Categories B2B

How Nonprofits Can Use TikTok for Growth [Case Study + Examples]

TikTok has shaken up the digital landscape — and its explosive growth over the past year suggests that it’s here to stay.

Although it’s an entertainment-first platform, TikTok is more than just Gen Z dance challenges.

We’re seeing more and more social impact and non-profit clients use TikTok to inform, educate, engage, advertise, and raise funds and awareness.

Here, let’s explore tips and best practices for nonprofits looking to leverage TikTok for growth.

Download Now: Nonprofit Marketing & Fundraising  Trends for 2022 [Free Report]

Is TikTok right for your nonprofit?

Building a presence on a new social media platform can be a big undertaking. As with any platform, it’s essential to assess whether it’s a good fit for your organization, and whether it will help you meet your goals.

Before diving in, it’s important to ensure that your efforts go into spaces and platforms that your audience already uses.

First, make sure TikTok helps reach your organization’s target audience. Remember: over 50% of the apps’ users are under 32 years old, and over 41% of TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24, according to Qgiv.

You’ll also want to assess whether your organization can manage a TikTok channel. If you’re considering whether your organization has the capacity to build a TikTok presence, the first step is to ask — and trust — the person or team who manages your social media.

Another thing to consider is the way TikTok prioritizes raw, real, unedited, and people-first videos. On this platform, link posts or polished graphics and copy won’t cut it. Think about whether you have employees willing to make videos for the account, or if you have the budget to hire creators and influencers to build your presence.

Having an employee kick off your TikTok account is a great starting point, but it’s not the only way. TikTok’s creator marketplace is the platform’s official collaboration center that connects brands and creators to execute paid and reward-based campaigns. This is a great starting point for nonprofit’s that are new to TikTok.

8 Tips + Best Practices for Nonprofits on TikTok [+ Examples]

Once you’ve determined TikTok will help you reach your goals and target audience, and you’ve ensured you have the resources to manage the platform, it’s time to get into some tips that can help nonprofits move missions forward with quality TikTok content.

1. Creative is the primary factor for success.

Your content is everything on this platform. As noted above, polished photos and videos won’t cut it. You need a real person (whether that be an employee or creator from TikTok’s Creator Marketplace) to commit to making videos that have high-performing elements.

2. Use the principle of “entertainment-first”.

Remember that TikTok is an entertainment platform first and foremost.

The American Kennel Club (AKC) uses Facebook to share tips and articles about dog care — like this post featuring the best dog raincoats — to establish its place as an expert in dog welfare.

AKC’s TikTok, however, has a different goal: to engage audiences with cute dog videos. This TikTok post succeeded not by educating about dog care, but by showing off the incredibly cute Pekingese breed at a dog show.

3. Leverage talent to bring your videos to life.

More than one in three viral videos featured a person speaking within the first three seconds, according to a recent analysis of over 600 viral TikTok videos by SemRush. Featuring actual people in your video content is essential, and it gives your organization the chance to spotlight and uplift a diverse group of voices.

There are a few key places you can source talent from — for instance, consider inviting folks from different departments of your organization to create or star in content, or tap into the platform’s vast supply of creators.

The It Gets Better Project taps into a network of creators that they have established relationships with — like this video featuring Zoe Stoller — to create fun, informative content for their page.

@itgetsbetter It’s important when they’re NOT in the room, too! 🚪 @zoestoller
#itgetsbetter
#lgbtq
#lgbtqally
#ally
#pronounsmatter
♬ I Just Wanna Know – Luke Reeves

 

4. Stay ahead of trends and find inspiring creations from the Discover page.

Trends are constantly circulating on TikTok, and the best way to know which content, audio, hashtags, or concepts are going viral on the platform is to engage with the Discover page. Think of this page as the hub for the most popular content on the app. This space also includes featured placement for paid media.

On the Discover page, you’ll see a series of trending hashtags that you can click through. The set of videos that appear under each hashtag are videos that either started the trend or popular videos that are relevant to the trending hashtag.

It’s a good idea to use these examples as inspiration when developing new videos, but a TikTok strategy should not focus solely on reacting to viral trends.

5. Approach TikTok like a regular human — not a brand.

Establishing your organization’s identity or persona is critical when building a content strategy because this is the first step in attracting an engaged audience.

As noted earlier, Gen Z — a primary audience on this app — favors authenticity more than their millennial counterparts. Instead of trying to appeal to a massive audience, lean into your organization’s unique knowledge base and informative storytelling.

If you aren’t sure how to build a TikTok persona for your organization, start with your mission statement! From there, you can narrow down which content buckets you would like to focus on, and ultimately the type of videos you want to make.

AKC posted this video of a dog competing in an agility contest — and despite being filmed on a smartphone, the TikTok earned over 2 million views. Expensive equipment is not necessary to produce highly engaging content.

6. Use a story arc.

Videos should have a concise beginning, middle, and end. Consider mapping out key story fundamentals such as a hook, introduction, interesting turn, and final pay-off before executing a TikTok. Storyboarding can help to streamline the filming process, and it provides guidelines for those who are new at creating this sort of content.

In preparation for It Gets Better Project’s organic TikTok campaign promoting the “50 States. 50 Grants. 5000 Voices.” grant program, the Media Cause team developed a narrative structure and sample script to correspond with the campaign’s branded hashtag.

Mapping out a sample narrative arc and example script was important to illustrate how the overarching campaign would function on the platform. It also served as a useful tool to share with talent who would eventually participate in the creating content for the TikTok campaign.

Media Cause partnered with the TikTok team to gain feedback on the narrative arc and branded hashtag — and, as a result, It Gets Better Project’s campaign was featured on the TikTok Explore page.

7. Keep it concise (15-30 seconds), and get to the point.

Be sure to show your followers the lesson or purpose of the video within the first three seconds … That’s all the time you get before the average user swipes.

You can easily achieve a captivating introduction by using text on the screen, narration, or front-loading the video with the most salient information.

Consider, for instance, this Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) TikTok video, which educates viewers on the infrastructure package in a mere 30 seconds: 

@nrdc.org
#stitch with @washingtonpost Andrew and his paper money can’t take historic climate action, but Congress can!
#roborockrun
#bonesday
#climateaction
#fyp
♬ original sound – NRDC

8. Inspire co-creation.

When crafting a content strategy, you don’t need to start from scratch. Leverage in-app tools to promote conversation and engagement with existing audiences that overlap with your own — this can be through TikTok’s duet, react, reply with video, and stitch features.

Inspire your audience to have a dialogue with your organization through the use of polls or Q&As. Also, community management is key on TikTok, so be sure to answer any questions you receive in your comments (or in the comment section of other viral TikToks).

Ultimately, TikTok is here to stay, and it provides the opportunity to connect with an audience you may not otherwise reach. As with any platform, it’s essential to assess whether it’s a good fit for your organization and goals.

Once you’ve determined whether a TikTok strategy will help your organization reach its desired audience and goals, embrace these tips to ensure success. Remember: Experimentation and creativity are key! The time and energy you invest in this platform to gain brand awareness could lead to audience loyalty and high-quality conversions.

Media Cause’s Patricia Camerota (Social Media Strategist) and Janine Guarino (Associate Social Director) contributed to this post. 

nonprofit trends

Categories B2B

Consumer Behavior Statistics You Should Know in 2022 [New Data]

How consumers make purchasing decisions has changed greatly in just a few months. For instance, the pandemic has shifted some buyers more online.

Download Now: Ecommerce Marketing Plan Template

In recent years, there has also been a push for more transparent and sustainable practices in brands. But what else is there? Well, that’s what we’re covering here.

In this article, you’ll learn some interesting statistics regarding consumer behavior that you should know in 2022 and what that means for your marketing strategy.

1. Consumers buy more online.

According to a 2022 GWI Commerce Report, there has been a 36% increase in the number of Americans doing most of their household or grocery shopping online.

During the 2021 holiday season, 46% of consumers shopped exclusively online according to a Jungle Scout report.

Why? The top reasons are lower prices, low-cost shipping, and convenience.

Back in 2020, NRF’s Winter 2020 Consumer View reported that 83% of shoppers say convenience while shopping is more important compared to five years ago. That was before the pandemic, so that percentage has likely increased.

online shopping statistic: A stackla report found that 67% of consumers say their online purchasing has increased since the start of the pandemic

Image Source

This shift has forced some brick-and-mortar stores to consider how to implement an ecommerce strategy, whether it’s launching their own online stores or partnering with third-party platforms.

There’s also a bigger need for a robust online presence. While this was always recommended for brands, nowadays, it’s vital for their long-term growth.

2. Reviews and user-generated content are more influential than ever.

Today, it seems like everyone is talking about influencer marketing.

When we surveyed over 1,000 global marketers in 2021, 61% of B2C marketers said they planned to increase their investment in influencer marketing, compared to only 44% in UGC.

However, some studies suggest that the opposite strategy may be more effective.

consumer behavior statistic from 2021 Stackla report

According to a 2021 Stackla report, UGC is 8.7 times more impactful than influencer content and 6.6 times more than branded content.

In fact, when it comes to sourcing gift ideas on social media, the Jungle Scout revealed that 56% of consumers are influenced by posts shared by friends and family – more than branded content and ads.

From a marketing perspective, this is a signal to brands that consumers want to hear more from other buyers. Consider implementing this into your social strategy by sharing customer reviews and promoting UGC through giveaways and other promotional tactics.

While it’s a great brand discovery tool, it also works well to reel in consumers at the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey.

3. Consumers seek personalization.

According to the Stackla report, 70 percent of consumers say it’s important for brands to offer a personalized experience – up from 67 percent in 2019.

HubSpot Blog Research from 2021 revealed that 53% of marketers leverage message personalization in their email marketing strategy. Of that percentage, 72% say it’s been one of the most effective tactics, more than subscriber segmentation, email automation, and dynamic content.

However, there are many more ways to personalize a user’s experience beyond personalization tokens – from product recommendations and usage recaps (think Spotify’s annual “UnWrapped” campaign) to smart content and 360 customer views.

With so many channels to reach audiences, marketers have a wealth of options when it comes to personalization. It’s just a matter of narrowing down the ones that offer the best ROI.

4. Gen Z leads the charge in social buying.

In May 2021, eMarketer found that Gen Zers are more likely to engage in social commerce than older generations.

Their report revealed that roughly 56% of consumers between 18 and 24 years old and 47.5% of 14- to 17-year olds have made at least one purchase on a social platform.

These figures are considerably higher than other generations, with only a third of consumers between 45 to 65 years of age making at least one purchase on social media in the year.

Which platforms is Gen Z mostly on? TikTok and Instagram.

A 2022 GWI Gen Z report found that 46% of Gen Zers use TikTok to find information about products and brands while 69% use Instagram.

This is likely because Instagram has slowly transitioned to an ecommerce platform with advanced shopping tools while TikTok has kept its focus as a short-form video platform.

So, what are Gen Z buyers looking for? On social media, the GWI report found that most are looking for content that’s:

  • Lighthearted and funny
  • Inspirational
  • Informational and helpful

As for their purchasing journey, the number one way Gen Z discovers and researches products is through vlogs (video blogs), according to the GWI report. Once they’ve made a purchase, they become most loyal to brands that offer access to exclusive content or services.

So, if your target audience includes Gen Z, your social media presence will be more important than ever.

5. Brands can benefit from an omnichannel approach.

In a March 2020 eMarketer study of how U.S. adults preferred that brands communicate with them, email came out on top alongside TV advertising. Social media posts came in third and text messages next.​​consumer behavior statistic from emarketer

Image Source

What this data suggests is that a single-channel strategy is not enough to attract and retain consumers.

Their attention is being pulled in many different directions and if your brand isn’t present, you may quickly be forgotten.

Now, this isn’t to say that every brand should be utilizing every single channel out there. Because after all, not every channel will offer a positive return on investment. What we are suggesting is consistently leveraging a mix of one to three channels while staying updated on how your audience is responding.

Some channels may work well during specific stages in the buyer’s journey and some may work only for a time. Listening to your data is the best way to know which channels are worth your time and effort.

6. Shoppers expect BNPL options.

Buy-now-pay-later is a payment service that allows customers to spread out their purchase payments into interest-free installments.

The topic started rising in popularity around mid-year in 2020 but peaked in September 2021, according to Google Trends.

In 2020, Paypal launched its own payment installment plan and during the 2021 Black Friday, they had a nearly 400% increase in BNPL transactions year-over-year.

Although one CNBC report found that only 7% of shoppers planned to use BNPL this past holiday season, experts expect that figure to double or triple in 2022.

It’s particularly popular with Gen Z – a population that is only now starting to join the workforce. The 2022 GWI report found that one in five Gen Z shoppers in the Asia-Pacific region used a BNPL service in the last month.

Payment is often not something marketers think about when advertising a brand’s products and/or services. However, this data suggests it may be helpful to highlight this as it’s becoming a stronger purchasing consideration for consumers.

7. There’s more demand for sustainable brands.

In 2019, the Harvard Business Review reported that sustainable products are five times more successful in average sales growth compared to brands that aren’t marketed as such. Today, that trend continues to grow.

consumer behavior statistic from 2021 global sustainability study

A Global Sustainability Study 2021 report found that one third of consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products.

In fact, 61% of Gen Z say they pay more for eco-friendly products than those that aren’t, according to the GWI report. Specifically, online shoppers are looking for:

  • The use of natural, organic materials
  • Recycled or recyclable items
  • Brands in which part of the proceeds go to eco-friendly causes
  • No harmful chemicals
  • Durability

Many brands may offer one or more of these but fail to advertise them. However, this is what can help set you apart from the competition, as sustainability becomes a growing purchasing factor for consumers.

Now that you know what’s influencing consumer behavior, you can begin to craft a marketing strategy that appeals to your audience’s most pressing needs.

ecommerce planning template

Categories B2B

10 Digital Style Guide Examples from Famous Companies such as Apple, Google & Starbucks

If you’ve ever wondered how designers at Apple defined every little element in iOS as they were building it, then you’re in the right place.

