Author Archives: i4lead

Ever left something perfectly fine and came back to a total disaster? Any pet owner will probably say, “yes.”

At work, the same can happen when collaborating on a shared document. It’s usually an accidental keyboard stroke that does it. Unless it’s done by your cat, in which case, it’s not accidental – it’s definitely sabotage.

While a mistake like this is understandable, it can be frustrating and time-consuming to fix. When working on shared Excel sheets, you can prevent these mishaps altogether by locking cells and protecting your worksheets.

Whether you’re working on an upcoming report or planning out next quarter’s budget, learn how to prevent anyone from changing or deleting important information on an Excel document.

Can you lock cells in Excel?

Yes, you can lock cells on Excel by following a few simple steps. When you lock a cell in Excel, you restrict users from making changes to your sheets. It’s particularly helpful when working on a project that involves multiple team members.

For instance, let’s say you’re the marketing director and you’ve asked each channel lead (email, website, social) to report their quarterly numbers for an upcoming meeting.

You wouldn’t want someone accidentally deleting important information, or changing formulas or conditional formatting before consulting with key stakeholders. This process ensures that only pre-approved users can edit the cell, which will save you a headache in the future.

Another method is locking your formula cells so that the numbers populate correctly. Jump to that section here.

How to Lock Cells in Excel

1. Select the cell(s) you want to lock.

2. Click on the “Home” tab of your Excel sheet.

3. Click on “Format,” located on the right side of the screen.

4. Scroll down and click on “Lock Cell.”

Once you complete these steps, your cells will be locked but can still be edited. To ensure the cells aren’t editable, you’ll also have to protect your worksheet. Find those steps in the next section.

How To Protect a Worksheet in Excel

1. Once you’ve locked your cells, click on the “Review” tab.

2. Click on “Protect Sheet.”

3. Select which permissions you’d like to allow on the sheet, then click “OK.” You can also add a password for additional protection.

Note: If you don’t add a password, any user can click “Unprotect Sheet” to make changes to the sheet. When you add a password, only those with the code can do so.

4. Confirm that your cells are locked by looking for the “Unprotect Sheet” icon in the toolbar.

You can also double-check that your worksheet is protected by attempting to write something in the locked cells. You should get this alert.

How to Protect Specific Cells in Excel (& Get a Shortcut to Lock Cells)

1. Select the cells you want to lock then press Ctrl+Shift+F (Windows) or Ctrl + 1 (Mac) to open up the “Format Cells” box. Then, click on the “Protection” tab.

2. Select the “Locked” box and click “OK” on the bottom right to finish.

These simple steps offer both a shortcut to locking cells in bulk and a way to protect specific cells in Excel.

How to Protect Formulas in Excel

A green triangle indicates an error in your cell’s formula. The error sign will show up if your formula is unprotected.

Any unauthorized or accidental changes to a formula can alter the integrity of the data reported in the sheet. As such, it’s important to always lock your formulas to prevent mistakes.

Here’s how you protect your formulas in Excel:

1. Click on the cell with the green triangle and look for the yellow triangle warning sign.

2. Click on the warning sign and select “Lock Cell.”

3. You must then protect your worksheet by clicking on “Protect Sheet” under the “Review” tab.

Another way to protect your formulas is by locking each formula cell individually as you build your worksheet (as outlined here) and protecting your sheet once all formulas have been locked.

Whether you’re the person fixing the mistake or the one who made it, following these steps will ensure it never happens again. And your cat will have to find something else to sabotage.

As a marketer, you know how many avenues there are for your prospects and customers to interact with you throughout the buyer’s journey. These avenues refer to channels (e.g. PPC, your website, email campaigns, social media) and touchpoints (e.g. specific ads, blog posts, social media posts, emails). Marketing attribution modeling can help you determine the impact of all of those marketing efforts.

Attribution Modeling

In this blog post, we’ll talk about what attribution modeling is, why it’s important, the different types of attribution modeling, and some tools to help with the process. Let’s get started.

What’s the purpose of attribution modeling?

By assigning credit to your marketing channels and touchpoints, you can increase your chances of converting more prospects by 1) identifying areas of the buyer’s journey that you can improve, 2) determining the ROI for each channel or touchpoint, 3) surfacing the most effective ways to spend your marketing budget, and 4) tailoring your marketing campaigns and content to your unique personas.

Types of Attribution Modeling

There are a handful of common types of attribution modeling. Although all attribution models look at the channels and touchpoints involved in a customer’s decision to convert, each of them weighs those channels and touchpoints differently.

