparing and finalizing your holiday campaigns — if you haven’t already. 

For more content or helpful tips, check out our Holiday Shopping Trends Report from Think With Google, or keep exploring the HubSpot Marketing Blog.

The social media boom of the last decade is over. It’s not that people are no longer using social media — they are. They’re just using it less, and engaging differently.

In 2022, the average daily time spent on social media declined globally leading to a drop in organic reach for brands and creators.

Per GWI, 54% of people use social media to connect with friends and family, and 27% of people use social media to keep up with news. What they aren’t necessarily hopping on social media to do is be sold to. However, social media platforms need users to spend as much time on their apps as possible and to continue buying from advertisers in order to remain profitable.

In other words, social media users want to socialize and social media platforms want to sell, leading to a misalignment between a product and its customer base.

Here are some key insights we’re seeing with the current state of social media.

Users Prefer to Share with ‘Close Friends’

There is one social media feature that satisfies users’ desire to connect — Instagram’s Close Friends. On Close Friends, users feel free to share private stories in a controlled, non-judgmental space. Individuals can control who sees their content, and it’s the one corner of the app where there are no ads or selling.

Instagram has taken note and is expanding the Close Friends feature, including an option to only share in-feed posts with Close Friends. If this feature takes off, it could make posting to the public feed obsolete for the average user.

Sales Fatigue Is on the Rise

While advertising and sponsored content are nothing new on social media, users are feeling sold to more than ever, especially on TikTok. In September 2023, the platform rolled out its in-app shopping platform called TikTok Shop. Since its launch, TikTok Shop has been met with mixed reviews.

While the app’s commission-based structure can be helpful for creators who recommend viral products, TikTok users have expressed that the platform’s focus on sales makes it feel more like a space for infomercials than a place where people go to learn or be entertained.

As evidenced by the lack of enthusiasm around Instagram’s failed in-app shopping platform, consumers in the U.S. don’t trust social media platforms enough to shop from them. Continuing to push in-app sales could cause friction between TikTok and its U.S. user base.

The Possibility of Going Ad-Free

Privacy laws have made paid social media advertising more expensive and complex than before. As if that weren’t challenging enough for brands, both TikTok and Meta are testing ad-free subscriptions to eliminate ads for some users altogether. Snapchat rolled out a similar offering last year called Snap+ which now has 5 million users and is expected to generate $240 million by the end of the year.

While these subscriptions may be lucrative for the platforms if users decide to buy (the key word being “if”), it could make reaching potential customers more challenging for brands that rely on paid ads.

What does this mean for marketers?

All hope is not lost for conducting business on social media, but it does mean brands may need to use social media differently. As mentioned above, the average social media user hops online to either connect or learn and brands that position their social platforms as a space for community and education could satisfy these needs.

With that in mind, businesses on social media may benefit from focusing less on engagement and the hard sell, and more on generating conversation among potential customers and getting potential buyers to engage offline through in-person communities and experiential marketing.

As new social media trends and best practices continue to emerge, we’ll report on the latest findings.

I send the HubSpot Marketing Emails every day, so I’m pretty familiar with the types of marketing emails marketers can leverage. However, which ones gain the most engagement and which do not?

To answer that question, and to pass that knowledge on to you, we ran a survey with Glimpse, asking marketers which types of emails achieve the highest performance.

Here’s what I found:

4 Types of Emails That Get the Most Engagement

The four emails get the most engagement, according to our latest Glimpse survey.

1. Multimedia Emails

Multimedia emails include videos, photos, GIFs, and other elements to make its content stand out. 44% of the marketers in our survey say multimedia emails get the highest engagement.

It makes sense because a variety in media gives consumers more dynamic content to interact with and is more appealing than emails with only text.

For example, Society6 sent the below email featuring GIFs of dancing phones with changing cases to showcase the variety of cases available on the website.

It also features moving text with changing colors to emphasize the phrases “Today Only” and “Flash Deals.”

2. Basic Emails

When I think of basic, I usually think “boring,” but that doesn’t have to be the case with these emails.

39% of marketers say they get the most engagement through basic email formats that highlight a list of links, articles, or pages to click on with light imagery.

For example, this email I received from Amazon Prime highlights links to the films on its platform with clickable images that take me to where it’s available to stream.

Incorporating photos in your emails will help illustrate the products, services, or information you’re trying to convey and entice readers to click.

3. Discount Emails

Our survey found almost a third of marketers (31%) say emails promoting coupons, discount codes, free resources, or sales get the most engagement. Who doesn’t love a chance to save money?

Bear in mind, however, that the secret to the success of these emails isn‘t just their content; it’s also in their subject lines.

I get promotional emails highlighting deals all the time in my own inbox, and something I’ve noticed is that almost every subject line includes quantitative information about these coupons, discounts, and sales. See the example below.

Notice all the subject lines read:

• “50% off Art Prints”
• “Earn $7 rewards”
• “25% of everything”
• “Up to $100 off”

Include quantitative information about deals in the subject line to immediately let subscribers know why they should click and open your email.

5 Types of Emails That Get the Least Engagement

For context, our surveys asked marketers to name the point out the types of emails that gain the most engagement. The emails in this list are mentioned because they got the least amount of votes from marketers.

1. Product/Service Announcement Emails

Only 24% of marketers say emails announcing new products yield the most engagement. That said, I still find a lot of value in sending product and service announcements via email — you just have to do it right.

To make your product/service announcement emails stand out in your recipients’ inboxes and boost their engagement, really lean into personalization.

Use the information you have about your consumers to send targeted product emails that are relevant to the recipient. For example, let‘s say you’re a pet supply store.

If you‘re selling a new cat toy, only send that product announcement to cat owners on your email list or to recipients who often buy cat supplies. And if you’re now offering dog grooming services, only send the information to subscribers who often purchase dog supplies.

2. Article-Style Emails

Only 23% of marketers in our survey say article-style emails with original content yield the most engagement.

Admittedly, it’s not my favorite type of email to receive. Like most consumers, I only spend a few seconds reading an email to scroll to the next or go about my day.

In fact, people spend, on average, only 9 seconds reading an email. So, article-style emails aren’t the most fruitful emails marketers can send nowadays.

Instead, I suggest doing what I do for the HubSpot Marketing Emails: include a short excerpt of articles or blog posts in the email and include clickable links and images so readers have the option to read the full article on your website.