As technology is constantly evolving, web design continues to become more formalized. Web designers and developers need to create code that can translate seamlessly from PC to mobile devices, make easy to understand site navigation, and innovate other site capabilities — these are all elements that companies standardize in digital style guides.

Digital style guides have become more useful to a brand’s overall image and memorability on the web because they set the expectations and standards for company web display. They’re especially important for websites and products that need to produce top-notch user experiences.

In this post, we’ll dive into what digital style guides are in detail and show you some impressive examples from famous companies that have done them well.

Learn how to redesign your website with this free guide.

This type of style guide is to be treated as a manual that sets design standards for a company’s digital presence. Its key purpose is to create a universal design style for the brand and ensure consistency across all channels and mediums, where you establish your logo, color palette, typography, imagery guidelines, and so on.

Unlike brand style guides that encapsulate a company’s logo, mission statement, buyer personas and tone of voice, web design style guides are centered on digital presentation like UX/UI.

But, as a UX designer myself, I’ve always been curious, what can you find in the digital style guides of influential companies like Apple, Google, and Starbucks?

Believe it or not, a lot of companies make this information publicly available — they just don’t make it very easy to find. So, every time that I stumble across one, I bookmark it. Here are some of the best ones that I’ve found so far.

Examples of Awesome Digital Style Guides

1. Apple iOS

Apple’s style guide is especially interesting because it details how to design an entire operating system. Monterey, one of the latest versions of Apple’s OS X, has a more simplified user interface than its predecessor, Yosemite. Apple demonstrates this subtle-yet-palpable distinction with really nice graphical comparisons and then goes on to talk about the rationale behind every single aspect of the operating system’s design. It gives you a window into the minds of the designers.

web style guide examples: Apple iOS

2. Google: Material Design

Google pioneered a design style called Material Design, which exists as a hybrid between Skeuomorphic Design (gradients, textures, light elements) and Flat Design (simple, colorful, geometrical.) In doing this, they combined the benefits associated with each design style, while avoiding the drawbacks.

Because Google has been practicing Material Design for a few years now, you’ve probably already interacted with it on a daily basis — Google Calendar app, anyone? This style guide details exactly what Material Design is and how Google uses it. And I have to say that it is, by far, one of the best style guides that I’ve ever come across.

web style guide examples: Google Material Design

3. Starbucks

This is one of the most minimalistic style guides that I’ve seen — and yet, it houses a ton of useful information. It places a heavy emphasis on code and you can tell that it was built by developers, for developers. It lacks brand-related elements, so it walks the line between a website style guide and code library.

web style guide examples: starbucks

4. Atlassian

The product suite that Atlassian designs for is gigantic — so, naturally, they have a gigantic style guide. From foundational elements (like color palette and typography) to components (like tables and tooltips) to a full-blown pattern library, this guide has just about everything that you would expect from a product of this size.

Perhaps best of all, the rationale behind the entire style guide is summed up in three deceptively simple terms on the home page.

web style guide examples: atlassian

5. Mozilla

This digital style guide is primarily concerned with branding and communications. But with Mozilla taking a “privacy and open web” approach lately, it’s cool to see how they reflect this in their design.

Mozilla’s homepage also does a great job of outlining how its UX/UI is supposed to be accessible to people with visual impairments or disabilities — something inclusive and necessary as technology becomes more innovative.

web style guide examples: mozilla

6. Buffer

Buffer’s style guide is small and concise, going from grid through modals all in one place. It’s a friendly reminder that your digital style guide doesn’t have to be flashy if it communicates all the right points. Companies looking for somewhere to begin can take notes from Buffer’s simplistic style guide components and build their own from there.

web style guide examples: buffer

7. Yelp

If you’re looking for a solid example of a website style guide, Yelp’s got that covered. Not only is it thorough, but it explains its Atomic Design system as a cookbook, and divides site elements as ingredients contributing to a dish.

This thing has it all: typography, layout, forms, containers, navigation, and code snippets for each piece. They do a great job of explaining what each element is, where it should be used, and how it should be implemented.

web style guide examples: yelp

8. GOV.UK

England’s government services website has been widely heralded as a prime example of high-quality UX. Why? Because it boasts a simple and easy-to-use design that accommodates excessive amounts of information.

If you’re interested in what makes up a truly clean and effective design (hint: it usually starts with strong color usage, typography, and spacing), then GOV.UK’s style guide is worth taking a close look at. Much like the site, it’s very simple but very informative.

web style guide examples: gov.uk

9. DeviantArt

The new DeviantArt style guide is unique because it’s more than just a guide — it’s an experience. It tells a story and leverages bold, full-width visuals to immerse the user in the emotional experience of the DeviantArt brand. That being said, it’s strictly a branding style guide, so only items like color and typography are covered.

web style guide examples: DeviantArt

10. Disqus

Color, icons, typography, and logo … Disqus keeps it short and sweet with this guide. But it’s all presented in a very nice, organized manner. This guide could be used as a great example for “where to start” when creating a style guide of your own, as it hits all of the fundamentals.

web style guide examples: disqus

Feeling Inspired to Make Your Own Guide?

Now it’s your turn. By leveraging a digital style guide in your company, you can communicate your brand’s design language to internal designers, agencies, advertising partners, and even customers.

Start with the basic foundational elements (color, typography, logo, imagery), add some usage guidelines (“do and don’t”), and even incorporate some web components if you need to (modules, templates, code snippets. Use examples from other companies to learn from the best. Your team will be cranking out consistent designs in no time.

examples of brilliant homepage, blog, and landing page design

Categories B2B

An Introductory SQL Tutorial: How to Write Simple Queries

Ever heard of SQL? You may have heard about it in the context of data analysis, but never thought it would apply to you as a marketer. Or, you may have thought, “That’s for the advanced data users. I could never do that.”

Well, you couldn’t be more wrong! The most successful marketers are data-driven, and one of the most important parts of being data-driven is collecting data from databases quickly. SQL is the most popular tool out there for doing just that.

If your company already stores data in a database, you may need to learn SQL to access the data. But not to worry — you’re in the right place to get started. Let’s jump right in.

Download 10 Excel Templates for Marketers [Free Kit]

Why Use SQL?

SQL (often pronounced like “sequel”) stands for Structured Query Language, and it’s used when companies have a ton of data that they want to manipulate. The beauty of SQL is that anyone working at a company that stores data in a relational database can use it. (And chances are, yours does.)

For example, if you work for a software company and want to pull usage data on your customers, you can do that with SQL. If you’re helping develop a website for an ecommerce company that has data about customer purchases, you can use SQL to find out which customers are purchasing which products. Of course, these are just a few of many possible applications.

Think about it this way: Have you ever opened a very large data set in Excel, only for your computer to freeze or even shut down? SQL allows you to access only certain parts of your data at a time so you don’t have to download all the data into a CSV, manipulate it, and possibly overload Excel. In other words, SQL takes care of the data analysis that you may be used to doing in Excel.

How to Write Simple SQL Queries

Before we begin, make sure you have a database management application that will allow you to pull data from your database. Some options include MySQL or Sequel Pro.

Start by downloading one of these options, then talk to your company’s IT department about how to connect to your database. The option you choose will depend on your product’s back end, so check with your product team to make sure you select the correct one.

Understand the hierarchy of your database

Next, it’s important to become accustomed to your database and its hierarchy. If you have multiple databases of data, you’ll need to hone in on the location of the data you want to work with.

For example, let’s pretend we’re working with multiple databases about people in the United States. Enter the query “SHOW DATABASES;”. The results may show that you have a couple of databases for different locations, including one for New England.

Within your database, you’ll have different tables containing the data you want to work with. Using the same example above, let’s say we want to find out which information is contained in one of the databases. If we use the query “SHOW TABLES in NewEngland;”, we’ll find that we have tables for each state in New England: people_connecticut, people_maine, people_massachusetts, people_newhampshire, people_rhodeisland, and people_vermont.

Finally, you need to find out which fields are in the tables. Fields are the specific pieces of data that you can pull from your database. For example, if you want to pull someone’s address, the field name may not just be “address” — it may be separated into address_city, address_state, address_zip. In order to figure this out, use the query “Describe people_massachusetts;”. This provides a list of all of the data that you can pull using SQL.

Let’s do a quick review of the hierarchy using our New England example:

  • Our database is: NewEngland.
  • Our tables within that database are: people_connecticut, people_maine, people_massachusetts, people_newhampshire, people_rhodeisland, and people_vermont.
  • Our fields within the people_massachusetts table include: address_city, address_state, address_zip, hair_color, age, first_name, and last_name.

Now, let’s write some simple SQL queries to pull data from our NewEngland database.

Basic SQL Queries

To learn how to write a SQL query, let’s use the following example:

Who are the people who have red hair in Massachusetts and were born in 2003 organized in alphabetical order?

SELECT

SELECT chooses the fields that you want displayed in your chart. This is the specific piece of information that you want to pull from your database. In the example above, we want to find the people who fit the rest of the criteria.

Here is our SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

;

FROM

FROM pinpoints the table that you want to pull the data from. In the earlier section, we learned that there were six tables for each of the six states in New England: people_connecticut, people_maine, people_massachusetts, people_newhampshire, people_rhodeisland, and people_vermont. Because we’re looking for people in Massachusetts specifically, we’ll pull data from that specific table.

Here is our SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

;

WHERE

WHERE allows you to filter a query to be more specific. In our example, we want to filter our query to include only people with red hair who were born in 2003. Let’s start with the red hair filter.

Here is our SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

;

hair_color could have been part of your initial SELECT statement if you’d wanted to look at all of the people in Massachusetts along with their hair color. But if you want to filter to see only people with red hair, you can do so with a WHERE statement.

BETWEEN

Besides equals (=), BETWEEN is another operator you can use for conditional queries. A BETWEEN statement is true for values that fall between the specified minimum and maximum values.

In our case, we can use BETWEEN to pull records from a specific year, like 2003. Here’s the query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

;

AND

AND allows you to add additional criteria to your WHERE statement. Remember, we want to filter by people who had red hair in addition to people who were born in 2003. Since our WHERE statement is taken up by the red hair criteria, how can we filter by a specific year of birth as well?

That’s where the AND statement comes in. In this case, the AND statement is a date property — but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. (Note: Check the format of your dates with your product team to make sure they are in the correct format.)

Here is our SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

;

OR

OR can also be used with a WHERE statement. With AND, both conditions must be true to appear in results (e.g., hair color must be red and must be born in 2003). With OR, either condition must be true to appear in results (e.g., hair color must be red or must be born in 2003).

Here’s what an OR statement looks like in action:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

OR

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

;

NOT

NOT is used in a WHERE statement to display values in which the specified condition is untrue. If we wanted to pull up all Massachusetts residents without red hair, we can use the following query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE NOT

     hair_color = ‘red’

;

ORDER BY

Calculations and organization also can be done within a query. That’s where the ORDER BY and GROUP BY functions come in. First, we’ll look at our SQL queries with the ORDER BY and then GROUP BY functions. Then, we’ll take a brief look at the difference between the two.

An ORDER BY clause allows you to sort by any of the fields that you have specified in the SELECT statement. In this case, let’s order by last name.

Here is our SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

ORDER BY

     last_name

;

GROUP BY

GROUP BY is similar to ORDER BY, but aggregates data that has similarities. For example, if you have any duplicates in your data, you can use GROUP BY to count the number of duplicates in your fields.

Here is your SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

GROUP BY

     last_name

;

ORDER BY VS. GROUP BY

To show the difference between an ORDER BY statement and a GROUP BY statement, let’s step outside our Massachusetts example briefly to look at a very simple dataset. Below is a list of four employees’ ID numbers and names.

a table of four names and IDs as a result of sql queries

If we were to use an ORDER BY statement on this list, the names of the employees would get sorted in alphabetical order. The result would look like this:

a table of four names and IDs as a result of sql queries with the name Peter appearing twice at the bottom

If we were to use a GROUP BY statement instead, the employees would be counted based on the number of times they appeared in the initial table. Note that Peter appeared twice in the initial table, so the result would look like this:

sql query examples: a table of three names and IDs

With me so far? Okay, let’s return to the SQL query we’ve been creating about red-haired people in Massachusetts who were born in 2003.

LIMIT

Depending on the amount of data you have in your database, it may take a long time to run your queries. This can be frustrating, especially if you’ve made an error in your query and now need to wait before continuing. If you want to test a query, the LIMIT function lets you limit the number of results you get.

For example, if we suspect there are thousands of people who have red hair in Massachusetts, we may want to test out our query using LIMIT before we run it in full to make sure we’re getting the information we want. Let’s say, for instance, we only want to see the first 100 people in our result.

Here is our SQL query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

ORDER BY

     last_name

LIMIT

     100

;

INSERT INTO

In addition to retrieving information from a relational database, SQL can also be used to modify the contents of a database. Of course, you’ll need permissions to make changes to your company’s data. But, in case you’re ever in charge of managing the contents of a database, we’ll share some queries you should know.

First is the INSERT INTO statement, which is for putting new values into your database. If we want to add a new person to the Massachusetts table, we can do so by first providing the name of the table we want to modify, and the fields within the table we want to add to. Next, we write VALUE with each respective value we want to add.

Here’s what that query could look like:

INSERT INTO

  people_massachusetts (address_city, address_state, address_zip, hair_color, age, first_name, last_name)

VALUES

  (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, blonde, 32, Jane, Doe)

;

Alternatively, if you are adding a value to every field in the table, you don’t need to specify fields. The values will be added to columns in the order that they are listed in the query.