1. Multi-Touch Attribution Modeling

Multi-touch attribution modeling is powerful because it takes into account every channel and touchpoint that a customer interacted with throughout the buyer’s journey, up until they decided to convert. It tells you which of those channels and touchpoints were most influential as well as provides insight into how they worked together to influence a customer.

2. Cross-Channel Attribution Modeling

Cross-channel attribution modeling is often used interchangeably with multi-touch attribution. However, their definitions differ slightly. Cross-channel attribution designates value to each marketing channel (such as paid, organic, or social media) but doesn’t look at the specific touchpoints within those channels the way that multi-touch attribution does.

3. Linear Attribution Modeling

Linear attribution modeling is a type of multi-touch attribution that gives equal credit to all channels and touchpoints that a customer interacted with throughout the buyer’s journey.

4. First-Touch Attribution Modeling

First touch attribution modeling gives all the credit for the conversion to the first channel or touchpoint that was interacted with by the customer.

5. Last-Touch Attribution Modeling

Last-touch attribution modeling is the opposite of first-touch attribution modeling — it gives all the credit to the last touchpoint a lead interacted with before converting.

6. Time-Decay Attribution Modeling

Time-decay attribution modeling gives credit to all of the touchpoints that contributed to a conversion and also considers the time that each touchpoint occurred — the touchpoints that happened closest to the time of conversion are weighted most heavily.

7. U-Shaped Attribution Modeling

U-shaped modeling, also known as position-based attribution modeling, splits the credit for a conversion between the first and last touchpoints.

8. W-Shaped Attribution Modeling

W-shaped attribution modeling gives the most credit to the first touchpoint, last touchpoint, and mid-funnel touchpoint before a conversion — it then gives equal credit to the rest of the touchpoints.

Attribution Modeling Tools

There are a number of tools that have the ability to help with marketing attribution modeling — here are three options to help you get started.

1. CallRail

CallRail is a call tracking and marketing analytics platform. The tool has a number of reports so you can analyze your call data in different ways — one of these is attribution modeling, a report that lives within their cost-per-lead reporting category.

Why do you need attribution modeling for your calls? It offers an understanding of every marketing touchpoint that led to a phone conversation with a prospect. It tells you which sources are leading to the greatest number of phone calls, and therefore leads who are most likely to convert into paying customers.

Integrate your all-in-one HubSpot CRM platform with CallRail.

2. Wicked Reports

Wicked Reports is multi-channel attribution software for ecommerce marketers. The tool calculates ROI and LTV for every channel, campaign, and ad so you can understand the impact of each marketing touchpoint. Wicked Reports maps your attribution models to your unique campaign goals — this way, you can determine the impact of your campaigns throughout the buyer’s journey.

The tool provides in-depth and accurate data across all of your business platforms — including Google, CRMs like HubSpot, marketing software, ecommerce platforms, and Facebook — so you can combine and access your attribution data with ease.

Integrate your all-in-one HubSpot CRM platform with Wicked Reports.

3. Attribution

Attribution is an enterprise multi-touch attribution tool that gives you a clear understanding of the impact of each of your marketing touchpoints. It automates data collection using its many integrations with ad software, CRM platforms, marketing tools, and more. It also accounts for your offline marketing touchpoints as well as your budget.

The process of attribution modeling is also automated for you and you can segment your attribution results and reports by channel, marketing campaign, touchpoint, and more.

Integrate your all-in-one HubSpot CRM platform with Attribution.

Grow Better With Attribution Modeling

Attribution modeling allows you to hone in on the buyer’s journey and understand which parts of it are working best for your customers and what needs improvement. It also offers insight into how your marketing channels and touchpoints are working together to convert your target audience.

Determine which models will provide the information you care most about, identify the right tool for you, and get started with attribution modeling.

Savvy marketers know it’s rare to reel in customers at the first encounter with a brand. Winning people over takes time, thoughtful touchpoints, and a whole lot of trust. Fortunately, there’s a strategy that includes all of these and more. It’s called lifecycle marketing, and it’s how companies attract and retain customers beyond that impulse purchase.

All businesses create their own unique lifecycle marketing strategy, but the purpose is the same: to engage customers, increase revenue, and grow a brand.

Different from the buyer’s journey or conversion funnel, lifecycle marketing considers a customer long after they make a purchase. The focus is to bring in buyers and turn them into loyal brand advocates.

But what does that look like for your company? In this guide, we’ll cover:

• What makes lifecycle marketing so effective
• Marketing strategies to attract customers and keep them coming back
• Considerations for engaging campaigns
• How to use email for every lifecycle stage

Let’s jump in.