Even if recipients don‘t read the full article, they’re at least more likely to click and go to your website.

3. Emails Promoting Contests/Competitions

This took me by surprise because I love a chance to win, but only 18% of marketers said emails promoting contests and competitions yield the most engagement.

However, I wouldn’t let that statistic dissuade you from leveraging contests and competitions in your email marketing campaigns. Instead, make your contests interesting and fun for your audience to encourage participation.

For example, I recently received an email from Canva challenging subscribers to design a mood board using the graphic design platform’s tools. If I make a mood board and share it with Canva, I could win a prize.

To make the competition more interesting, Canva says users must showcase their work on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) along with the brand’s hashtag #CanvaDesignChallenge for a chance to win.

Canva can then repost and share these creations as user-generated content.

It’s a clever idea because the challenge does the following:

• Creates a fun and engaging experience for users
• Showcases the brand’s tools and features
• Boosts brand awareness on social media via hashtags and content sharing
• Leverages user-generated content

So, to get the most out of your email contests and competitions, integrate social media and user-generated content in a way that is simple, engaging, and fun for recipients. Furthermore, use the competition as an opportunity for recipients to experience aspects of your product or service.

4. Educational Emails

Just 17% of marketers say educational emails about their industry rather than products or services get the most engagement.

This makes sense because consumers are typically less concerned with industry insight than they are with the products and services that could benefit them.

If you want to leverage these kinds of emails, make sure you let you audience know how the information benefits them and tie it back to the products and services you offer.

For example, this email from InVideo shares a quick blurb of valuable information:

“The use of apt text and text styles in videos can have a positive impact on several metrics, including watching time, engagement, and overall retention.”

The email then ties the information back to its service with a call to action:

“Find one that best goes with your content.”

The text is followed by an image showing the different kinds of text and text styles available on the platform.

In a way, the email presents a possible problem (you need the right apt text and text style), and then it presents the company’s products/service as a solution (look at all the text options they have).

Do the same in your own educational emails.

5. Event Announcements

Finally, only 10% of marketers say emails announcing events, such as conferences, livestreams, and webinars get the most engagement. To boost the engagement of these kinds of emails, follow the same advice I gave for educational emails.

For example, let’s say InVideo is hosting a webinar about choosing the right text style for videos. The email could have the same email message as the one above:

“The use of apt text and text styles in videos can have a positive impact on several metrics, including watching time, engagement, and overall retention.”

This time, however, the email could then say:

“Sign up for our webinar to learn how to choose the right apt text or text style for your next video.”

InVideo could also sweeten the deal by offering email recipients 20% off on some of its features in exchange for signing up for the webinar.

What I‘ve learned as an email marketer is that the type of email you send will depend on the goal of your email campaign and type of content your recipients respond to. I’ve also learned every email has to offer value to your consumers.

So, make sure every email you send out ties back to what solutions your organization provides. Keep this in mind, and you’ll surely have a successful email marketing campaign.

In today’s data-driven world, the ability to transform data into actionable insights has never been more critical  for success. According to HubSpot’s research, 36% of marketers say data helps them reach their target audience more effectively.

Data-driven decision making is used in almost all areas of business, especially marketing. Why building the right strategy will lead to solid ROI, doing so can be complex and time consuming. .

In this post we’ll help by covering:

• What Data-Driven Decision Making Is
• How to Build Data-Driven Decision Making Processes
• Benefits of Data-driven Decision Making
• Data-Driven Decision Making Examples

Data-Driven Decision Making Process

1. Define the objective.

Begin by clearly defining the goal or problem you need data to address. You’ll also want to determine how you’ll measure your success and  key performance indicators (KPIs). You can also leverage strategies like SMART goals to ensure your goals and objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound .

2. Collect and prepare data.

Gather relevant data from sources like internal databases, surveys, customer feedback, market research, or external sources. Clean and prepare the data by removing duplicates, addressing missing values, and ensuring consistently strong data quality. Then, use tools like dashboard, spreadsheets, or graphic software to transform the data into a usable format for analysis.

3. Analyze your data.

Tools like Marketing Analytics & Dashboard Software measures performance

Use data analysis and data visualization to gain insights from your collected data. 

Look for patterns, trends, correlations, and anomalies to understand the relationships within the data and identify potential opportunities or areas of concern.

Not an analytics pro? Tools like HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics & Dashboard Software can help you record and measure marketing performance data with built-in analytics, reports, and dashboards.

4. Interpret the findings.

Compare how your results stack up against your goals and objectives.. 

Identify key insights and draw conclusions based on the patterns or trends observed. Consider the limitations, assumptions, and potential biases that could have impacted the data and how that could affect the quality of the decisions made. .

5. Evaluate options for decision-making.

Source

Identify a handful of ways you can respond to, or make decisions based on, your data. 

Then, with tactics like cost-benefit analysis, SWOT analysis, or decision trees, compare the potential outcomes and risks of each potential decision, carefully considering different scenarios and trade-offs..

6. Make your decision. 

Select the best decision option after  considering youranalysis findings, goals, and any constraints. 

Involve key stakeholders in the decision-making process, communicating with and gaining feedback from them to ensure alignment and buy-in.

7. Implement and monitor your next steps.

Implement the chosen decision and track its progress against relevant KPIs, milestones or other performance data.

8. Learn and iterate

Lastly, continuously assess and refine your strategy based on any new data and feedback.

Analyze the results, including successes and failures, and incorporate the learnings into future decision making. 

Use a feedback loop to ensure data-driven decision making becomes an ongoing practice. This way, you can set the stage for continuous improvement and adaptation.

Benefits of Data-driven Decision Making

Different teams gain different benefits from data-driven decision making. In this section, we’ll go over how marketers, sales professionals, and service professionals can leverage data to their advantage.

For Marketers

Source

1. Targeted and personalized marketing

How can you create great content or campaigns for people you don’t know? 

With that question in mind, it’s not shocking that one-third of marketers say that the biggest benefit of data is being able to better target prospects. 

Data analysis helps you  understand your audience’s preferences, behaviors, and demographics, allowing you to create highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. This leads to better engagement and higher conversion rates.

For example, if you have a global audience, you might want to know which social platforms are used abroad and cater campaigns on those channels to audiences in different time-zones. This way, your content meets them where they are. 