INSERT INTO

  people_massachusetts

VALUES

  (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, blonde, 32, Jane, Doe)

;

If you only want to add values to specific fields, you must specify these fields. Say we only want to insert a record with first_name, last_name, and address_state — we can use the following query:

INSERT INTO

  people_massachusetts (first_name, last_name, address_state)

VALUES

  (Jane, Doe, Massachusetts)

;

UPDATE

If you want to replace existing values in your database with different values, you can use UPDATE. What if, for example, someone is recorded in the database as having red hair when they actually have brown hair? We can update this record with UPDATE and WHERE statements:

UPDATE

  people_massachusetts

SET

  hair_color = ‘brown’

WHERE

  first_name = ‘Jane’

AND

  last_name = ‘Doe’

;

Or, say there’s a problem in your table where some values for “address_state” appear as “Massachusetts” and others appear as “MA”. To change all instances of “MA” to “Massachusetts” we can use a simple query and update multiple records at once:

UPDATE

  people_massachusetts

SET

  address_state = ‘Massachusetts’

WHERE

   address_state = MA

;

Be careful when using UPDATE. If you don’t specify which records to change with a WHERE statement, you’ll change all values in the table.

DELETE

DELETE removes records from your table. Like with UPDATE, be sure to include a WHERE statement, so you don’t accidentally delete your entire table.

Or, if we happened to find several records in our people_massachusetts table who actually lived in Maine, we can delete these entries quickly by targeting the address_state field, like so:

DELETE FROM

  people_massachusetts

WHERE

  address_state = ‘maine’

;

Bonus: Advanced SQL Tips

Now that you’ve learned how to create a simple SQL query, let’s discuss some other tricks that you can use to take your queries up a notch, starting with the asterisk.

* (asterisk)

When you add an asterisk character to your SQL query, it tells the query that you want to include all the columns of data in your results.

In the Massachusetts example we’ve been using, we’ve only had two column names: first_name and last_name. But let’s say we had 15 columns of data that we want to see in our results — it would be a pain to type all 15 column names in the SELECT statement. Instead, if you replace the names of those columns with an asterisk, the query will know to pull all of the columns into the results.

Here’s what the SQL query would look like:

SELECT

     *

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

ORDER BY

     last_name

LIMIT

     100

;

% (percent symbol)

The percent symbol is a wildcard character, meaning it can represent one or more characters in a database value. Wildcard characters are helpful for locating records that share common characters. They are typically used with the LIKE operator to find a pattern in the data.

For instance, if we wanted to get the names of every person in our table whose zip code begins with “02”, we can write this query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

WHERE

  address_zip LIKE ‘02%’

;

Here, “%” stands in for any group of digits that follow “02”, so this query turns up any record with a value for address_zip that begins with “02”.

LAST 30 DAYS

Once I started using SQL regularly, I found that one of my go-to queries involved trying to find which people took an action or fulfilled a certain set of criteria within the last 30 days.

Let’s pretend today is December 1, 2021. You could create these parameters by making the birth_date span between November 1, 2021 and November 30, 2021. That SQL query would look like this:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2021-11-01’ AND ‘2021-11-30’

ORDER BY

     last_name

LIMIT

     100

;

But, that would require thinking about which dates cover the last 30 days, and you’d have to update this query constantly.

Instead, to make the dates automatically span the last 30 days no matter which day it is, you can type this under AND: birth_date >= (DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 30))

(Note: You’ll want to double-check this syntax with your product team because it may differ based on the software you use to pull your SQL queries.)

Your full SQL query would therefore look like this:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date >= (DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 30))

ORDER BY

     last_name

LIMIT

     100

;

COUNT

In some cases, you may want to count the number of times that a criterion of a field appears. For example, let’s say you want to count the number of times the different hair colors appear for the people you are tallying up from Massachusetts. In this case, COUNT will come in handy so you don’t have to manually add up the number of people who have different hair colors or export that information to Excel.

Here’s what that SQL query would look like:

SELECT

     hair_color,

     COUNT(hair_color)

FROM

     people_massachusetts

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

GROUP BY

     hair_color

;

AVG

AVG calculates the average of an attribute in the results of your query, excluding NULL values (empty). In our example, we could use AVG to calculate the average age of Massachusetts residents in our query.

Here’s what our SQL query could look like:

SELECT

  AVG(age)

FROM

  people_massachusetts

;

SUM

SUM is another simple calculation you can do in SQL. It calculates the total value of all attributes from your query. So, if we wanted to add up all the ages of Massachusetts residents, we can use this query:

SELECT

  SUM(age)

FROM

  people_massachusetts

;

MIN and MAX

MIN and MAX are two SQL functions that give you the smallest and largest values of a given field. We can use it to identify the oldest and youngest members of our Massachusetts table:

This query will give us the record of the oldest:

SELECT

  MIN(age)

FROM

  people_massachusetts

;

And this query gives us the oldest:

SELECT

  MAX(age)

FROM

  people_massachusetts

;

JOIN

There may be a time when you need to access information from two different tables in one SQL query. In SQL, you can use a JOIN clause to do this.

(For those familiar with Excel formulas, this is similar to using the VLOOKUP formula when you need to combine information from two different sheets in Excel.)

Let’s say we have one table that has data of all Massachusetts residents’ user IDs and their birthdates. In addition, we have an entirely separate table containing all Massachusetts residents’ user IDs and their hair color.

If we want to figure out the hair color of Massachusetts residents born in the year 2003, we’d need to access information from both tables and combine them. This works because both tables share a matching column: user IDs.

Because we’re calling out fields from two different tables, our SELECT statement is also going to change slightly. Instead of just listing out the fields we want to include in our results, we’ll need to specify which table they’re coming from. (Note: The asterisk function may come in handy here so your query includes both tables in your results.)

To specify a field from a specific table, all we have to do is combine the name of the table with the name of the field. For example, our SELECT statement would say “table.field” — with the period separating the table name and the field name.

We’re also assuming a few things in this case:

  1. The Massachusetts birthdate table includes the following fields: first_name, last_name, user_id, birthdate
  2. The Massachusetts hair color table includes the following fields: user_id, hair_color

Your SQL query would therefore look like:

SELECT

     birthdate_massachusetts.first_name,

     birthdate_massachusetts.last_name

FROM

     birthdate_massachusetts JOIN haircolor_massachusetts USING (user_id)

WHERE

     hair_color = ‘red’

AND

     birth_date BETWEEN ‘2003-01-01’ AND ‘2003-12-31’

ORDER BY

     last_name

;

This query would join the two tables using the field “user_id” which appears in both the birthdate_massachusetts table and the haircolor_massachusetts table. You’re then able to see a table of people born in 2003 who have red hair.

CASE

Use a CASE statement when you want to return different results to your query based on which condition is met. Conditions are evaluated in order. Once a condition is met, the corresponding result is returned and all following conditions are skipped over.

You can include an ELSE condition at the end in case no conditions are met. Without an ELSE, the query will return NULL if no conditions are met.

Here’s an example of using CASE to return a string based on the query:

SELECT

     first_name,

     last_name

FROM

     people_massachusetts

CASE

  WHEN hair_color = ‘brown’ THEN ‘This person has brown hair.’

  WHEN hair_color = ‘blonde’ THEN ‘This person has blonde hair.’

  WHEN hair_color = ‘red’ THEN ‘This person has red hair.’

  ELSE ‘Hair color not known.’

END

;

Basic SQL Queries Marketers Should Know

Congratulations. you’re ready to run your own SQL queries! While there’s a lot more you can do with SQL, I hope you found this overview of the basics helpful so you can get your hands dirty. With a strong foundation of the basics, you’ll be able to navigate SQL better and work toward some of the more complex examples.

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

excel marketing templates

Categories B2B

What it Takes to Become an ABM Leader: ITSMA’s 2021 ABM Benchmark Study

Search volume for Account-Based Marketing, better known as ABM, has essentially doubled in the past 5 years.

One of the primary reasons interest in ABM has skyrocketed (which we shared last year) is simple: ABM delivers results. 

But what kind of results are Marketers actually seeing? What’s the true impact they’re experiencing? Where should others expect to see ABM’s impact on their business?

In Embedding ABM: Next Steps for Market Leadership—ITSMA and the ABM Leadership Alliance’s fifth annual ABM benchmark study—you’ll learn about the current state of ABM and the five ways that ABM leaders stand apart to generate more substantial results.

Let’s dive into their findings.

The Growing Influence of ABM 

ABM is increasingly becoming “business as usual” within B2B Marketing. 

This statement isn’t merely an educated guess, either, as 70% of respondents agreed that the principles of ABM are influencing the way that Marketing is currently conducted.

Beyond the way Marketing is managed, ABM is also changing the way businesses treat their customers. 23% of all respondents (49% total) stated that ABM is playing a major role in making their entire company more customer-centric—an augmentation that is bound to benefit all parties.

As one respondent shared, their company’s entire focus now is to become as account-based as they possibly can. “Our CEO and CMO believe that the more personalized we can get with our customers, the better,” they said. “With our long history and legacy customers, there’s still so much opportunity to expand.” 

How ABM Compares to Other Types of Marketing

In conducting the study, authors Rob Leavitt (Senior Vice President, Consulting) and Julie Schwartz, (Senior Vice President, Research and Thought Leadership) found that 72% of companies said that ABM delivers greater ROI than any other form of Marketing. 

Considering that 76% of respondents in last year’s study reported that ABM’s ROI was Somewhat Higher (with 26% saying Significantly higher) than traditional Marketing initiatives, this is a slight drop from the previous year. While it’s a key indicator of performance, ROI isn’t always the best measure of success for any initiative, however. 

65% of Marketers reported improved revenue from their ABM programs, a full 10% increase YOY. Rounding out the Three R’s of Business Impact, Marketers reported a 3% gain in Relationships (73%) and a 6% gain in Reputation/Brand (40%). 

Whichever way you choose to slice it, ABM programs are clearly paying off for B2B Marketers. 

Mature ABM Programs Drive Better Results

What’s also clear is how much better mature ABM programs are at driving results.

With the increased interest in ABM in the past five years or so, it’s not surprising we’re reaching a stage in the greater B2B Marketing landscape where ABM programs have become fully integrated. 

As the study reports, nearly half of all respondents (45%) reported their ABM efforts are maturing quite nicely. Programs in the Expanding category increased 12% YOY, while those in the Exploring category dropped 18%. (Essentially, programs in the Expanding and Embedded categories are the more mature approaches, while Exploring and Experimenting represent those just beginning their ABM journeys.) 

But simply saying that your program is maturing doesn’t mean much. The proof is in the pudding, and boy is that pudding delicious. Those in the Expanding and Embedded categories shared that they’d seen a 53% bump in pipeline growth and a 43% improvement in revenue. 

Clearly, there is a correlation between program age and program success. But simply existing for a number of years doesn’t pre-qualify you for better outcomes. So what does?

The 5 Things Leading ABM Programs Do Differently

In 2021, 33% of ABM leaders saw a significant improvement in their overall business results, buoyed by a remarkable 84% improvement in measurable business revenue.

In order to help more ABM programs reach these heights, ITSMA uncovered five distinct areas where leading ABM programs stand apart from the rest.

Leading ABM programs are more likely to:

Be Strategically Aligned

  • These programs featured more inclusive, diverse, senior leaders in ABM strategy and governance

Better Collaborate with Sales

  • Those working more closely with sales at every stage of program management and customer relationship development yielded better outcomes

Better Develop Staff

  • These programs were far more likely to employ professionals with a wide range of ABM competencies with a high degree of proficiency

Excel in Process 

  • Programs that have invested more in strengthening and solidifying essential tools, templates, and processes have seen greater results

Leverage Technology and Data

  • Those programs which take advantage of the capabilities of their existing tech stack and use them to their fullest potential saw terrific results

Conversely, what leading ABM programs don’t do is just as interesting as what they are doing. 

ABM leaders do not:

  • Spend more money on ABM
  • Use different types of ABM
  • Use different Marketing tactics
  • Use a different approach to staffing

By focusing on all of the details, they’re squeezing everything possible out of each individual insight, thus enabling them to achieve a greater yield from every account. Basically, ABM leaders aren’t using major ad dollars, swarms of employees, or revolutionary techniques to surpass their peers. Instead, they’re using everything at their (and likely your) disposal to outperform the competition. 

Why Stakeholder Support is Key to Success

Each of the five elements above is critical to evolving any ABM program. But having strategic support from the top is almost equally important, specifically within the C-Suite.

“We have two ABM executive sponsors,” one respondent said, “our chief Marketing officer and our chief revenue officer. The sales, service, and customer success organizations report to the chief revenue officer. It also helps that both customer Marketing and account-based Marketing are huge priorities for the CEO. That’s why we get the support and resources we need.”

As the study shares, ABM programs need stability in the form of guaranteed, upfront budgets. While other Marketing tactics can take an ad hoc approach, ABM requires immediate funding in order to feed the necessary relationship-building it requires. Knowing this makes it clear why a champion in the C-Suite is needed. Without it, any ABM program won’t be able to flourish. 

Learn How to Make Your ABM Program Stand Out from the Pack

This is just a taste of everything that’s been packed into this terrific report.

Beyond the findings we’ve highlighted in this blog, there are more than two dozen additional insights that will help you fuel your ABM program. 

As a member of the ABMLA, we sincerely hope you enjoy it and find some truly impactful and actionable data. Here’s to even greater ABM success in 2022!

Download your copy of Embedding ABM today.

Categories B2B

70 Fun (Not Cheesy) Ice Breaker Games & Activities Your Employees Will Enjoy in 2022

Asking “How is everyone?” at the beginning of every meeting isn’t always the best way to encourage team bonding. Sometimes, having a fun ice breaker can aid in that connection.

The best ice breakers have the power to strengthen coworker bonds, stimulate better brainstorming sessions, and create an atmosphere of inclusivity. To get the most value out of your team bonding moments, we’ve compiled a list of the best ice breaker activities and games for the workplace.

Next time you get together with your team, use one of these games instead of asking “How is everyone,” and you’re sure to hear some better, more insightful responses than “I’m good.”