A lifecycle can be short or long. Companies like Nespresso or Whole Foods Market have shorter cycles and need to attract people back almost immediately after they purchase.

But companies with lifecycles like Mercedes or Avocado Mattress play the long game of customer retention and advocacy to bring in more business. The ultimate goal is to always get customers and keep them coming back.

No matter the cycle length, there are various stages that make up any lifecycle marketing plan. Understanding these will help you target your audience’s specific needs at each stage, whether they’re coming in as a lead, first-time buyer, repeat customer, or lapsed customer. Take a look at the main lifecycle stages below.

1. Awareness

This is when potential customers first learn about your company. As the top of your conversion funnel, it’s your chance to capture people’s attention and reel them further into your funnel.

2. Engagement

People begin interacting with your brand in the engagement cycle. They’re interested and want to learn about your offerings, whether by subscribing to your email list, following you on social media, or scrolling your website.

3. Evaluation

The evaluation stage is all about decisions. This is the time to make it easy for people to choose your brand by providing them with the right information to compare features, pricing, and value.

4. Purchase

Congratulations! Anyone who makes it through this stage is a customer. Your job here isn’t to promote your brand but to make a purchase as seamless as possible, so it’s simple for people to click “Buy.”

5. Support

It’s important to make sure you meet customers’ needs post-purchase, since people tend to drop off after the first buy. That’s why the support stage is about following up to make sure people are satisfied and maximize the value of their purchase.

6. Loyalty

Customers reach this stage when they’re so happy, they let everyone know about your brand. You want to nurture that advocacy to retain their business and help bring in new buyers.

While the lifecycle stages seem like a linear buyer journey, it’s important to remember that this is a cycle that should continue repeating itself. You can’t simply forget about a customer once they’ve made a purchase. If you put effort into developing a thoughtful plan, it can be much easier to meet and exceed your marketing, sales, and company goals.

Lifecycle Marketing Strategy

Strategy is the core of successful lifecycle marketing. Without it, you will likely bring in the wrong leads and will waste your budget on people who won’t turn into brand advocates. With it, you can:

• Grow your customer base by offering a better buying experience.

• Improve sales by turning one-time buyers into repeat customers.
• Turn buyers into brand advocates who rave about your company.
• Improve your marketing ROI and lifetime customer value.

The best strategies account for how people interact with your brand at specific stages within the lifecycle. Here’s an example of how to use different marketing channels throughout the entire cycle.

Your company may do well with a simple strategy, or you may need to include more touchpoints and channels within each stage. For instance, a small art gallery may use social media, email, a website, and events to bring in artists and potential buyers.

But a major art museum like The Metropolitan Museum of Art will need a more complex marketing strategy to reach its thousands of visitors, attract donors, sell and retain memberships, draw in artists and exhibits, sell retail products, and host events.

No matter the size, all lifecycle marketing strategies are fueled by content. And with 70% of marketers actively investing in content marketing, you can miss out on potential buyers (and profit) if you don’t create relevant content for every stage.

Instead of blindly marketing to the masses, you must be strategic and tie your sales directly to your promotion efforts. Let’s walk through the strategies you can use at each stage.

1. Awareness

You want to attract as many people within your target audience as possible, so it’s time to create highly shareable, highly visible content. Awareness strategies include:

• Create targeted audiences for each buyer persona, so you know the people you bring in fit your buyer profile.
• Research and use keywords that can help people discover your brand when searching online.
• Write blog posts that answer key questions your audience may have about common problems.
• Share your offerings in an eye-catching paid or organic social ad.
• Put up a billboard or banner ad in the places your audience visits.
• Create a catchy ad on the podcasts you know potential buyers listen to.
• Collaborate with guests or influencers your audience follows to cross-promote content.

It’s important to bring people in, but remember not to focus all of your efforts on acquiring leads. Although 67% of companies use lead generation as the sole metric to determine content success, returning customers spend 67% more than new buyers on average.

2. Engagement

Your strategy for the engagement stage is to share information about your offerings so people can see why your brand is the best. Bring people to your website or channels, and keep them there.

These prospects are still relatively high in the sales funnel, so you have to answer their questions with succinct content that’s easy to understand. Some engagement strategies include:

• Design engaging landing pages that are simple to navigate.
• Video demos to showcase the features of your product or service.
• Blog posts, guides, or templates that provide solutions to common customer problems.
• Whitepapers covering insightful research or industry trends.
• Case studies that highlight the positives of doing business with your brand.
• Email campaigns to address sticking points before they happen.