2. Optimized marketing budget allocation

In uncertain economic times, marketing budgets are more scarce than ever. This is why 36% of marketers say one of the top reasons they leverage data is to justify their spend.

By analyzing data on marketing performance across different channels and campaigns, you can allocate your budget more effectively. This ensures that resources are invested in the most impactful areas, maximizing return on investment.

When you’re struggling to get budget, the same data can also help you determine where you might be spending too much, helping you reallocate spend quickly when tactics that once yielded ROI lose steam.

3. Improved campaign performance and ROI

Marketers, like those we surveyed above, know that data is power when it comes to developing and measuring key strategies and campaigns. By monitoring key metrics, you can make data-backed adjustments to optimize your campaigns or tactics for better results and higher ROI. 

Not to mention, your data and findings could also spark ideas for new campaigns or initiatives.

“Data should be one of the first things you look at when brainstorming new marketing initiatives,” says Pam Bump, Head of Content Growth at HubSpot. “Even when I’m trying to come up with a completely new idea, I’ll look at past campaigns’ performance, use SEO or social listening dashboards to determine traffic potential, and sometimes perform surveys to ask prospects in my target demographic what they’d like to see.” 

Bump isn’t alone, while 32% of marketers say strong data leads to ROI, 31% say it helps prove the value of their work — which can be vital to marketing budget, roles, and career growth In today’s economy.

4. Enhanced customer segmentation and targeting

Every prospect is unique. While you shouldn’t launch a giant campaign for each of them, the right data can help you break your audience into demographic or preference-based segments and cater your tactics to each group.

By leveraging data, you can segment your audience more accurately based on various criteria such as demographics, interests, or behavior. This allows you to tailor your marketing efforts to specific segments. 

5. Predictive analysis and trend identification

You can identify patterns, trends, and emerging market opportunities by analyzing historical and real-time data. 

Predictive data helps you stay ahead of the competition, adapt to changing customer needs, and make data-backed predictions.

6. Improved customer experience and satisfaction

Better understand customer preferences, pain points, and behavior at every touchpoint by analyzing data. You’ll be able to deliver a personalized customer experience, resulting in higher satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.

7. Continuous improvement and optimization

Data-driven decision making provides marketers with insights into what works and what doesn’t. By continuously monitoring and analyzing data, marketers can make data-backed optimizations to your strategies, campaigns, and tactics.

How Data-Driven Decision-Making Benefits Cross-Team Alignment

Whether you’re a marketer who doubles as a sales or service rep at a small company, an entrepreneur wearing all the hats, or focused on better aligning your campaigns with sales and service department efforts, it’s important to know how data-driven decision making impacts the whole funnel (and can drive more connected experiences between your brand, prospects, and customers).

Data-Driven Decision Making in Sales

1. Improved Sales Targeting

By analyzing data, sales professionals can identify and prioritize your most promising leads. It also can help you determine when marketing tactics aren’t generating interest from ideal buyers. By digging into sales targets, buyer persona and lead data, teams across your company  can  focus their time and efforts on engaging prospects with the highest likelihood of converting, resulting in improved sales efficiency, higher closing rates, and revenue attributed to your efforts.

2. Enabled Personalization

As marketers, we’ve seen how personalized campaigns can meet different types of buyers where they are (ideally, at the right place and right time to learn about a product). Data-driven insights also help enable sales teams to understand customers’ preferences, behavior, and pain points. 

Armed with this information, you can tailor your whole funnel – from marketing content, to sales pitches, and to customer solutions to specific customer needs, leading to higher engagement, better conversion rates, revenue, and even customer loyalty.

3. Increased team productivity.

HubSpot’s Sales Reporting & Performance Management Software tracks your sales teams’ progress

Sales leaders can identify and share best practices with your team. By analyzing data on successful tactics, strategies, or approaches, you can learn from your teammates and replicate successful sales techniques, leading to improved overall team performance.

For example, HubSpot’s Sales Reporting & Performance Management Software enables you to track your sales team’s progress and performance. You’ll be able to report on pipeline revenue, track target attainment, monitor your team’s sales activities, and unlock additional rep performance with deep coaching insights.

How Data-Driven Decisions Boost Service & Customer Experience

1. Improved customer satisfaction

By analyzing data, service professionals can gain insights into customer preferences, behavior, and satisfaction levels. This helps you identify areas for improvement and deliver more personalized and tailored experiences, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Efficient resource allocation

Data-driven decision making helps you improve resource allocation by understanding demand patterns, peak times, and resource use. This ensures that resources, such as staff, equipment, or inventory, are allocated effectively, resulting in improved efficiency and cost savings.

3. Proactive issue resolution

By monitoring and analyzing data, you can identify potential issues or trends before they become major problems. This allows you to take proactive measures to address or prevent issues, resulting in faster resolution times and improved customer experience.

4. Enhanced service personalization

Data enables you to gain a deep understanding of individual customers, their preferences, and their history with their organization. This allows for highly personalized service interactions, tailored recommendations, and a more personalized customer experience.

5. Better customer insights

Uncover customer insights with HubSpot’s Service Analytics tool

Data provides you with valuable insights into customer behavior, needs, and pain points. This understanding helps both marketers and service teams anticipate customer needs, offer relevant recommendations, and provide proactive content or support, resulting in a more seamless and satisfying customer experience.

Insightful tools can help you achieve this. With HubSpot’s Service Analytics tool, you can view reports on customer service data such as how your customers use your knowledge base, chat wait time, and customer satisfaction scores.

7. Continuous improvement

By collecting and analyzing data on service performance, you can identify trends, recurring issues, or areas for improvement. This enables you to make data-backed decisions to continuously evolve and enhance your service.

Data-Driven Decision Making Examples

World Wildlife Foundation

WWF wanted to gain a deeper understanding of user behavior on their website to ensure the success of its “Earth Hour” campaign in 2020.

They used analytics tools, including CMS Hub and Marketing Hub  to identify their most engaging content, enhance their content strategy across channels, and segment their user base to improve awareness for the event. Of course, this requires generating insights from data.

With data-driven tools and processes, WWF was able to better understand “users’ actions across our website, emails, and social pages, connecting the dots without having to rely on separate analytics tools for each channel,” says the Digital Communications Specialist at WWF. This, in turn, enabled their campaign to drive nearly 9500 newsletter signups. 