Download Now: Free Company Culture Code Template 

Zoom Icebreakers

1. Paint a Picture, Build a Story

In this ice breaker, playoff your teammates’ artistry and create a scenario of their masterpieces. Gartic Phone gives you a short time frame to sketch photos based on other players’ prompts — and can result in some hilarious artwork.

The more nonsensical the prompt, the funnier the drawings become. You’ll also get brownie points if you save and share some of the funniest drawings and share them with the team on Slack afterward.

2. Guess That Drawing

Drawasaurus is one of my favorite online drawing games to play with colleagues. Players get to choose from three random prompts to quickly interpret and draw their vision. Other players can score more points for identifying the word the fastest and take turns going until the timer goes out.

3. Alphabet Brainstorm

Thinking off the top of your head is a lot harder said than done in Scattergories. The host of the game can choose from topics as broad as foods and countries or as weird as “Things Granny would say.”

Each round the game will highlight a random letter of the alphabet and let players come up with any noun or phrase that starts with said letter. The best part — players can dispute answers amongst each other to take the win. A perfect icebreaker for your overly competitive colleagues.

4. Show and Tell

A rather straightforward ice breaker, team members can share an object they love over Zoom. Whether it’s a prized-collectible or an item that sparks nostalgia, there’s plenty of stories waiting to be told.

5. Bucket List

Outside of the workplace, your teammates are people with aspirations and goals you wouldn’t know about from the average coffee chat. Have team members share some bucket list items they want to achieve in the future.

Not only can these be inspirational, but they also open the floor for team members to encourage one another to pursue their dreams, too. It’s a particularly uplifting team-bonding activity that will bring your team even closer together.

6. Share the Love

While dispersed teams may not have the chance to share a handshake or hug, you can still share the love amongst each other in this icebreaker. Say something lovely with another team member, and it could be anything you want as long as it’s respectful and in good judgment.

For each person that receives a kind message, they will be the next one to share a message to a member of the group who hasn’t received one — ensuring everyone gets an equal amount of praise. Shout them out for their helpfulness in a project, for the energy they bring to the team, or for their lovely smile.

7. Arts and Crafts

Making something with your team can be a great opportunity to learn something new and keep decorative mementos in your space to remind you of your team. Have everyone follow the same instructions to make a craft like simple origami, a drawing, or painting by a designated instructor in the Zoom call or YouTube tutorial.

8. What Do We Have in Common?

This icebreaker is best suited for new hires who may feel more reserved as they virtually meet the team.

Find common ground and get the conversation going with your team members. Have a manager or team leader start the conversation by sharing something they have an interest in, like popular TV, music, foods, or whatever they love to get everyone thinking. Popcorn it over to the most enthusiastic team member with that same interest and have them share a new one.

Typical icebreaker questions can get people to say a sentence or two about the subject, but if you’re passionate about it, you’ll see more personality come out from the most unexpected colleagues in the call.

9. Name That Tune

Music brings people together, and you’d be surprised to learn how many of your coworkers are raving about the top trending song on TikTok or Spotify.

Take turns whistling, tapping, or even playing an instrument (if you gave one) to the tune of a popular song and have your teammates guess the name. Figure out who’s a fan of the classics by clapping and stomping to the tune of “We Will Rock You” by Queen, or do whatever it takes to help your colleagues recognize your favorite tunes.

10. Themed Meetings

Hosting themed meetings is the best icebreaker for the holiday season. Share a laugh and snap photos of you and your colleagues dressed up as elves with Zoom backgrounds at the North Pole, or in your spookiest costumes for Halloween.

Make sure your theme is chosen in good judgment as some holidays have cultural ties, keep this icebreaker for more commercial holidays.

12. Guess the Childhood Photo

In need of a wholesome icebreaker? In your next Zoom meeting, tell everyone to send the leader a cute (or hilarious) photo from their childhood and randomly throw them all into one slideshow.

When it’s complete, the leader will then share their screen and have the group guess which team member is in each photo. Try not to blush too hard when they get to yours.

13. Zoom Photo Ops

In this icebreaker, you’ll first want to ask everyone involved if they’re comfortable having their photos taken before the meeting begins (I know I’d like a heads up in case I was wearing an old band shirt instead of my usual business casual outfits.)

You can try to get everyone to make silly or scary faces, or even try to mimic the Brady Bunch title sequence. There are plenty of poses or facial expressions to capture, especially if you’ve got a kooky team to work with.

14. Hobby Webinar

During weekly video chats, you can designate one coworker to teach the team how to engage in a hobby they’re good at — something you don’t need to be in-person to do.

This could range from showing how to do quick origami, do a magic trick, or even giving a pointer or two on couponing from your coworker who always keeps an eye out for the latest deals.

Ice Breakers for Meetings

15. One Word

The One Word ice breaker allows you to provide initial context into a meeting’s topic, and get everyone in the right mindset for discussion.

To play, you’ll want to divide meeting participants into smaller groups. Then, tell them to think for a minute or two, and then share with their group one word that describes X.

For instance, let’s say you’re leading a meeting on culture. Tell the groups to describe work culture, or your office culture in particular, in one word. Once they’ve shared with their groups, you can invite them to share their word with the entire room.

This game encourages everyone to think about a certain topic in smaller groups ahead of time, which could increase participation during the meeting.

16. Pop Quiz

To successfully loosen everyone up and get them in the right mindset for a meeting, you might consider putting a short Pop Quiz on the board.

If your goal is simply to encourage team bonding, your quiz can be more fun — like, “Match the lyrics with this 80’s song.” However, you might also use the Pop Quiz as an opportunity to introduce participants to the meeting’s theme.

If you’re discussing company changes, for instance, maybe you’ll start by quizzing team members on company history facts (e.g. “What year was this company founded?”).

17. Birth Map

Place a map and a set of pins at the front of a large conference room before a big meeting. As people walk in, ask them to place a pin where they were born or raised.

As the map fills up with pins, people will learn about how diverse their teammates might be. Allow some time at the end of the meeting for your colleagues to walk up and look more closely at the map.

18. Movie Pitch

Perfect for larger groups and movie fanatics, this icebreaker is as crazy as you make it. Divide players into quads and give them 10 minutes to devise the plot of the next award-winning film. You can give them constraints by designating genres like horror, action, comedy, thriller, and more.

If your organization is meeting to brainstorm ideas for specific projects, go ahead and incorporate the topic into their movie pitch prompts to get the creative juices flowing.

19. Stretch Break

Maybe the week has been busy for you and your team, or it’s going on your fourth meeting of the day. If this is the case, have everyone take a breather and stretch before the next big meeting begins.

Someone can either lead by example showcasing some arm and back stretches, or just let everyone freestyle. You’d be surprised how a little movement can wake up and help people get work done.

20. Rose, Thorn, Bud

In meetings, it can be hard to communicate or understand everyone’s perspective on a project unless everyone has the floor to say what’s on their mind. With the Rose, Thorn, Bud icebreaker, team members can quickly convey what’s on their mind by sharing three bits of information:

  • Rose: A recent positive happening like a personal highlight or win
  • Thorn: A challenge or roadblock they need support on
  • Bud: An idea for the future they’d like to share, or excitement for events in motion

21. Frivolous Debate

There’s nothing like some lighthearted banter to get everyone warmed up before a meeting.

For this icebreaker, everyone will debate a silly topic and have chime in with an equally silly answer and reasoning. Make a statement like, “Cats better than dogs,” and, “Summer is better than winter,” or let chaos ensue by declaring that pineapple belongs on pizza (because it does.)

Quick Ice Breakers

22. Would You Rather

A classic game played at summer camps everywhere, “Would You Rather” is an excellent, quick ice breaker for the workplace. Next time you’re settling into a meeting or team bonding outing, take turns going around the table and asking each person a “Would You Rather” question.

Here are a few “Would You Rather” questions to get you started:

  • Would you rather only have summer or winter for the rest of your life?
  • Would you rather go on a hike or see a movie?
  • Would you rather never use social media sites and apps again or never watch another movie or TV show?
  • Would you rather have a horrible short-term memory or a horrible long-term memory?

23. 18 & Under

18 & Under is an engaging and unique way to encourage team members to share fun or interesting stories with one another. Before a meeting, simply go around the room, and ask each person to share one accomplishment they had before they turned 18.

Undoubtedly you’ll get some of lesser importance, like “I bought a skateboard,” but you never know what hidden skills you might discover in your colleagues.

24. Two Truths and a Lie

One of the more classic ice breakers in the list, Two Truths and a Lie can be used anywhere from family parties to company events. To play, you simply ask each person to brainstorm three “facts” about themselves — two of the facts will be true, and one will be a lie.

For instance, I might say, “I once auditioned for the TV show Zoom. I have three brothers. I ziplined in Switzerland once.” Coworkers can take turns guessing which is the lie. (FYI, I have two brothers, not three, so that’s the lie. Unfortunately, I auditioned for Zoom.)

Two Truths and a Lie is a fun and engaging game, and more importantly, it can help your team learn facts about one another, so they can begin forming deeper bonds.

25. The Handshake

One of the first ways you get to greet somebody in the workplace is with a handshake.

This ice breaker lets individuals ease up and have a little fun without a hassle. It’s simple — divide the group into pairs of two and have them make the most creative handshake they can in a couple of minutes.

If you have more time on your hands, have the pairs split up after showing off their super cool shake and make even more creative ones with new partners. It’s hard to play these games without sharing a laugh, something we all could use in the workday.

26. Bad Joke Contest

This icebreaker won’t take your team time at all to complete if you give them a heads up to prepare. In the Bad Joke Contest, you’ll have everyone recite the corniest joke they can muster and have everyone vote on who was the most cringeworthy.

Beware, some coworkers have impressively bad dad jokes saved up for these moments, so the competition will be fierce.

Fun Ice Breaker Games

27. Tall Tales

This icebreaker game will have everyone thinking on their feet. In Tall Tales, each player will make up three sentences to add to a running story. The third sentence has to have a plot twist starting with, “Suddenly…” before rotating to the next.

Every player will have a chance to put their own spin on the budding story, and can even try to throw the next participant for a loop with a crazy situation.

28. Say Your Name Backwards

This game is pretty straightforward, or straight backward.

Every player will write their name on a slip of paper backward, fold it, and place it into a bowl. Once all the slips are collected, someone will draw one out of the bowl and read to the rest of the players what’s on the slip. Whoever can guess their coworker’s name correctly gains a point, and whoever has the most points at the end wins.

29. Jenga

Jenga is considered a classic game for a reason, and because it’s easy to play and put away. Have your team take turns pulling woodblocks out of your Jenga tower and share a laugh when it all comes toppling down.

30. Frown King or Queen

Make it a competition to see which of your team members has the gnarliest frown, and bestow upon them the title of Frown King or Queen. Bonus points if you actually go out of your way to make a paper crown.

You’d be surprised how hard it is to maintain a frown when surrounded by your favorite colleagues, not to mention how funny they’ll look during the game.

31. The Envelope Please!

In this icebreaker game, have everyone write 10 facts about themselves on paper and place them each into their own envelopes. The envelopes are to be shuffled and chosen once at a time by the leader to read aloud to the rest of the group.

The rest of the players will then guess the identity of the envelope in hand — but they must be confident in their answer as each player only has one chance to guess per envelope.

32. Random Talent Show

A talent show is one thing, but a random talent show is another. Have your coworkers take turns showing their cool party (or office) tricks. And let’s face it, you’ve been trying to find the right opportunity to show someone you could lick your elbow for a while now.

33. Celebrity Impressions

For this icebreaker game, the leader will tape a label to each player’s back with a celebrity or household name. Once that’s complete, every player will then ask each other yes or no questions about the traits, recent news, or talents of their celebrity label.

If a player can identify their own celebrity correctly, they can remove the label from their backs and continue mingling if they wish.

34. Quick Portrait Gallery

You don’t have to be Picasso to have take part in this icebreaker. The instructions are simple, every group member will be randomly assigned a different person to draw in a couple minutes. It’s a fun way to bond and share a giggle here and there over everyone’s work of art.

35. Sound Ball

Sound Ball is an imaginative icebreaker that gives everyone a chance to get moving and energized.

In this icebreaker, the leader holds an imaginary ball in their hand and “throws” it to other players, making whatever sound they think it would with that gesture. Whoever “catches” the ball next must repeat the sound made, then throw the ball to another person making their own unique sound. It sounds crazy, but it’s easy to get into the flow of it.

36. Beatboxing

This is probably one of the silliest icebreakers in this list, but it’s definitely worth trying for the fun of it all. Have one team member start making a noise you’d hear in a song like percussion and have others gradually add to the beat.

Who knows, if the beat sounds good enough you all could consider making an acapella group.

Large Team Ice Breakers

37. Charades

Charades is a game fit for large teams, both in-person and remote.

In this icebreaker, players need to communicate with team members to identify a noun of a certain category. Have everyone divide into two teams, and have one player at a time pantomime (act out) the subject for their own respective teammates. Whichever team gets the most points, wins.

38. Red Light, Green Light

I bet anyone who watched Squid Games in 2021 is familiar with this game, and if you haven’t, the rules are simple (and the stakes are much, much lower.)

The players in this icebreaker game will line up on one side of a room and a designated leader will be instructed to say either, “Red Light,” or, “Green Light”. Players in line are to try and walk to the other side of the room when the leader says, “Green Light”, but once the leader says, “Red Light”, everyone must freeze or be kicked out of the game.

39. Guess Who

Similar to Charades, Guess Who is a great icebreaker where you can mimic famous people — or even your coworkers.

Have someone write down well-known names on sheets of paper and then hand them off one at a time to a team member. They’ll have to act out the behaviors, facial expressions, or even the iconicI’m flying” scene from Titanic.

40. Icebreaker Bingo

Icebreaker Bingo is a great way to bond with large teams because it can include as many people as you want.