Engaging with customers is increasingly about personalization and instant gratification. In fact, 83% of customers who contact a company expect immediate engagement.

That means you need to have your channels dialed in and ready to respond, likely with help from automation technology. If you do, prospects will funnel into the next lifestyle stage.

Save time with HubSpot’s Marketing Automation Software

3. Conversion

You’ve impressed a potential buyer, and the time has come to transition them from a prospect into a customer. To do that, make it as simple as possible for them to convert (aka, buy). Think about what people would need to see when comparing your brand to a competitor. Here are strategies for making sure they’re confident in their decision.

• Offer clear pricing and feature information on your site, so they can compare options.
• Share customer testimonials to build trust in the post-purchase experience.
• Create a demo or free trial to increase confidence in the full investment.
• Send an email that answers questions senior leaders may have to make pitching easier.
• Give a peek at your customer service experience for post-purchase support.

Just like the engagement stage, personalization is the key to conversion. Research shows that online retailers improve conversion rates by about 8% when personalizing the customer experience. So try to make a potential customer feel unique, instead of being another number that gets you closer to your revenue goals.

4. Retention

Unfortunately, not enough marketing dollars are spent on retaining customers. Lead generation may seem sexier, but 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service. If you can create a good experience and offer exceptional service right after people make a purchase, you can engage buyers and increase profits.

• Set up easy-to-use support options like live chat, messaging, FAQ pages, or troubleshooting forums. For simple service issues, 65% of customers prefer to help themselves.
• Onboarding materials that make set up and use simple and stress-free.
• Offer a discount code or perk for a future purchase.
• Announce a new product or offering with an engaging campaign — you can even offer exclusive first access to existing customers.
• Targeted ads with additional offerings that complement a first purchase (i.e., a sleeping bag and mat for someone who buys a tent).
• Emails to inform customers of updates or ways to improve their current purchase.

Don’t leave your customers to fend for themselves in this stage. Honing your retention marketing strategies means boosting your revenue and improving your overall customer experience.

5. Loyalty

The final stage in lifecycle marketing is all about loyalty. When customers become advocates, they can’t stop talking about your brand to anyone who will listen. They recognize your logo and will choose it over others without a second thought. They drive leads and sales and are repeat buyers. Strategies to cultivate this type of loyalty include:

• Exclusive in-app features or loyalty club membership.
• Incentives for sharing testimonials (i.e., discount codes or free products).
• Events or webinars with team members or industry experts.
• Referral programs for people who bring in new customers.
• Social media features to raise brand awareness for both companies.
• Reactivation campaigns for lapsed customers.

Customers who trust a brand are 95% more likely to remain loyal to it, so your job is to maintain peoples’ expectations and show them why their feedback is valued. A strong strategy here encourages customers to repeat the cycle and bring new prospects into the awareness stage.

Lifecycle Marketing Campaigns

Designing campaigns for each lifecycle stage may seem overwhelming. But a campaign doesn’t have to be complex to be effective.

Start by defining the purpose of your campaign. You can aim to attract new customers, retain current customers, build loyalty, engage lapsed customers, or increase customer lifetime value.

With a clear goal, you’ll have an easier time focusing on one particular stage or looking across the entire cycle to see how you can improve efforts at each stage.

Check out how REI, an outdoor retail company, uses lifecycle marketing to engage people at different stages on a variety of channels.

1. Awareness Campaign

When I searched “best lightweight camping tents” on Google, REI popped up on the first page of results. The blog post is part of their “Expert Advice” column, which invites people to learn more about their product features, testing processes, and ratings. Of course, you can purchase each featured tent from REI in a few clicks.

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2. Engagement Campaign

Say I’ve read a few blog posts from REI and am interested in the gear they sell. A website pop-up invites me to sign up for their email list, which I can’t resist. The subject line of one email I receive is “We see backpacking trips in your future.”

They know what I’m interested in and offer an email full of tips for planning a trip, including a gear list I’ll need before I go. Down the funnel I go.

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3. Conversion Campaign

I scour the gear list to see what I need for my trip and discover I don’t have a way to make my essential morning coffee. So I read a review post and decide to buy a lightweight AeroPress. A single click takes me to the product page, and I add the coffeemaker to my cart.

After signing in to my account, I’m taken to a checkout page that has my member ID, billing, and shipping information saved. It takes seconds to review and hit “Submit order.”

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4. Retention Campaign

My caffeine kick is taken care of, and I receive a confirmation email receipt for my purchase. It summarizes the order, outlines the return policy, and shares information about how I can donate used gear I may have laying around.