HubSpot Blog

In 2019, the HubSpot Blog had driven thousands of Page 1 search rankings and millions of organic (or search-based views) annually. But, we wanted to be less reliant on Google algorithms (which can drastically change traffic patterns when tweaked)

Pam Bump (also quoted above), leveraged historical data from blog posts, email campaigns, social media posts, and backlink profiles to build a content strategy around non-search content (which we call non-organic content). 

While the content strategy drove half a million views in year one, Bump continued to use performance data to further implement, refine, and scale it, without negatively impacting our winning SEO tactics. 

Today, “Non-Organic” content annually drives well over 9 million views, thousands of email and social engagements, and countless high-authority backlinks (coincidentally boosts search authority and organic traffic).

Get Started With Data-Driven Decision Making

Data is powerful. Without it, you’d be making decisions in the dark. Get started with HubSpot’s analytics and reporting tools.

As a marketer who frequently writes SEO-optimized content, I can confidently say that link-building is an essential aspect of SEO.

I‘ve found that it’s a cost-effective marketing principle that allows me to advertise on other reputable websites for free while gaining high-quality referral traffic.

If you’re unsure what link building is, it means creating links on other websites to increase search engine rankings and drive referral traffic to your site.

I typically embed links to my site via forms of content, including blog posts, infographics, articles, press releases, and images.

The process may sound time-consuming, but there are plenty of link building tools available to help you along quickly and efficiently. Let’s explore some link building tools you should check out.

Best Link Building Tools for SEO

1. Mailshake
2. Ahrefs
3. Check My Links
4. Screaming Frog
5. Scrapebox
6. Hunter
7. Semrush
8. Respona
9. BuzzSumo
10. Pitchbox
11. HARO
12. MOZ Link Explorer
13. Majestic
14. Help a B2B Writer

Best Practices

Best Link Building Tools for SEO

1. Mailshake

Mailshake is a simple-to-use software that sends email requests for link building, guest posting, and networking opportunities. The software allows you to choose from a collection of message templates, personalize your favorite, and send.

This strategy improves your email campaign‘s effectiveness and your business’s overall efficiency.

In addition to saving you time, Mailshake allows you to monitor replies, clicks, and more. The tool costs $29 per month, making it an affordable link-building software solution for marketers starting with their cold email outreach.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a powerful, well-rounded SEO software that provides several link building treats. With Ahrefs, you can analyze backlinks and referring domains, narrow them down with filters, and even secure your profile against suspicious links.

The full suite of options lets you do anything you need your SEO link building software to do.

Ahrefs also features a speedy crawler that crawls over four million pages without delay. Find link prospects by viewing your competitors’ data — including their top linked pages, new links, broken links, and more.

To access Ahrefs, sign up for a seven-day trial and choose the best plan that fits your needs and budget after the trial expires.

3. Check My Links

Check My Links is a free Google Chrome extension that crawls through any web page to check for broken links.

It’s one of the fastest link checkers you can use, and it registers and reports all of the broken links on a website within 20 to 30 seconds.

This gives you a significant advantage when contacting websites to promote links.

After checking a site with Check My Links, you can compile the broken links that are most relevant to your subject matter and propose replacing them with your functional links.

Hopefully, the site’s owner will appreciate you pointing out the broken links and offering a solution and will update the post with your replacement links ASAP.

4. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is another popular software among SEO experts. It’s able to monitor link building profiles and generate accurate reports automatically.

Screaming Frog‘s most notable value is that it enables you to thoroughly understand your backlink profile and the other factors that impact your website’s current search ranking.

As a link building software, it ensures all your links work correctly.

Screaming Frog has a free and paid version, highlighting broken links and generating reports. However, for $149 per year, you can enjoy all of the software’s features and unlimited website crawling.

5. ScrapeBox

ScrapeBox is a comprehensive link building software that pulls links from search engines that match your keywords. It‘s helpful to analyze your competitors’ link profiles to understand where you should target your link building efforts.

You can even scrape hundreds of proxies to be used in other link building SEO software.

ScrapeBox offers several significant advantages for your link building campaign, including the competitive edge of seeing into other brands’ link profiles.

It also allows you to add custom search engines and collect the usual URLs and their proxies.

6. Hunter

This comprehensive platform allows users to set up and manage link building outreach campaigns. I’m especially impressed by its features, such as:

• Domain Search: This feature helps users find a point of contact within a company by quickly providing publicly available email addresses associated with the website as well as confidence scores, department filters, and detailed sources.
• Email Finder: Just enter the website and name of the prospect you’re trying to contact, and Email Finder will give you the verified address you need.
• Email Verifier: This tool verifies the emails on your list to ensure you’re sending emails to the correct contacts.

7. Semrush

Semrush has a couple of features that are valuable for link building. One feature is the Link Building Tool, which helps users build backlinks at scale. It identifies link building opportunities by analyzing target keywords and competing websites.

You can then take that information and set up an email outreach campaign. The feature also includes built-in reports to monitor the campaign’s effectiveness.

Another feature is BackLink Gap, which analyzes your competitors’ backlink profiles so you can find untapped link-building opportunities. BackLink Gap shows what websites link to your competitors but not your website. You can then target those competitors in your campaign.

8. Respona

This link-building outreach platform comes with various pre-built campaigns to boost organic traffic. Some of my personal favorites are:

• Link-Insertion: Finds relevant, non-competing articles to link back to your site.
• Skyscraper Technique: Discovers backlinks to the the top search results for your keywords.
• Product Reviews: Gathers reviews for your product.
• Podcast Outreach: Finds interview opportunities on podcasts within your niche.

9. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a brand monitoring and content discovery tool that offers many perks. For example, the tool allows you to discover and track domains that link to your competitors.

Even better, you can export those domains to a spreadsheet for reference in your next link building campaign.

You can also set up alerts for when a website links to your competitors. Finally, BuzzSumo also tracks your own backlinks and sends alerts when you get a new backlink.

10. Pitchbox

Pitchbox provides several ways to find prospects and build links. With Blogger Outreach, you can find and contact blogs within your niche to post about your products and services and link to your website.

You can also use Pitchbox’s many templates to execute link building strategies. And if you already have prospects, you can import them into a spreadsheet to be referenced in your campaign.