You can use a free icebreaker bingo generator and personalize each of the squares on a subject you’re all discussing for the day, or for anything everyone can feel included.

41. Hot Take

For this icebreaker, everyone can take turns in sharing their hot takes and either bond with their coworkers who agree or debate their naysayers.

Of course, you want the topics to be fun and lighthearted, so keep them to topics that aren’t controversial and opt for statements like, “Cheese isn’t all that great.” if you’re a madman.

42. “Most Likely To ___”

Remember those high school superlatives? This is like that but a little less embarrassing. Have coworkers read through a list of “Most likely To” titles and assign them to one another. During the game, everyone can chime in or give reasons as to why someone deserves the title, and the group consensus will be the final decision.

It’s important to note that no two people will have more than one tile to ensure everyone is included.

43. Whisper Down the Lane

Whisper Down the Lane is an icebreaker game where team members form a larger circle and share a random message whispered into the ear of someone to their left. This game can get funny pretty quickly, as a whisper down the lane can get misinterpreted over and over again.

44. Simon Says

Simon Says is a game as old as time, but it never stops being fun. The leader of the group will instruct players to do an action beginning with the words, “Simon says…” like, “Simon says touch your knees,” or, “Simon says grab your elbow.” Whoever doesn’t do the actions proclaimed will be booted out of the game.

The real trick is for the leader to confuse players by giving fast Simon Says commands, then giving them a command without saying the keywords. This could work like, “Simon says touch your hips, Simon says hop on one foot, Simon says touch your nose — touch your ears!” Whoever does the action (like touching your ears) will be booted out of the game because it wasn’t a Simon says action.

45. Things in Common

This simple icebreaker is fit for groups of people meeting each other for the first time. All that has to be done is mingle with one another to find some things you have in common, and try to form groups based on those attributes. Bonus points if you can learn the names of those who you relate to, and brownie points if you can relay all their names when asked.

46. Team Jigsaw Puzzle Competition

For this game, you’ll need to prepare by purchasing two identical jigsaw puzzles. Divide your large group into teams of two and set a timer to see which group can work together to make the most progress on their respective puzzles.

47. Clump

Have team members walk around and mingle amongst themselves in a large, open space. The leader of the icebreaker will then yell out a random number under 10. Every person mingling will then have to quickly form a group in the size of the number called.

Gradually people will be made to exit the mingling space or find a seat until the last person standing wins.

Ice Breaker Games for Small Groups

48. Fun Questions

Asking fun questions is an easy and effective ice breaker game. To play, simply go around the room and have each person provide an answer to a fun question. The questions are up to you, but if you’re stuck, here are a few ideas:

  • If you’re stranded on a desert island and have the option of bringing three items with you, what three items would they be?
  • If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?
  • What was the first concert you ever went to?
  • If you could have any celebrity over for dinner, who would it be and why?

These questions serve two purposes — first, they allow your coworkers to get into a sillier, more creative mindset. Second, they encourage conversation on topics typically reserved for outside the office, which enables members of your team to get to know one another on a deeper level.

Meg Prater, Sr. Marketing Manager of the HubSpot blog, says “When I first started including ice-breaker questions in our weekly team stand-up meetings, the experience was … cringeworthy. It felt like exactly what it was: organized fun. But we kept at it. I listened to feedback and tried to incorporate it into better ice breakers.”

She continued, “For example, some folks on our team don’t watch a lot of T.V. and felt a little excluded when we’d fall down a rabbit hole of shows we were binging. Keeping the ice breakers inclusive keeps everyone engaged. Now, our ice-breakers can take 15+ minutes to get through and yield some of our biggest laughs and revelations of the week.”

49. Personality Quiz

This ice breaker can promote team bonding, and it’s one of the easier options on the list. Simply choose a brief personality quiz on your phone or computer (if you’re stuck, here’s a list), and pull it up on a projector or send the link to everyone.

Once everyone has completed the personality assessment, have each colleague mention one thing they agree or disagree with from their results. This game allows your team members to gain a new perspective on their peers, and it’s also a fun and easy way to get an interesting conversation started.

50. Who is it?

Have everyone write a unique, strange, or unexpected fact about them on a piece of paper. Then, put the pieces of paper into a hat and mix them around. Pull from the hat and read each fact.

Allow the team to try and guess who wrote it. After they guess, ask the employee who wrote the fact to identify themselves and give any further context if necessary. This could be a great way to get to know surprising new things about your teammates.

51. Marshmallow Challenge

Tom Wujec, a business visualization expert, initially presented his Marshmallow Challenge at TED. To play, you simply divide your team into groups of four and give each group 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and a marshmallow. Whichever team can build the tallest structure, wins — the trick is, the marshmallow must be on top.

There are a few reasons this game works as both a great ice breaker and a team-building exercise. First, the most successful teams are the groups of people who don’t spend time competing for power.

The game forces your colleagues to work collaboratively when brainstorming potential solutions. Second, the Marshmallow Challenge encourages people to think quickly and offer alternative solutions when their initial idea fails.

With the Marshmallow Challenge, you can strengthen your team’s brainstorming and problem-solving skills, and your team can also have some fun. A win, win.

52. Scavenger Hunt

At HubSpot, we conduct a scavenger hunt for new hires on the first day of their training. It’s fun and encourages collaboration, but additionally, it can help employees learn their way around the office.

Fortunately, you can conduct a scavenger hunt for your team even if they’ve worked at your office for years.

Simply split up your team into groups, and give each group a shortlist of items to find — if you work in a smaller space, maybe you can hide some funny items around the office ahead of time. You might even provide an incentive for the winning team, like a $50 Amazon gift card.

A scavenger hunt is also an exceptional opportunity for cross-department interaction. Consider reaching out to managers from other departments and creating groups of employees who don’t often get to work together.

53. No Smiling

This game is simple and meant to energize your team. Get your colleagues in a circle and ask one volunteer to sit or stand in the middle. Tell the volunteer that they can not laugh or smile, regardless of what happens. Then have each other colleagues take turns telling the volunteer a work-appropriate joke.

The goal of the volunteer is to hear a joke from every colleague around the circle, while the goal of the other team members is to make the volunteer laugh.

This icebreaker can be helpful in new-employee or management training to lighten the pressure of starting a new job. It can also be helpful as a way of lightening the mood on teams that regularly deal with stressful projects or situations.

54. This is Better Than That

Aside from being a fun team activity, this might be a great energizer for sales employees or others that regularly pitch, market, and sell products.

Ask your team to find four to seven items around the office and bring them to one room. These items could be something they use daily, like a pen or a chair. However, you should encourage them to find items that are more odd or unique. This will make the game more challenging.

Line the items up and split the group into sub-teams. Task each team with picking an item they would use to survive if stranded on a desert island.

Tell team members that they cannot pick more than one and must assume it is the only item they will have on that island. Allow the teams time to deliberate and then ask them to present the item they chose and why.

Virtual Icebreakers for Dispersed Teams

55. Choose Your Favorite

For this icebreaker, all you have to do is answer the question about your favorite things. You’ll ask your team to choose their favorite movie, song, T.V. show, etc. The question can change every week.

This icebreaker helps your team get to know each other even when they work remotely and can spark conversation on what everyone likes or dislikes.

56. Trivia Game

If you’re looking for a remote icebreaker that’s more of a game, and less discussion-based, you can host a trivia game.

Kahoot is a trivia platform you can use for free (hosts up to 10 people). To get started, all you’ll need to do is sign up for a free Kahoot account.

Then, you can choose a featured trivia game to play. To run this remotely, you’ll want to share your screen with your team. Everyone will need to have a separate device to use so they can enter the game and submit their answers.

57. Share an Embarrassing Photo

This is one of my favorite icebreakers because it’s a fun way to get to know your team. For this game, have everyone bring in an embarrassing photo and tell the story behind it.

Have your team members share their screen or send a file to the team leader to share with everyone.

To make this more interesting, you can have people guess whose photo it is before your team member shares their story. Doing this icebreaker is a great way to build connections remotely.

58. One Word Pulse Check

For this icebreaker, have everyone on your team go around and share a word or phrase that represents how they feel that day.

Sr. Manager, Christina Perricone, says this is her favorite icebreaker.

“The person sharing gets to decide whether or not to elaborate, and everyone listens without response. The purpose of the exercise is to give people a chance to release and/or reveal emotional setbacks, obstacles, wins, highlights, or anything else that might be impacting how they show up to work that day. It provides a space for participants to bring their entire self to work and it gives the team context for how to support that team member that day,” Perricone adds.

59. Meet my Pet

Nothing fills a meeting with smiles like photos of colleagues’ furry friends. Take turns showing off the cutest pictures and videos of your pet.

For those who don’t have any, they can either make a joke pet (the infamous pet rock) or share a dream pet they would have.

60. Let’s Make a Mixtape

This icebreaker works by asking your coworkers to choose one of their favorite songs from a certain genre. Once everyone has their song in mind, have someone compile either a Youtube or Spotify playlist of everyone’s choices, and share the link with everyone in the group afterward.

Not only is it fun at the moment, but then everyone has the chance to discover new artists and tunes they haven’t heard of before.

61. Emoji Mood Guesser

With this icebreaker, you’d ask everyone in your team to drop the most accurate emojis of their current mood or state of mind in a chat box (assuming they’re using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.) Everyone can guess what adjective someone is trying to convey, and can even share why if they want to.

Would You Rather Ice Breakers

62. Food Would You Rather Questions

You’d be surprised how passionate some of your coworkers can get over food. When asking “Would You Rather” questions, ask about various savory or sweet food staples and which they would prefer to eat forever.

Example: “Would you rather eat only cake forever or eat pasta forever?”

63. Travel Would You Rather Questions

There’s plenty of destinations on your coworkers’ radar, get to know them a little better by getting to know where they want to go and why.

Example: “Would you rather travel to only island destinations or mountainous destinations?”

64. Talent Would You Rather Questions

Explore more uncommon talents and see which your coworkers would like to have in this type of questionnaire.

Example: “Would you rather your special talent be opera singing or in playing the banjo?”

65. Super Hero Would You Rather Questions

There are hundreds of superheroes from Marvel and DC, and chances are your coworkers are familiar with them, too. Ask which hero they would like to be and why based on their stories or abilities.

Example: “Would you rather be Ironman or Captain America?”

66. Super Power Would You Rather Questions

On a similar note to heroes, find out what powers your coworkers would rather have and why. Bonus points if you ask them whether they’d label themselves as a hero or villain.

Example: “Would you rather have super speed or super strength?”

67. Sport Would You Rather Questions

Your coworkers may be involved in sports outside of work, and maybe they’re fans of different leagues and teams. Ask which sports they’d rather play and see which they’d prefer and why.

Example: “Would you rather play basketball for the rest of your life or football?”

68. Fashion Would You Rather Questions

Even if your coworkers aren’t tuned into NYFW, they’re sure to recognize some of the most popular clothing brands. Ask them which they’d prefer to dress in and why.

Example: “Would you rather wear only Louis Vuitton or Gucci?”

69. TV Would You Rather Questions

With tons of streaming services to choose from, your coworkers are bound to have some favorite TV shows. Ask questions like which shows they’d rather watch, or be a part of.

Example: “Would you rather be a cast member in Euphoria or Ozark?”

70. Movie Would You Rather Questions

Movie fanatics across any team or department will enjoy questions about them. Ask coworkers which genres they’d rather watch, or which they’d want to be in.

Example: “Would you rather be cast in a comedy movie or action movie?”

Break the Ice and Get to Business

Icebreaker activities can seem cringeworthy but are actually a great way to build trust within your team. We hope you found some good ice breakers to incorporate in your future meetings with our list of favorites. And even if you work remotely, team bonding is an important part of running a productive, effective team.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

company culture template

Categories B2B

28 Best Email Newsletter Templates and Resources to Download Right Now

If you had to guess, how many email newsletters do you think you’re subscribed to? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?

To be honest, I’ve lost count — and I know I’m not alone. Email marketers have a lot to compete within their subscribers’ inboxes. That’s why a solid newsletter template is crucial to designing an email that people are encouraged to click through.

Click here to download our free lookbook that's packed with our favorite email  newsletters.

If done well, email newsletters can do wonders to help you build an engaged subscriber base, keep your business top-of-mind, and nurture leads that are already making their way down the funnel.

However, “done well” means more than just serving up great content. In fact, an often overlooked component of the newsletter creation process is the design.

Don’t have time to build out a custom template from scratch? We’ve scoured the internet for the best resources for email newsletter templates and compiled them below. Many of the templates have also been pre-tested for compatibility with major email service providers (ESPs) via Litmus — a web service that allows you to preview the way your email will look on different email clients and devices.

Once you find one you like, download the template and customize it to fit your needs.

1. HubSpot

email newsletter templates: hubspot

Price: Free & paid options available

If you’re a Marketing Hub user, HubSpot offers a great collection of email templates you can use on your next marketing email. No need to log out and search for a template in another marketplace; these templates are available to you right within the tool.

Once you choose a template, you can start using it immediately right in HubSpot — no HTML or CSS required.

2. Announcement by Litmus

email newsletter templates: announcement by litmus

Price: Free

Litmus offers a free email template collection — from newsletter templates to account management templates. This marketing-specific theme — simply referred to as “Announcement” — is modern and sleek, while still being kind of fun. All of the templates have been tested with Litmus.

While you are required to create a Litmus account with your email address to access the templates, the templates themselves are free of charge.

3. ConvertKit

email newsletter templates: converkitPrice: Free

ConvertKit is a creative email template platform that’s a great option for bloggers, course creators, and more. ConvertKit comes with email automation tools, signup forms, and many more integrations.

To use ConvertKit’s email newsletter templates, you’ll need to sign up for a plan, but the good news is that they offer both free and pro subscriptions. While this platform is more on the creative side, their vast array of templates and tool integrations will help businesses in any industry upgrade their email newsletter.

4. ZURB Ink

email newsletter templates: zurb inkPrice: Free

ZURB Studios has five responsive email templates available for free, including the newsletter one below. It has a great, fluid layout you can customize with your own colors, images, and wording.

If you want to see how each template looks on different email clients, you can check out screenshots from each template’s email client tests, which are available on the site. These layouts are optimized for most email clients — except for outdated versions of Outlook.

The template kit comes with a separate CSS stylesheet and HTML file to ease the editing process. Most email code editors will place the CSS inline with the HTML itself after both are uploaded separately. If you’re going to add images to your newsletter, keep in mind that you’ll have to create a separate folder and compress it with the CSS stylesheet before uploading.

Pro tip: Once you’ve selected a template, use HubSpot’s free email marketing software to craft your message and send a newsletter out to the world!

5. Flodesk

email newsletter templates: flodesk

Price: Free for 30 days

Flodesk is an upcoming email newsletter design platform with over 3,000 email templates and designs to enhance your email marketing. Aside from giving you access to a vast array of templates, Flodesk lets you connect your ecommerce site to help with automation and analytics.

Another benefit of Flodesk is that its subscription price ($38/month) is a flat fee. So, whether you’re sending 200 or 2,000 emails, you’ll pay the same price, and you’ll never have to upgrade your subscription to get all of the perks.

6. 99designs

email newsletter templates: 99 designs

Price: Free

99designs is a growing online community and collaboration platform for designers and small businesses, and they have a great designer blog and business blog. As a free offering to their blog readers, they released a set of 45 free email templates — perfect for newsletters, promotional messages, and personalized responses. All of the templates are fully responsive and compatible with all major email clients.

7. Moosend

email newsletter templates: moosend

Price: Free for 30 days

Moosend is an email marketing platform that makes it easy to design custom emails with a drag-and-drop editor and over 70 premade templates. Moosend also tracks analytics and sends personalized automated emails to subscribers based on their interest and behavior. If you’re interested in landing pages and subscription templates, it includes those as well.

Moosend analyzes your subscriber base to help with the success of your business. Just like Flodesk, Moosend lets you connect your ecommerce site to attract more subscribers and store all information in one place. Moosend is free for the first 30 days, and then you would have to upgrade to pro status for $9/month.

8. Campaign Monitor

email newsletter templates: campaign monitor

Price: Free

Campaign Monitor is another free email newsletter template and marketing platform. With a variety of email templates for newsletters, welcome emails, and promotional campaigns, Campaign Monitor makes designing emails easy. Campaign Monitor also compiles your analytics and tracks when emails are sent, delivered, and opened.

For many businesses, email marketing needs to connect to their website or ecommerce site, and Campaign Monitor does just that. Campaign Monitor has it all when it comes to templates and helps you maximize your sales by staying on-brand and creating a seamless customer experience. Campaign Monitor is only free for 30 days, but plans start as low as $9/month.

9. MailerLite

email newsletter templates: mailerlite

Price: Free

MailerLite offers various newsletter templates for promotions, announcements, and more. With its trendy newsletter designs, MailerLite makes sure its customers stay up to date while sending newsletters. You can customize the templates using either an HTML editor or drag-and-drop editor, and connect your MailerLite account to your website. MailerLite also has features where you can grow your audience with landing pages, subscription forms, and pop-ups.

MailerLite provides data insights as well. The advantage of MailerLite is that they will send your emails based on your customers’ time zones, allowing you to send emails that can get the most opens. MailerLite also provides A/B split testing tools so you can identify the best version of every email you send.

10. Constant Contact

email newsletter templates: constant contactPrice: $9.99 a month

Do you run a non-profit? If so, this is the newsletter tool specifically for you. Constant Contact is an email newsletter builder that offers specific templates to help nonprofits raise funds and market their missions. With hundreds of templates to choose from, you’ll be sure to find a design based on the template you need and what type of nonprofit you run.

The great thing about Constant Contact is the business analytics. While using the platform, you can see when emails are sent, delivered, opened, and shared. You will also be able to see top trends and send personalized emails to your clients.

Constant Contact also connects with your social media profiles, includes sign-up forms, and offers text message marketing tools. Contacting your non-profit subscribers via text message can be a great advantage because people check their emails but people check their text messages more. While Constant Contact is not free, its features more than make up for it. You can start at the basic subscription ($9.99/month) or upgrade to a pro account ($45/month) to unlock all the features.

11. Themezy

email newsletter templates: themezy

Price: Free

Download sixteen free HTML, CSS, and PSD customizable email templates on Themezy. You don’t have to submit an email address to get started, and there are various color schemes and layouts to meet your email list’s needs.

Plus, they’re designed to be responsive across devices to ensure that your subscribers can read your newsletter.

12. Drip

email newsletter templates: dripPrice: Free

Drip offers email marketing and SMS marketing for ecommerce brands. Drip is a new platform that lets you set up email marketing campaigns through hundreds of customizable templates. Along with their email newsletter templates, Drip offers excellent customer relations management tools, data analytics, and trend trackers so thorough that you can see how many of your customers bought red shoes within the last year. As a result, you’ll be able to better market yourself through your campaigns. Drip also has integrations that you can connect to your WordPress website, so you can use Drip without being on Drip.

Drip lets you start with a free 14-day trial, and the cost of your subscription will depend on your number of contacts. For up to 500 contacts, it’s $19/month, and the price goes up from there. Drip is beneficial to creators and ecommerce businesses because of the various marketing and analytical tools it offers. From email marketing to SMS marketing campaigns, Drip lets you effectively engage your customers.

13. MailPortfolio by SliceJack

email newsletter templates: mailportfolio

Price: Free

If your marketing strategy is heavily reliant on visuals, MailPortfolio is perfect for you. It’s a minimalist template with no added background distractions. While it was made for those looking to display personal creative portfolios, it’s also suitable for larger businesses and organizations.

The template has been tested with Litmus, is responsive, and works perfectly on all email clients. (Note: older versions of Outlook may not render all of the fonts, and the Android Gmail app is not fully supported.)

14. Material Design by Paul Goddard

email newsletter templates: paul goddard

Price: Free

This template is based on Google’s Material Design and has a robotic-retro feel. It is perfect for sending out multi-purpose newsletters featuring new products, events, and other announcements at the same time. This theme isn’t made for a specific industry, but the template is well-fitting for businesses looking for a timeless, technological look.

Material Design has been tested on Litmus, is compatible with all major ESPs, and is responsive. While its main attraction is its unique design, this theme download also includes customizable HTML files.

15. Briar by SliceJack

email newsletter templates: briarPrice: Free

Briar is the perfect newsletter template for marketers looking for a fluid, minimalist design featuring images and text that don’t overshadow each other. It’s perfect for sending out regular newsletters, and you can customize the Inline CSS files.

The template has been tested with Litmus and works with all major email service providers (ESPs). However, some older versions of Outlook may not render all Google fonts. Also, the Android Gmail app is not fully supported.

16. EmailOctopus

email newsletter templates: emailoctopus

Price: Free

EmailOctopus is a marketing service that launched a series of 11 templates that can be used to create newsletters for a variety of industries. Whether you’re marketing for a fashion brand or a medical supply company, one of the templates will fit your needs.

The templates have the “typical” newsletter look, but allow you to add product announcements, feature stories, and CTAs wherever you’d like. All of the templates can be modified through any WYSIWYG editor, and the downloads include the HTML files.

These templates have been tested through Litmus across all major ESPs and are responsive to all screen sizes.

1. Feshto by Liramail

email newsletter templates: feshtoPrice: $29-25/template

Feshto is an email bundle that helps ecommerce companies feature products in their newsletters and share testimonials from satisfied customers. It comes with a weekly digest module, which is their version of a newsletter.

The module features a chic, clean design that ensures your images and copy are not distracting from the other. You can choose from their various layouts, such as “Weekly Digest,” “City Story,” and “Blog Article.”

As mentioned, these templates are perfect for product features and testimonials from satisfied customers. While the default themes are black and white, you can make edits in your preferred WYSIWYG editor.

Feshto’s templates are responsive and compatible with all major ESPs.

2. Bee

email newsletter templates: bee

Price: Free – $15

Bee is an HTML template tool with thousands of free templates for any professional to use. With a variety of categories, Bee gives you a template for everything, but it also has tools that allow you to build your own email newsletters. The drag-and-drop feature allows you to pick and choose the elements that best suit your personal needs. The versatility also allows you to customize every email you send, then download it as an HTML so you can send your emails to anyone from anywhere. Another great advantage of Bee is that it allows you to save various content from different emails that can then be used in other templates. No need to start from scratch.

With Bee, you do have a 14-day free trial and plenty of free templates to use if you do not want to sign up for an account. If you would like an account, Bee offers different versions of their Pro account depending on the field you are in. For instance, they have Pro Freelancers, Pro Team, Pro Agency, Pro Enterprise, and Pro Nonprofit; Pro Freelancer starts at $15 a month.

3. ThemeForest

email newsletter templates: themeforestPrice: $6-23/template

ThemeForest is an awesome resource for email templates if you have some budget to spend. Their library has over 460 newsletter templates in all different colors, styles, and themes. The templates are rated using a four-star system, and you can filter by rating, price, recency, and popularity.

Here’s one example from its library:

Market – Responsive Newsletter with Template Builder ($19)

This template has eight prebuilt layouts, 24 color variations, 24 full-layered PSD files, and more. Plus, it’s supported by all major email clients.

4. HubSpot Email Copy Templates

email newsletter templates: hubspot email copy templatesPrice: Free

If you’re looking for written templates you can input into your email tool, these are the templates for you.

HubSpot offers free email templates that empower you to market and sell your business over email without writing a single line from scratch. These free email template downloads save you time and money.

The templates can be downloaded right to your computer and can be used by any type of business.

5. Mailchimp

email newsletter templates: mailchimpPrice: Free – $200 per month

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps small and large businesses scale and grow their business through marketing techniques and automations. Mailchimp has a variety of pre-made templates in their email newsletter tool. Aside from giving you over 100 designs to choose from, Mailchimp also gives you the option to download their Email Blueprints, which allows you to customize HTML templates.

6. ActiveCampaign

email newsletter templates: activecampaign

Price: Free – $258 a month

ActiveCampaign is a full-service email provider that offers email marketing automation and CRM tools. Its library of newsletter templates allow you to create conversion-optimized, visually impactful emails without touching a single line of code.

ActiveCampaign is free, but you will need to sign up for an account to use and view their email templates. You can use the majority of their templates for free, but if you want some customization, you’ll want to upgrade to a paid account.

7. Canva

email newsletter templates: canvaPrice: Free – 20.00 per month

Canva is an online graphics software that provides free templates for a multitude of things like Instagram posts, resumes, and email newsletters. Canva is a great tool because you can find free templates for specific niches like fashion, tech, culinary, and many more. While there is a paid tier, many of the premade templates are free, and you can add your own customizations without having to pay extra.

8. Adobe Express

email newsletter templates: adobe express

Price: Single Application: $33.99 a month | Full Bundle: $79.99 a month

Adobe Express, formerly known as Adobe Spark, is another browser-based graphic design tool that has a multitude of templates and functions to help any company create a newsletter. Similar to Canva, Adobe offers premade templates based on industry categories like photography, architecture, and fashion. To access the templates, you must sign up for an account with Adobe.

9. CakeMail

email newsletter templates: cakemail

Price: Free – $200.00 per month

CakeMail is an email marketing tool that includes user-friendly automation tools and allows you to create customizable emails for any person, occasion, and niche. CakeMail offers over 50 free editable email templates that are divided into smaller niche categories. One of the advantages of CakeMail is that you do not have to sign up to use the email templates provided, but if you would like to see how your email campaigns are performing, you can register for an account.

10. MJML

email newsletter templates: mjml

Price: Free

MJML is an HTML-based email designer. They have a wide variety of free templates that are customized for the type of email marketing your company is trying to do, including newsletters, promotions, and seasonal emails. Once you find a template that you like, MJML allows you to see the template and the HTML code in real-time as you edit it. Because MJML is HTML-based, you will have to copy your code and transfer it to the HTML editor in an email marketing service to use the template.

11. TemplateMonster

email newsletter templates: templatemonster

Price: Varies

TemplateMonster offers a variety of email newsletter templates, such as the Useful Notifications newsletter template pictured below, all of which are available for relatively low prices. Their templates are clean, customizable, and easy to use, and they’re compatible with most major email clients, such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

Additionally, the templates come with built-in responsive layouts for screen adaptability, like the ones on the mobile phone pictured below, and PSD sources for a litany of customization options.

12. Microsoft Office Templates

email newsletter templates: microsoft office

Price: Free & Paid Email Templates

Microsoft Office has a variety of tools, including extensive templates that can be used for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You can further narrow down your templates depending on the category of your business. While Microsoft does offer free templates, they are limited. For use of the paid templates, you will have to download Microsoft 365 to use them.

Get Started on Your Email Marketing Newsletter

Ready to draft your next email newsletter campaign? Download one of the excellent newsletter templates from the template galleries and landing pages above. Then, grab your free guide below for creating an email newsletter your audience will want to engage with.

Editor’s Note: The post was originally published in December 2018 but was updated for comprehensiveness in December 2019.

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Categories B2B

17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Make More Creative Slideshows [+ Templates]

Creating a great PowerPoint presentation is a skill that any professional can benefit from. The problem? It’s really easy to get it wrong. From poor color choices to confusing slides, a bad PowerPoint slideshow can distract from the fantastic content you’re sharing with stakeholders on your team.

→ Free Download: 4 PowerPoint Presentation Templates [Access Now]

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That’s why it’s so important to learn how to create a PowerPoint presentation from the ground up, starting with your slides. Even if you’re familiar with PowerPoint, a refresher will help you make a more attractive, professional slideshow. Let’s get started.

I like to think of Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic professional skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text), then I’ve probably failed the test. Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience.