11. HARO

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is mainly a resource for reporters looking to gather sources; however, it can be a useful link building tool if used correctly.

I use HARO to secure backlinks in different publications and both small and large media outlets. The New York Times and Mashable, for example, are reachable via HARO.

All you need to do to see the benefits is sign up to be a source on the platform.

You‘ll then receive email requests from journalists needing your expertise or information, which you can offer, and they’ll typically link to your website in their content.

12. Moz Link Explorer

This tool from Moz is an excellent way to stay competitive. All you have to do is enter the URL of the website or page you want link data for. Then, you can see all of their backlinks and receive metrics, like the site’s domain authority.

13. Majestic

Majestic offers information regarding the number of backlinks a website has, referring domains, and anchor text analysis.

But its standout feature is its Topical Trust Flow, which measures how many links a website has from trusted “seed” websites.

14. Help a B2B Writer

Help a B2B Writer works the same as HARO, but it’s a service for content marketers rather than journalists. As you would on HARO, you register as a source with Help a B2B writer and you get daily emails with source requests.

You can also select specific categories to get relevant emails that suit your niche.

Link Building Best Practices

The bare-bones definition of link building is strategically acquiring links pointing back to your website to increase organic rankings and drive referral traffic.

However, successful link building is more than that — it also means carefully considering where you place your links, the type and format of the links, the links’ anchor text, and how diversified the backlink portfolio is.

I’ve found these best practices to be practical parts of an overall link building strategy:

• Create excellent content: The more valuable and engaging your content is, the more likely you can earn coveted spots on popular websites. I always ensure my content is easy to read, with helpful information like stats, quotes, and other trustworthy data.
• Keep links relevant: The links should also lead back to high-quality and relevant information on your site. Search engines emphasize relevance, which is another reason targeting websites within your industry is important.

For example, if my site offers professional cleaning services, linking to a site offering cleaning equipment would be more relevant than linking to a sports equipment company.

• Less is more: I’ve realized that placing a few links on high-quality sites is much more effective than putting a more significant number of links on suspicious or spammy sites.

For instance, with the correct social media management tools, you can make the most of your link building software on the most visible online platforms. It’s all about quality over quantity.

I also recommend diversifying your link portfolio to have a mix of different kinds of links.

• Build relationships: Popular blogs are quickly becoming where we go for reliable, relevant news for almost any industry. Take advantage of the existing audiences on blogs in your industry by commenting on posts or even guest blogging. Blog comment links won‘t pass any clout, but they will grab the author’s attention.

If you are adding value, that will make it easier to partner up on content opportunities. Similarly, developing strong ties with industry influencers and reputable authors can help you add well-placed links to your arsenal.

• Aim for resource pages: One of the more proven link building strategies is to get links included on a popular resource page. Websites often list helpful links and resources for specific topics, such as a recipe page on a food blog centered on a particular restaurant.

If you have a recipe or related content to share, you can contact the website’s author to ask if they could include your links on the page. It can become a home run if it fits the page and your brand well.

Link building is essential for the success of any online business, which you can measure by the volume of targeted traffic to your website.

By following proven best practices and investing in the best SEO link building software, you can ensure that traffic and prosperity remain high.

We’ve all been there: staring intensely at the screen, willing ideas to come to our minds.When words or ideas aren’t shooting out of our minds or fingertips, we know we’ve entered a writers’ block rut.

This is where brainstorming tools come in. By helping us generate and organize ideas, they can help both individual marketers, or teams who are always brainstorming. 

With features like virtual whiteboards, mind maps, and voting systems, today’s brainstorming tools foster efficient idea generation and collaboration among team members, regardless of their physical location.

In this post, we will cover:

• AI Brainstorming Tools
• Collaborative Brainstorming Tools
• Note-Taking Brainstorming Tools
• Free Brainstorming Tools
• Brainstorming Templates
• Brainstorming vs. Mind Mapping

AI Brainstorming Tools

HubSpot AI Content Writer

Get started with the AI Content Writer

HubSpot AI Content Writer is a brainstorming tool that can help you when you’re stuck. If you need to create content, whether it’s an email, a landing page, a blog post, or a social post, you can tell the software the audience you’re writing to, the message you want to communicate, the length, and the tone you’d like to convey.

For example, I gave it a prompt to brainstorm ideas for a blog post about how to set up an e-commerce shop. In return, I received a list of blog post ideas I can pursue.

You can also use AI Content Writer to generate outlines, headlines, and content ideas in a pinch. 

Price: HubSpot AI Content Writer is available as part of CMS Hub, which offers a free version, Starter at $23 per month, Professional at $360 per month, and Enterprise at $1,200 per month.

Collaborative Brainstorming Tools

Lucidspark

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If you like sticky notes, Lucidspark might be the brainstorming tool for you. The software is an interactive whiteboard that supports real-time collaboration by allowing you to chat, leave comments, react with emojis, and vote on ideas. You can simply type your ideas on a sticky note, or use drawing tools to mark something up, and drag or share your thoughts to the canvas. 

Lucidspark also offers customizable brainstorming templates for brainwriting, concept summaries, storyboarding, mind mapping, and wireframes. Lucid supports basic Excel import for Individual and Team accounts.

Pricing: Free version available. Individual at $7.95, Team at $9 per user, and custom pricing for Enterprise.

Miro

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Like Lucidspark, Miro is a collaborative brainstorming tool that fosters an open teamwork style with a whiteboard user experience. It also offers more than 200 brainstorming templates includingstickies, user story maps, and brainwriting. Additional features like chat, comments, sticky notes, and video allow you to bounce ideas off your team and gather feedback.

Miro can also import data from spreadsheets and integrates with popular tools like G Suite, Microsoft Teams (and Excel), Slack, and Zoom.

Pricing: Miro offers a Free version, Starter at $8 per member per month, Business at $16 per member per month, and custom pricing for Enterprise.

Milanote

Source

Milanote is another online whiteboard that enables you to collaborate with teams. You can write notes and to-do lists; upload images, Excel documents and design files; save text, images, and links from the web; and add notes and photos from your phone.

Unlike similar whiteboarding tools on this list, Milanote’s geared towards design and creative teams with its ability to support design files.

Pricing: Milanote offers a free version with paid plans starting at $9.99 per person per month and team upgrades starting at $49 per month (billed annually).