Expertise means nothing without a good PowerPoint presentation to back it up. For starters, grab your collection of free PowerPoint templates below.

No matter your topic, successful PowerPoints depend on three main factors: your command of PowerPoint’s design tools, your attention to presentation processes, and your devotion to consistent style. Here are some simple tips to help you start mastering each of those factors, and don’t forget to check out the additional resources at the bottom of this post.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

A presentation is made up of multiple slides, and now that you know how to make one, you can delve deeper into PowerPoint’s capabilities.

1. Open a blank presentation again or start from one you’ve already created.

If you’ve already created a presentation, double-click the icon to open the existing file. Otherwise, open Microsoft PowerPoint, click File in the top left corner, and click New Presentation. From there, you can follow the prompts to set up a new presentation.

2. Choose a theme or create your own.

Microsoft offers built-in themes and color variations to help you design your slides with a cohesive look. To choose from these pre-built themes, choose the File tab again, select New, choose one of the options, and click Create.

Otherwise, you can use PowerPoint elements, your design sense, and your brand’s color palette to make your own “theme.”

3. Create a variety of slides for different purposes.

You don’t want to present the same exact slide, only with different content on it. This would bore your audience. Ensure that you create multiple variations, accommodating some of the common uses for slides. At minimum, you’ll need:

  • A title slide
  • An agenda or table of contents slide
  • A slide that introduces the speaker
  • Various content slides (create different layouts considering what kind of multimedia you’ll use)

4. Use the Duplicate Slides feature to save you time.

There’s no reason to create these designs over and over again. Now that you have a few to draw from, you can simply duplicate them before inputting your content. Here’s how to do that:

  • On the left pane, right-click the thumbnail of the slide you want to duplicate.
  • Choose Duplicate Slide from the pop-up menu.

This will automatically add a copy of this slide to the presentation. From there, you can customize it for your needs.

5. Add transitions to your slides (optional).

Done well, transitions can add a little bit of movement and showmanship to your presentation. PowerPoint has several transitions built in for you to choose from.

To access them, select the Transitions tab from the top ribbon. From there, you can select a transition for it to preview on your screen. To customize it further, click Effect Options and play with the features to find something that suits your liking. To remove a transition, select Transitions and click None.

6. Add animations to your slides (optional).

Like transitions, animations can add movement, reveal information, and help you underscore the points you want to hit during your speech. To animate an element, follow these steps:

  • Select the element you want animated by clicking on it.
  • Choose Animations from the top ribbon.
  • You’ll have the option to choose from several effects displayed in the ribbon.
  • Clicking on one will give you a preview.
  • To customize the animation, select Effect Options.
  • To remove an animation, click None in the ribbon.

Some of the ways to customize animations include:

  • On Click
  • With Previous
  • After Previous
  • Duration
  • Delay

These describe how you want the effect to behave, so play around with them until you find an effect that suits your liking.

You’ll also have the option to move animations around as you edit your slides by clicking on the Animation Pane button, then reordering the animations in the list that pops up.

7. Save your presentation.

Click File and Save, making sure to specify which folder or destination you want your PowerPoint to be stored.

8. Run your presentation.

It’s always good to do a trial run to ensure that your slides are set up properly and your animations fire the way you expect them to.

To present your PowerPoint, go to the Slide Show tab and click Play from Start. The slide will cover your whole screen, blocking out your desktop and PowerPoint software. This is so your audience (in this case, you for the trial run) is solely focused on the visual elements of your presentation.

9. Advance the slides.

When you’re done with one slide and want to show the next in your sequence, click your mouse in presentation mode. This will advance the slide.

PowerPoint Style

1. Don’t let PowerPoint decide how you use PowerPoint.

Microsoft wanted to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of tools. But this does not mean you should use them all. Here are some key things to look out for:

  • Make sure that the preset PPT themes complement your needs before you adopt them.
  • Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Using these two typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.
  • Professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds. (Please consider your audience above personal preference).
  • PowerPoint makes bulleting automatic, but ask yourself: Are bullets actually appropriate for what you need to do? Sometimes they are, but not always.
  • Recent PPT defaults include a small shadow on all shapes. Remove this shadow if it’s not actually needed. Also, don’t leave shapes in their default blue.

2. Create custom slide sizes.

While you usually can get away with the default slide size for most presentations, you may need to adjust it for larger presentations on weirdly sized displays. If you need to do that, here’s how.

  • In the top-left corner, choose File.
  • Select Page Setup.
  • Type the height and width of the background you’d like, and click OK.
  • A dialogue box will appear. Click Scale if you want to also resize your content, or Don’t Scale if you don’t. We recommend clicking Don’t Scale, then manually adjusting minor layout issues.

Tip: You can avoid a headache with the last step if you resize your slides before you add any objects to them. Otherwise, the dimensions of your objects will become skewed.

powerpoint presentation: resize slide

3. Edit your slide template design.

Often, it’s much easier to edit your PowerPoint template before you start — this way, you don’t have to design each slide by hand. Here’s how you do that.

  • Select View in the top navigation.
  • Click Master.
  • In the drop-down, click Slide Master.
  • Make any changes you like, then click Close Master in the top ribbon. All current and future slides in that presentation will use that template.

powerpoint presentation: editing the master

4. Write text with your audience in mind.

A significant part of a PowerPoint’s content is text. Great copy can make or break your presentation, so evaluating your written work from a few different angles could make you seem more persuasive. Thinking about how your text is received differentiates good presenters from the best.

Typography:

Many people underestimate the influence of typeface, but choosing the right font is important — the perception of your font type could influence your audience’s impression of you. The right font is an opportunity to convey consistent brand personality and professionalism.

Some fonts are seen as clean and professional, but this doesn’t mean they’re boring. A common mistake is thinking your font isn’t “exciting” enough, which could lead you to choose a font that distracts from your overall message. We recommend sticking to simple serif and sans-serif fonts. Avoid script fonts because of potential readability issues.

powerpoint presentation: types of fonts

That said, you can still use fun and eccentric fonts — in moderation. Offsetting a fun font or large letters with something more professional can create an engaging presentation.

Above all, be sure you’re consistent so your presentation looks the same throughout each slide. That way, your audience doesn’t become distracted by too many disparate fonts. Check out this example from HubSpot’s company profile templates:

powerpoint presentation: consistent slides

Interested in this presentation template? Download it for free here.

5. Make sure all of your objects are properly aligned.

Having properly aligned objects on your slide is the key to making it look polished and professional. You can manually try to line up your images … but we all know how that typically works out. You’re trying to make sure all of your objects hang out in the middle of your slide, but when you drag them there, it still doesn’t look quite right. Get rid of your guessing game and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.

Here’s how to align multiple objects:
  • Select all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
  • Select Arrange in the top options bar, then choose Align or Distribute.
  • Choose the type of alignment you’d like.

powerpoint presentation: aligning objects

Here’s how to align objects to the slide:
  • Select all objects by holding down Shift and clicking on all of them.
  • Select Arrange in the top options bar, then choose Align or Distribute.
  • Select Align to Slide.
  • Select Arrange in the top options bar again, then choose Align or Distribute.
  • Choose the type of alignment you’d like.

powerpoint presentation: aligning objects

PowerPoint Design

6. Use “Format Object” to better control your objects’ designs.

Format menus allow you to do fine adjustments that otherwise seem impossible. To do this, right-click on an object and select the Format Object option. Here, you can fine-tune shadows, adjust shape measurements, create reflections, and much more. The menu that will pop up looks like this:

powerpoint presentation: format object pane

Although the main options can be found on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, look for complete control in the format window menu. Other examples of options available include:

  • Adjusting text inside a shape.
  • Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
  • Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.

7. Take advantage of PowerPoint’s shapes.

Many users don’t realize how flexible PowerPoint’s shape tools have become. In combination with the expanded format options released by Microsoft, the potential for good design with shapes is readily available. PowerPoint provides the user with a bunch of great shape options beyond the traditional rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns.

Today’s shapes include a highly functional Smart Shapes function, which enables you to create diagrams and flow charts in no time. These tools are especially valuable when you consider that PowerPoint is a visual medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring — you can use shapes to help express your message more clearly.

8. Create custom shapes.

When you create a shape, right click and press Edit Points. By editing points, you can create custom shapes that fit your specific need. For instance, you can reshape arrows to fit the dimensions you like.

powerpoint presentation: editing points

Another option is to combine two shapes together. To do so, select the two shapes you’d like to work with, then click Shape Format in the top ribbon. Tap Merge Shapes.

You’ll see a variety of options.

  • Combine creates a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.
  • Union makes one completely merged shape.
  • Intersect builds a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes.
  • Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other.
  • Fragment will split your shape into different parts depending on where they overlap.

By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

9. Crop images into custom shapes.

Besides creating custom shapes in your presentation, you can also use PowerPoint to crop existing images into new shapes. Here’s how you do that:

  • Click on the image and select Picture Format in the options bar.
  • Choose Crop, then Crop to Shape, and then choose your desired shape. Ta-da! Custom-shaped photos.

powerpoint presentation: cropping an image into a custom shape

10. Present websites within PowerPoint.

Tradition says that if you want to show a website in a PowerPoint, you should just create a link to the page and prompt a browser to open. For PC users, there’s a better option.

Third party software that integrates fully into PowerPoint’s developer tab can be used to embed a website directly into your PowerPoint using a normal HTML iframe. One of the best tools is LiveWeb, a third-party software that you can install on your PowerPoint program.

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement. To install the add-on, simple head to the LiveWeb website and follow the instructions.

Unfortunately, Mac users don’t have a similar option. A good second choice is to take screenshots of the website, link in through a browser, or embed media (such as a YouTube video) by downloading it directly to your computer.

11. Try Using GIFs.

GIFs are looped animated images used to communicate a mood, idea, information, and much more. Users add GIFs to PowerPoints to be funny or quickly demo a process. It’s easy to add GIFs to your slides. To do so, simply follow these steps:

  • Download and save the GIF you want.
  • Go to the slide you want the GIF on.
  • Go to the Home tab, and click either Insert or Picture.
  • From the Picture drop-down menu, choose Picture from File.
  • Navigate to where you saved your GIF and select it. Then, choose Insert.
  • It will play automatically the moment you insert it.

PowerPoint Process

12. Keep it simple.

PowerPoint is an excellent tool to support your presentation with visual information, graphics, and supplemental points. This means that your PowerPoint should not be your entire presentation. Your slides — no matter how creative and beautiful — shouldn’t be the star of the show. Keep your text and images clear and concise, using them only to supplement your message and authority.

If your slides have dense and cluttered information, it will both distract your audience and make it much more likely that you will lose their attention. Nothing in your slides should be superfluous! Keep your presentation persuasive by keeping it clean. There are a few ways to do this:

  • Limit bullet points and text.
  • Avoid paragraphs and long quotes.
  • Maintain “white space” or “negative space”.
  • Keep percentages, graphs, and data super basic.

13. Embed your font files.

One constant problem presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when presenters move from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts are not changing — the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed. If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then there is a smooth workaround for this issue.

Here’s the trick: When you save your PowerPoint file (only on a PC), you should click File, then Options, then open up the Save tab. Then, select the Embed fonts in the file check box under Preserve fidelity when sharing this presentation. Now, your presentation will keep the font file and your fonts will not change when you move computers.

The macOS PowerPoint version has a similar function. To embed your fonts on a Mac, do the following:

  • Open up your presentation.
  • On the top bar, click PowerPoint, then click Preferences.
  • Under Output and Sharing, click Save.
  • Under Font Embedding, click Embed fonts in the file.

14. Save your slides as a PDF file for backup purposes.

If you’re still scared of your presentation showing up differently when it’s time to present, you should create a PDF version just in case. This is a good option if you’ll be presenting on a different computer. If you also run into an issue where the presenting computer doesn’t have PowerPoint installed, you can also use the system viewer to open up the PDF. No laptop will ever give you trouble with this file type.

The only caveat is that your GIFs, animations, and transitions won’t transfer over. But since the PDF will only work as a backup, not as your primary copy, this should be okay.

To save your presentation as a PDF file, take the following steps:

  • Go to File, then click Save as …
  • In the pop-up window, click File Format.
  • A drop-down menu will appear. Select PDF.
  • Click Export.

You can also go to File, then Export, then select PDF from the file format menu.

15. Embed multimedia.

PowerPoint allows you to either link to video/audio files externally or to embed the media directly in your presentation. You should embed these files if you can, but if you use a Mac, you cannot actually embed the video (see note below). For PCs, two great reasons for embedding are:

  • Embedding allows you to play media directly in your presentation. It will look much more professional than switching between windows.
  • Embedding also means that the file stays within the PowerPoint presentation, so it should play normally without extra work (except on a Mac).

Note: macOS users of PowerPoint should be extra careful about using multimedia files.

If you use PowerPoint for Mac, then you will always need to bring the video and/or audio file with you in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation. It’s best to only insert video or audio files once the presentation and the containing folder have been saved on a portable drive in their permanent folder. Also, if the presentation will be played on a Windows computer, then Mac users need to make sure their multimedia files are in WMV format. This tip gets a bit complicated, so if you want to use PowerPoint effectively, consider using the same operating system for designing and presenting, no matter what.

16. Bring your own hardware.

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit jumpy. Even between differing PPT versions, things can change. One way to fix these problems is to make sure that you have the right hardware — so just bring along your own laptop when you’re presenting.

If you’re super concerned about the different systems you might have to use, then upload your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides as a backup option. Google Slides is a cloud-based presentation software that will show up the same way on all operating systems. The only thing you need is an internet connection and a browser.

To import your PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides, take the following steps:

  • Navigate to slides.google.com. Make sure you’re signed in to a Google account, preferably your own.
  • Under Start a new presentation, click the empty box with a plus sign. This will open up a blank presentation.
  • Go to File, then Import slides.
  • A dialog box will come up. Tap Upload, then click Select a file from your device.
  • Select your presentation and click Open.
  • Select the slides you’d like to import. If you want to import all of them, click All in the upper right-hand corner of the dialog box.
  • Click Import slides.

powerpoint presentation: importing slides into google slides

When I tested this out, Google Slides imported everything perfectly, including a shape whose points I had manipulated. This is a good backup option to have if you’ll be presenting across different operating systems.

17. Use Presenter View.

In most presentation situations, there will be both a presenter’s screen and the main projected display for your presentation. PowerPoint has a great tool called Presenter View, which can be found in the Slide Show tab of PowerPoint. Included in the Presenter View is an area for notes, a timer/clock, and a presentation display.

powerpoint presentation: using presenter view

For many presenters, this tool can help unify their spoken presentation and their visual aid. You never want to make the PowerPoint seem like a stack of notes that you’re reading off of. Use the Presenter View option to help create a more natural presentation.

Pro Tip: At the start of the presentation, you should also hit CTRL + H to make the cursor disappear. Hitting the “A” key will bring it back if you need it!

Your Next Great PowerPoint Presentation Starts Here

With style, design, and presentation processes under your belt, you can do a lot more with PowerPoint than just presentations for your clients. PowerPoint and similar slide applications are flexible tools that should not be forgotten. With a great template, you can be on your way to creating presentations that wow your audience.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

powerpoint slides

Categories B2B

How to Prepare an Advertising Plan [Free Template]

Turning an idea for an advertising campaign into reality isn’t exactly simple, but it always begins with creating a concrete and detailed advertising plan.

Your plan will help you present a clear path for return on investment (ROI), get buy-in from leadership, and share your proposal with relevant stakeholders. 

Follow Along With HubSpot’s Free Ad Plan Template

 

In this post, we’ll explain what an advertising plan is and highlight the major sections you should include in your advertising plan so you can guarantee your next campaign is a success. 

Advertising Plan Template

Pro Tip: HubSpot created the following advertising plan template for you to download so you can organize your advertising campaign — it’s broken down into relevant sections and can be shared with your stakeholders when it’s completed.

In it you’ll find:

  • Advertising campaign outline, 
  • Advertising campaign timeline, and 
  • Advertising budget template.

advertising planning kitDownload this Advertising Planning Kit

Now let’s dive into how you can prep your ad plan. 

How to Prepare an Advertising Plan

Before you jump into your tactical advertising ideas, the first step in the process is to provide those reading your ad plan with a high-level overview of your initiative.

1. Provide an overview of your advertising plan.

Specify the following elements so anyone reading your plan will have a basic understanding of what your campaign is and what you’re trying to accomplish:

  • Campaign Name: Make the campaign name catchy, unique, and easily identifiable so your team can get behind it.
  • Campaign Description: What is the purpose of your campaign? Explain in 2-3 paragraphs what the inspiration behind your campaign is, how it aligns with your company initiatives, what customer problems you’re solving, and what the final deliverables of the campaign will be.
  • Target Audience: Ideally, who’s on the receiving end of these ads? You can be specific to age, sex, region, or any number of demographics, or name which of your buyer personas you’re targeting.
  • Advertising Platforms: How will you be getting your message across? Here, identify the platform you’ll be using, since you’ll get more into the details of what the actual ads will look like in a later section.
  • Goals and ROI: Explain what the end goal of your campaign is. Most ad campaigns are intended to produce a direct profit or return on investment, so if that’s your goal, identify that number. If your campaign goal is something else — event sign-ups, product awareness, etc. — be sure to identify and quantify it.

2. Choose your platforms.

Here’s where you’ll provide more detail on the advertisements themselves and on which platform they will be promoted. For each ad you intend to run in this campaign, you should provide the following:

  • Platform name
  • Ad type
  • Description of the ad
  • Timeline
  • Budget

For example, your content in this section might look like this:

Platform #1: YouTube

  • Advertisement Type: Video
  • Description of Ad: A 15-second pre-video ad. The video will be an animated look at our new app with a link to the app store at when someone clicks.
  • Timeline: July 1 – July 31
  • Budget: $10,000

3. Develop your timeline.

Working on an ad campaign takes a ton of time and resources, so everyone involved will want to know what tasks they’re responsible for, when they’re due, and how long they have to do them. In this part of your advertising plan, list the tasks that are due, when they are due, and who’s responsible for accomplishing them.

4. Outline your budget.

Because ROI isn’t guaranteed, the budget can be the toughest part of your advertising project to get approved — which is why it’s important to break up your requests by line item and present them in your plan.

Rather than simply stating, “We need $65,000 for this project”, organize your budget into a detailed visual, like the example below.

outline your advertising plan

Download this Template for Free

Naturally, you can (and should) expect questions and pushback on certain line items.

For example, you may be asked to find another designer or video freelancing team who can complete the job for less money. So, arrive at meetings prepared to defend which costs are necessary for the campaign’s success and which expenses can be reconsidered.

5. Explain your DACI framework.

The DACI framework outlines who the key contributors in the project are and what each of their responsibilities entail.

Here’s how a DACI framework is broken down:

  • (D)river: As you might have guessed, this person is the project’s main driver or directly responsible individual. (Chances are, this will be either you or your direct manager.) The driver will coordinate all of the moving pieces of the project, seeing it through from inception to wrap-up.
  • (A)pprover: This will be the person who must approve a project and is typically a director, VP, or manager. They’ll give feedback, recommendations, or approval on the overall project and have a final say in all project deliverables.
  • (C)ontributors: Contributors will be the individuals who are responsible for creating one or more deliverables for the project. In an advertising campaign, this can include copywriters, video producers, animators, designers, and digital advertising specialists.
  • (I)nformed: These are employees who are kept in the loop as the project goes on. Examples include the department heads and the managers of project contributors. These people have no direct responsibilities but benefit from knowing about the project and its status.

Your DACI framework should include the name of each stakeholder, his or her contact information (email, phone, and/or Slack handle), and that person’s responsibility or deliverable.

This framework makes project delegation crystal clear for everyone involved.

6. Provide additional resources.

This will act as the appendix of your advertising plan. Share the ad campaign that inspired this one with your readers, link to the product page you’ll be promoting with this initiative, or link to your company’s brand style guide — this way, designers and writers get a refresh on how to create externally-facing content.

7. Host a campaign kickoff meeting.

After you complete the outline, hop on a call with your team to explain the campaign concept, timeline, and deliverables. Compile all of them in HubSpot’s advertising project pitch deck and present your advertising plan. Then, open up the floor for any questions and suggestions with project contributors.

Advertising Plan Example

It can always be helpful to reference examples, and below we’ll go over one.

sample advertising planIn this plan, a business outlines the different channels it will use to reach its advertising goals: YouTube, Facebook, and Google Ads. It outlines the type of ad for each channel, a summary of what each ad will be, a target timeline, and an allocated budget. While it is simply an overview, it has the key elements it will execute in its advertising strategy. 

While this is a high-quality example, be mindful that it is merely an example. You can personalize this template to meet your business goals by inputting what works best for your needs.

Over to You

Now that you know how to write your own advertising plan, download HubSpot’s free template to get your own advertising campaign project plan off the group. 

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

Improve your website with effective technical SEO. Start by conducting this  audit.  

Categories B2B

10 Best Social Media Organization Tips and Tricks for Managers

Managing social media accounts for a brand is not easy – and one of the biggest challenges is organizing your social media content.

Between managing social promotion goals from different departments, staying up-to-date on social mentions and trends, and posting relevant and engaging content on a regular basis, being a social media manager can sometimes feel like herding cats.

Manage and plan your social media posts with the help of this free calendar  template.

So, how do busy social media managers keep their ducks in a row? We asked the people who run social media for their brands from across the U.S. for their best tips on staying organized. Here’s what they shared with us.

1. Keep an updated content calendar.

Planning out social media posts is time-consuming, so keeping track of it all with a content calendar can help cut down on time.

“I keep an updated content calendar that includes all our social networks and the types of content we’ll be posting on each one,” says Georgie Morley, community manager at Bai.

She then creates both a daily and weekly to-do list based on the calendar.

“I make sure there’s flexibility because something always comes up – you have to be prepared to fight some fires.”

social media content calendar

Image Source

To help you plan your updates and coordinate social campaigns more easily, here’s a free social media publishing template.

2. Schedule social posts ahead of time and in bulk.

Scheduling posts saves a lot of time, and it allows you to focus on other parts of your job instead of being constantly distracted by the need to publish at certain times of day.

Former HubSpot Social Media Manager Robyn Showers used to Tweet from the @HubSpot account 24 or more times per day, not including replies to other Twitter users.

To save time, she used Social Inbox to schedule tweets in bulk by uploading them from a spreadsheet. HubSpot customers: Learn how to use the bulk scheduling tool here.

“I also tend to schedule Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ posts several days ahead of time,” said Showers.

3. Use a to-do list app.

Social media managers would be lost without their to-do lists. Oftentimes, the question is: What’s the best to-do list app out there?

There is a lot to choose from – Todoist, TickTick, Any.do to name a few. To narrow down your options, here are a few key features to look for:

  • Syncing option between devices
  • Recurring due dates and reminders
  • Priority levels
  • Categories
  • Task sharing and delegation
  • Calendar feeds

4. Know where to find trending topics.

What’s trending right now? What has the Twitter timeline buzzing? Which news stories are people talking about?

These are all questions social media managers need to be thinking about – not just when they arrive at work in the morning, but all day long. By staying on top of rising trends, social media managers can properly newsjack, which can bring terrific spikes in traffic to your website.

Feedly homepageImage Source

How do you stay on top of it all when things are changing so fast? First, sign up for an RSS reader like Feedly and subscribe to industry news sites and blogs that post on industry trends and topics.

5. Maintain an “Inbox Zero” mentality.

For most people, high productivity comes from closing out of email for several hours at a time. `This couldn’t be less true for social media managers who need to stay alert to incoming requests.

Back when Laurie Meacham led the social media team at JetBlue, they had to stay on top of Twitter mentions in addition to social post requests from their marketing, public relations, operations, and customer commitment teams. How do they do it?

“I maintain the ‘Inbox Zero’ mentality so I know what’s new and what needs my action,” she said. “That way, it doesn’t get lost in mountains of unimportant emails or assignments.”

It can be easy to lose important emails below the fold, so star (or flag) the ones you want to refer back to and set alert notifications for your most important senders.

6. Have a dedicated “Social Content” folder in your email.

As a social media manager, one of your many jobs is to collect all of the content your company creates, sift through it, and create bite-sized social posts your audience can digest quickly.

But with so many incoming content and promotion requests, how do you make sure you don’t overlook or forget about the important stuff?

When it comes to sifting through and bookmarking content, former Social Media Manager at HubSpot Brittany Leaning recommends creating a folder dedicated to social content.

For Leaning, many of these emails included upcoming webinars, product launches, or marketing collateral from other companies that she thought the HubSpot audience would appreciate.

“My routine consisted of going through every single HubSpot blog post that was published in the last week, and scheduling the evergreen posts for the following week,” she said. “I’d do the same thing with all our relatively new evergreen efforts. This would keep the social publishing machine going while I looked for opportunities for newsjacking or other time-sensitive content.”

After creating the folder, have a routine in which you sift through it when you need inspiration for new content and remove outdated content after a certain time has passed.

7. Create a form for social promotion requests.

To minimize the number of social media promotion requests you get via email and instant messaging, field these requests through a form.

social promotion request form example

This way, you free up your email and IM and you now have a dedicated place to review requests.

If you’re concerned about time-sensitive requests, you can add a note that specifies the best way to contact you or your team for urgent requests.

8. Use Canva to make batches of similar images.

Canva is a wonderfully simple (and free) graphic design platform that social media managers can use to create social media templates.

Maintaining a consistent aesthetic is very important on social media. With Canva, you can create templates, get them approved by your branding team if necessary, and use them whenever you’re posting on social media.

You can create multiple folders based on the post category, the platform, or the visual format – how you organize it is all up to you.

Showers would use Canva to create images in bulk for HubSpot’s campaigns on social.

“Anytime we run a campaign to promote an ebook, webinar, or another valuable piece of content, I want to have at least five creatives to test on Twitter,” she said.

To create those creatives, she only has to design one image on Canva, then she uses the “copy” tool (shown below) to duplicate the image and create multiple versions while retaining the core design elements.

canva screenshot

9. Organize your windows and tabs in a specific order every day.

When you’re juggling your email, calendar, social streams, post requests, links, and so on and so forth, you can easily lose track of which tab is where. One member of JetBlue’s social team suggests keeping windows and tabs open in a specific order that you’ll get used to and memorize quickly.

The JetBlue team also suggests getting into the habit of closing out of tabs as soon as you’re done with them.

“We get sent so many links that, if I’m not careful, I’ll have 30 articles open as well as Fly-Fi selfies and pictures of suitcases with wheels and zippers missing.”

If someone tweets a link at your brand, once you’ve addressed that tweet, close out of the link. This also helps ensure your toggle bars never get so crowded that you can’t easily see updates as they happen.

10. Set a time limit for each task.

Social media managers tend to have jam-packed schedules that don’t allow them to do one task for too long.

“It’s easy to get lost in the endless streams of to-dos, research, and meetings,” says Yip, “so it’s important to schedule time limits for each task so you can stay focused and not spend too much time on one.”

And finally, says the JetBlue social team, “Don’t forget to blink!”

Staying Organized as a Social Media Manager

It’s one thing to get organized, it’s another to stay that way.

All of the tips outlined below require consistency. Otherwise, they won’t serve much of a purpose. As with everything, you incorporate these tips into your routine, you will slowly but surely see how much organized your days will become.

Pro-tip: Incorporate one tip at a time and pick based on your biggest pain point. For some, adding one thing at a time is much more manageable and makes it easier not to get overwhelmed by the changes.

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

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