Note-Taking Brainstorming Tools

TheBrain

 

TheBrain is a note-taking brainstorming tool with AI features. It aims to digitize your thoughts and organize everything you need for brainstorming in one place by enabling you to take notes and save files, web pages, images, and emails to the platform. Though it’s note-heavy, you can also structure and visualize the writing with outline view, thought icons, and embedding of images, videos, and links into your notes.

You can also generate outlines and content by leveraging TheBrain’s AI capabilities.

Pricing: Free version available. Pro Service at $15 per set per month, Pro License at $219 one-time, and Pro Combo (License and Cloud Services) at $299 per seat per year.

Evernote Teams

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Evernote Teams is a note-based collaboration tool with brainstorming features. You can access shared notebooks and spaces and collaborate in real-time by editing notes with team members.

Evernote Teams integrates with Google Suite, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

Pricing: Free trial available. Pricing available upon request.

Free Brainstorming Tools

HubSpot Campaign Assistant 

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HubSpot Campaign Assistant is a free AI-powered brainstorming tool for marketing campaigns. If you’re encountering roadblocks, Campaign Assistant can help you brainstorm marketing campaigns, whether you need copy for a landing page, marketing email, or Google ad.

You can share details about your campaign and select a tone of voice that aligns with your brand. With just a few clicks, you’ll receive copy highlighting your selling points and incorporating your desired call to action. 

For example, when I used this tool to create an email marketing campaign for an online Halloween sale at a costume store that also sells Halloween home decor, I gave the tool a description of what the campaign was about, key facets my audience should know about, a call-to-action, and a writing style. 

Within seconds, Campaign Assistant generated a ready-to-use email in an excited and humorous tone.

Pricing: Free.

Google Docs

Source

You’re probably already familiar with Google Docs. It’s a classic brainstorming tool that enables you to type out ideas, and collaborate with your team by sharing docs. 

I use Google Docs on a nearly daily basis — in fact, I wrote the draft for this blog post on Google Docs. Before delving into a blog post, I would create a separate document for to brainstorm a good outline.

Google Docs also integrates with other popular brainstorming tools, making it a helpful supplementary software.

Pricing: Free

Brainstorming Templates

Brainstorming can be intimidating, especially when you’re staring at a blank slate. This is how brainstorming templates can help.

Brainstorming templates are pre-designed frameworks or structures that guide and organize the brainstorming process. These templates provide a starting point for teams to generate ideas and encourage structured thinking. Whether in the form of mind maps, SWOT analysis, or decision matrices, these templates help individuals and teams explore different angles, foster collaboration, and ensure that no important areas are overlooked.

By using brainstorming templates, teams can streamline their ideation process, stay focused, and ultimately increase their chances of generating innovative and effective solutions.

Here are some brainstorming templates:

• HubSpot’s Free Brainstorming Template 

• Asana
• Canva
• Lucidspark
• Miro

Brainstorming vs. Mind Mapping

Brainstorming and mind mapping are two distinct techniques employed in the creative process. While brainstorming focuses on generating a large quantity of ideas without any evaluation or organization, mind mapping involves visually organizing and establishing relationships among these ideas. In brainstorming, ideas can be random and diverse, allowing for a free flow of creativity.

On the other hand, mind mapping uses a central point as a starting point and branches out to connect related sub-topics and ideas, creating a structured and hierarchical visual representation. Brainstorming is the initial step in idea generation, while mind mapping facilitates the organization and understanding of these ideas for further development and implementation.

Get Started With Brainstorming Tools

From capturing and organizing ideas to leveraging artificial intelligence for content generation, brainstorming tools have become essential. With their intuitive interfaces and powerful features, brainstorming tools empower you and your team to unleash creativity, think outside the box, and find unique solutions to complex problems.

Get started with tools like HubSpot’s AI Campaign Assistant..

One great example of personalized marketing is the Charles Duhigg New York Times article titled, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets.”

Charles wrote this article as a sequel to a public showdown. In this incident, a furious father stormed a Minnesota Target store to demand why his teenage daughter received coupons for baby products.

Later, the father found out his daughter was pregnant.

It turns out the retailer was able to predict her pregnancy and personalized the promotions she received. How? The retailer collected ‌(completely legally) and analyzed a ton of data. Creepy or great marketing?

We’re still asking ourselves that question. Beyond this edge case, many brands exemplify how businesses should approach personalized marketing.

In this post, you’ll learn how personalized marketing works and see examples of brands that practice it without sounding creepy. Here are 14 brands that nailed personalized marketing in a fun, non-intrusive way.

14 Personalized Marketing Examples

1. Shutterfly

Shutterfly is a website and app for creating canvases, photo books, and calendars. It’s also great for designing personalized gifts with the faces of people or anything you want.

One of Shutterfly’s hallmarks is the creative emails it sends. But more than that is the personalized item offerings on its app.

If you download the Shutterfly smartphone app, you can create an account and permit Shutterfly to access your photos.

With this permission, Shutterfly automatically identifies photos with faces and places them on items you can purchase from the app. An example is these mugs.

Image source

The Takeaway

If you sell personalized products, it’s helpful to show your customers what they could get. Seeing their photos or words related to their life on your product could entice them to buy.

However, when you do this, ensure you get explicit permission to go through someone’s information to pull this data. Without proper permissions, getting the personal data of customers could come off as untrustworthy or downright creepy.

2. Funko

Personalization can be a value proposition and generate buzz around your brand. Looking for an example? Check out Funko, a toy manufacturer best known for its bobblehead-like figures of pop cultural icons.

In 2023, the brand launched a new POP! Yourself line, where customers can make Funko figures of themselves, their families, and their friends. This allows customers to interact with the brand, creating something in their image.

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The Takeaway

Personalization gives your audience a unique way to interact with your brand. Funko figures have a cult following among collectors.

This new offering allows brand enthusiasts to create something totally unique — a figure they can’t get anywhere else.

Folks who know Funko lovers can also create a gift that their loved one doesn’t have in their collection.

3. Penguin Random House

Personalized marketing isn’t just about making custom products. Often, personalized marketing focuses on pairing your current products with folks who will love them.

For example, let’s take a look at book publisher Penguin Random House.

The publishing company has a wide range of titles, and book lovers can find something they’ll love in their library. The marketing team at the company makes the process a little easier with quizzes.

Readers can find out who their literary match might be, piquing their interest in buying the book.

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The Takeaway

Quizzes are both a sneaky way to offer recommendations and an interactive element that can keep your website visitors entertained. You can provide an easy, fun way to personalize their experience on your site.

4. Vidyard

I was in awe when my colleague, HubSpot Academy Sales Professor Kyle Jepsen, forwarded me an email with the comment, “Taking personalization to a whole new level.” This video shows personalized marketing at its finest.

Vidyard could have superimposed each recipient’s name onto the whiteboard in this video and kept the same script for each one.

But they didn’t stop there. Cole, the gentleman speaking in the video, not only addressed Kyle by his first name but also referred to his specific colleagues and the conversations he had with them.

The Takeaway

There’s only so much personalization you can achieve using text. But personalized videos? That changes everything. Personalizing your mixed media content is an interesting and often effective approach. “I mean, clearly, he made the video just for me,” Jepson said.

While this sort of data-driven personalization is memorable, it’s also extremely time-consuming. So, if you set out to create it, be absolutely sure you’re targeting the right people. There’s nothing worse than taking the time to produce something highly customized, only to discover you’ve sent it to someone who doesn’t have the decision-making power you need.

5. Tony Robbins & Dean Graziosi

Self-improvement experts Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi hosted a week-long Own Your Future webinar in 2021. After the webinar, registered participants received a personalized appreciation email. This email included a picture of Dean holding an envelope with each participant’s first name handwritten on it.

Damilare Olasinde, a content marketing professional, was one of the webinar attendees. He had this to say about how he felt upon receiving the email.

“It thrilled me to bits. Being a copywriter, I’m familiar with email personalization. But I’d never seen this before, and I loved it.”

The Takeaway

Email personalization typically revolves around custom subject lines, list segmentation, and personalized content. But Tony and Dean took their email personalization efforts up a notch.

This might feel like a cheap thrill, but it makes a difference to customers. For instance, Damilare knew that this seemingly handwritten address was probably a handwritten font generated by software. Still, the gesture warmed his heart.

As an entity, you need to find creative ways to use digital tools to create cute little moments like what Tony and Dean’s list members experienced. This kind of gesture is difficult to forget, even after many years. It can help you create loyal fans and customers for a lifetime.

6. IPSY

IPSY is another brand with personalization at the core of its business. This subscription service sends over five personalized, sample-sized products every month to its users. The grab bag’s selection is based on the product categories users are most interested in.

To get started, subscribers take a quiz to indicate their interests. Here, they can indicate what products they would like to receive and how frequently.

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The Takeaway

Beauty is a very personal category. Shoppers are looking for products that match their skin tone and shade range. The more personalized your product offering, the more personalized your marketing should be.

7. Amazon

Amazon’s personalization efforts aren’t exactly new. Since at least 2013, its product curation and recommendation algorithm has made headlines and case studies. And yet, every time I visit my Amazon homepage, I can’t help but scroll down and get a kick out of its recommendations for me. Have a look:

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Those who know me are aware of my borderline obsession with hip-hop, which is also the motivation for much of my online shopping behavior. Clearly, Amazon has taken notice.

And as I continued scrolling down, the fitting personalization went on. There was a header reading “For a night in” with recommendations on what to stream on Amazon Prime — an activity that comprises most of my weekend.

Its recommendations for dog and kitchen products were on point, as well. After all, those are the categories where I make the most purchases.

It’s not just me. When I asked my colleagues what their Amazon homepages looked like, they were equally pleased. Sophia Bernazzani, a fellow Marketing Blog staff writer (and self-proclaimed “cat mother of three”), had a plethora of personalized cat food recommendations, while Managing Editor Emma Brudner’s suggested Prime streaming titles came with the header, “Bingeable TV.”

“Amazon,” Brudner remarked, “You know me so well.”

The Takeaway

As Brudner said, Amazon seems to know us pretty well, though I do question why, as per the image above, its algorithm thought I might like to buy a pair of leg warmers. The nice thing about this personalization is that it can often lead to unplanned purchasing decisions.

For example, the purpose of my most recent visit to Amazon was to check out its personalization features for this article. But then, I discovered that Rapper’s Delight: The Hip Hop Cookbook was in my recommended books. Did I buy something I don’t need? Sure. But I was also delighted because Amazon brought it to my attention with very little effort.

The best part about these recommendations for users is the discovery of what they like — whether it’s a book, a tool, or an article. If you can provide this, customers will keep coming back because they know they’d only need minimal effort to find suitable products on your site.

8. Spotify

Music enthusiasts love Discover Weekly, a curated playlist of Spotify tracks a user may like. Like other personalization and recommendation platforms, Discover Weekly works with the help of an algorithm to determine a user’s “taste profile” based on listening behavior and the most popular playlists among the entire Spotify audience.

Here’s a great diagram that visually represents the process:

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As much as I use Spotify — which is close to daily — I’ve never bothered listening to my Discover Weekly playlist. So, I took it for a spin.

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The results were hit-or-miss. While it thrilled me to discover a few great songs that I plan to listen to again, many songs on my personalized playlist felt “meh.”

That said, those behind Discover Weekly acknowledge that personalization isn’t a perfect science. They also have suggestions for how to make it better, like adding the Discover Weekly songs you like to your library or skipping those you dislike.

For instance, “If users fast-forward within the first 30 seconds of a song,” Spotify Product Director Matthew Ogle and Engineering Manager Edward Newett said, “The Discover Weekly algorithm interprets that as a thumbs-down for that song and artist.”

The Takeaway

Most personalization initiatives will not be perfect. Even with a great algorithm, they are, at best, very educated guesses about what’s going to apply to your customers.

For that reason, it might be best to take a conservative approach to your recommendations, especially in the earliest stages of your personalization efforts.

This is an area where small-batch testing can be helpful. When you want to try out a personalization project or algorithm, identify your most active users and invite them to pilot the technology.

Listen carefully to their feedback — good and bad — and see what you can do to make it better.

Spotify continues to emphasize the importance of personalization on its platform. In 2023, the company announced that it would be launching a merch hub.

Here, avid listeners will get recommendations on merchandise based on their listening habits. That’s great if you’re looking to acquire cool band tees.

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9. ProWritingAid

User data is core to the marketing personalization strategy at ProWritingAid. As a free or premium user, you receive a weekly email from ProWritingAid with this subject line — Your Achievements Last Week.

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ProWritingAid can send this email because they track writing on multiple devices and platforms. They also know the number of grammar and style suggestions you accepted and even your most active writing days.

Beyond personalization, another goal of this email is to tap into the community of users. By including a “click to tweet” link, users can share their progress on X (formerly Twitter) and provide free PR for ProWritingAid.

The Takeaway

Data is like unrefined oil for your brand. If you run a SaaS business and you collect user data, think about how you’d refine that raw data and use it to personalize the experience of your users.

Consider it like a “help me help you” situation.

Customers subscribe to your product because they need help with specific tasks. Using the data they provide, you can help them know how they are faring and highlight opportunities for improvement.

That’s the type of action that can make a brand remarkable, fuel-free PR, and earn you new business.

10. Netflix

Netflix takes personalized marketing seriously, and they are extremely good at it. Using AI and Machine Learning, Netflix monitors and analyzes the movies and shows that users watch, consistently interact with, and rate.

The matching percentage (in green font) beside each program’s title shows how much a movie or show may appeal to a user. For me, Netflix nails this very well. But the personalization strategy of Netflix doesn’t end in-app.

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Netflix also sends personalized emails to re-engage its users. These unique emails inform users about shows or movies that match their preferences.

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The Takeaway

Customer experience should be central to your brand. Everything Netflix does is to make each user happy by predicting the content that a user may like.

While we can’t attribute Netflix’s steady revenue growth since 2013 solely to its personalized marketing strategy, there’s no gainsaying that it’s a great contributor.

11. OpenTable

OpenTable is a real-time online reservation network that helps restaurants run smoother shifts, fill seats, turn guests into regulars, and create and sell dining experiences. This business requires personalized marketing to thrive.

Like Netflix, OpenTable has figured out how to know its customers so it can send personalized content to them. See this email, for instance:

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Any customer who receives this email is likely to check it out. Why?

• They’ve used OpenTable before
• They know the email is for them
• They believe OpenTable knows their preferences

In the rare case that a user doesn’t like OpenTable’s recommendations, the final call-to-action (Find Your Table) comes in handy.

The Takeaway

Don’t add more work to a customer’s plate. The less work a customer does, the better. Imagine a customer wading through 52,000+ restaurants. That’s impossible.

Where possible, use your customers’ data to help them out. Learn and use their preferences to create personalized recommendations. This will help you reduce the timeline for your customer to buy a product or service.

Do this, and you may have more revenue in the bag.

12. Safeway for U

Personalized marketing isn’t just about putting the right products in front of shoppers. You need tactics to get them to buy.

That’s where personalized coupons come in. If a shopper sees that an item they like has a special sale, they’re more likely to add it to their cart.

Let’s take a look at Safeway, a grocery store with over 240 stores in the U.S. The business has an app called Safeway for U. At the store; users can scan barcodes that offer special discounts. From there, the app learns about buyers’ preferences.

Safeway can then notify customers when a product they’d like is available, personalizing the marketing experience.

The Takeaway

When personalizing your marketing strategy, look for opportunities to target coupons to the right audience. Personalization allows you to target the most compelling offers to the right audience.

This gets shoppers into the store and the right item into their cart.

13. Complain.biz

Complain.biz is a new online platform that helps consumers file complaints against businesses. The platform has a mission and belief that “consumers deserve to be heard and treated fairly by companies.”

In March 2023, the brand launched an AI complaint letter generator (powered by GPT-4) that personalizes and facilitates complaint filing based on thousands of successful examples.

This service empowers consumers to mail well-written complaint letters to a company’s headquarters.

The surprise? Complain.biz doesn’t send emails. They send traditional paper mail, which is vetted by a human expert.

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The Takeaway

The revolutionary GPT-4 technology presents new opportunities to serve consumers better. For instance, at HubSpot, we’re developing our content assistant and ChatSpot, which are powered by AI.

While this saves time and cost, sacrificing personalization to over-rely on AI may not be best. Complain.biz understands this, and that’s why they leverage AI to augment (and NOT replace) human intelligence.

Opportunities exist to provide consumers with valuable personalized experiences using AI. As a business leader, the onus is on you to look deep into your business to find how AI can help you create pleasant customer experiences.

14. Alibaba

Alibaba is a popular ecommerce giant that used the Ling Shou Tong initiative to reinvent convenience stores in China.

LST is a partnership program between Alibaba and traditional mom-and-pop stores that aims to modernize and digitize.

Among other benefits of this program, participants had access to the Ling Shou Tong app, which helped store owners automate their inventory management.

The app works by suggesting a list of goods most likely to sell based on each store’s sales data.

Brands like Mondelez, the owners of Oreos and other popular snacks, also benefited from this analytic data.

By relying on consumer insights gathered in these stores, Mondelez launched a single Oreo package that targeted customers who want affordable snacks.

LST has helped expand Alibaba’s offline reach and strengthen its brand recognition. As of the summer of 2019, 1.3 million of the 6 million convenience stores had adopted the LST initiative.

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The Takeaway

Accenture consulting rightly describes LST as an innovative disruptor. Upon closer examination, LST is simply personalized marketing applied to B2B retail. Nothing more.

In retrospect, the genius of the LST initiative is obvious, as no one was doing it at the time.

This prompts the question: What potentially disruptive ideas are hiding in your business data? As Michael Simmons remarks, great opportunities for growth and improvement are often “sitting right in front of us…but we can’t see.”

How can you uncover more of these invisible opportunities? There’s no straightforward answer to that. But one recommendation is to lean into Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” philosophy.

As Simon describes in his book, great ideas often emerge when you’re maniacally committed to improving the lives of your customers.

Get Personal

One of the fundamental purposes of any personalization effort is to let your customers know you’re paying attention to them.

But, striking a balance between “we think you might find this helpful” and “we’re watching you” isn’t a simple process. Be sure to do careful research, planning, and testing before jumping into any large-scale customization initiatives.

Remember that while you might be a marketer, you’re also a consumer. With experiments like these, put yourself into the shoes of the customer and ask, “Is this delightful? Or is this creepy?”

If it leans toward the latter, find out what’s giving it that vibe, and try something different.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2013 and has was updated for comprehensiveness in November 2019.