I’m a happy customer. A few days later, I get an email about the new gear line REI designed just for co-op members. It’s one-of-a-kind and available in limited quantities. As a backpack hoarder, I’m tempted.

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5. Loyalty Campaign

As an REI Co-op member for seven years, I’m on the path to being a lifelong customer. It’s one of my first stops when I’m looking to buy anything for my outdoor adventures. And I’ve even encouraged some friends to become members.

REI knows what matters to me and encourages me to participate in campaigns to protect wild areas, so they invite me to support the REPLANT Act in an email campaign.

By tapping into my values, I’m connected to the brand. And emotionally-connected customers spend about $699 per year with a company compared to regular customers who spend about $275.

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Lifecycle Email Marketing

The examples above highlight a handful of ways to use lifecycle email marketing to engage customers. But sloppily sending emails isn’t enough. They need to come at just the right time, so they don’t get buried in someone’s inbox. And they must be enticing enough to open. The average email clickthrough rate (CTR) is 18%, which means a lot of messages go unopened and ignored.

The CTR varies by industry, so take a look at this breakdown to get an idea of your benchmark.

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Don’t be disappointed if your rates are low at first. There are ways to spice up your campaigns and get people interested enough to click. You can:

• A/B test your subject lines for length, messaging, and context.
• Optimize the preheader text so people get a good preview.
• Test the cadence, day, and time of day (i.e., Monday evening versus Tuesday morning).
• Try personalizing the email with the recipient’s name.
• Send emails from a person at your company instead of the company name.
• Segment your email campaigns based on your audience segments (i.e., newsletter emails vs product emails).
• Consider your brand voice and tone for cohesive messaging.
• Make sure you have a clear CTA.
• Add eye-catching design, along with hero images, videos, or graphics.

Before you test emails, you need to design a campaign that anticipates the various touchpoints your customers require to move from the awareness stage to the loyalty stage. Let’s take a look at how companies use email for lifecycle marketing campaigns.

1. Hilton Honors

Welcome emails are expected when you sign up for a company’s email list or loyalty program. I’m actually nervous my request didn’t go through if I don’t receive a Welcome email.

Here, Hilton sends a straightforward email for joining Hilton Honors and shares tips for making the most of membership. It’s easy to scan and offers informative content to learn more about the company or the program.

Lifecycle Stage: Awareness

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2. Outside Magazine

After signing up for Outside Magazine’s daily newsletter, I can look through the email to read recent stories that pique my interest. The publication shares articles and gear promotions through embedded links, making it simple to click on their site and read the full piece.

Informational emails help bring people to your site, where they’ll likely keep scrolling long past the initial article.

Lifecycle Stage: Engagement

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3. Backcountry

Let’s keep going on this outdoor theme with a promotional email from Backcountry. Touting the subject line “Final Hours: 20% Off One Full-Price Item,” it’s meant to grab people’s attention and get them to make an immediate purchase.

You can use this type of email for engaged customers who have already had multiple touch points with your brand. Maybe they’ve subscribed to your newsletter or have items sitting in their cart.

Lifecycle Stage: Convert

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4. Sierra Club

To remind donors about Earth Day and the various ways to give back, the Sierra Club sent this re-engagement email. It shares ideas to celebrate the holiday, explains how to raise money for the grassroots organization, and invites donors to free webinars from climate activists.

The on-brand combination of education and activism is a good way to remind supporters of their shared values and encourage donations.

Lifecycle Stage: Retention

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5. Thirdlove

We touched on personalization more than once in this post, but there are so many perks of custom emails. Take this example from Thirdlove.

Their marketing team not only sends emails from a variety of accounts, like individual team member names, but they also personalize emails by sending a collection based on buying habits. It’s intriguing to see your name this way, and clicking makes you feel special — even if hundreds of other people receive the same product options.

Lifecycle Stage: Loyalty

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Incorporate Lifecycle Marketing Into Your Strategy

You know the benefits, stages, and ways to incorporate lifecycle marketing into your company’s strategy. All that’s left is to start mapping the cycle for your customer segments and managing the people you bring in.

Once you’ve done the hard work, you can save time with marketing automation software that simplifies tasks like setting up email campaigns, tracking analytics, planning your SEO strategy, and more.

If you want to learn more about managing customers once they’re in the cycle, you can brush up on customer lifecycle management or see how to work with lifecycles in HubSpot.

The more you know about your buyer personas, leads, and customers, the easier it is to effectively target them. This entails identifying the channels and platforms in which they spend their time and understanding their needs and challenges.

It also means knowing how your leads find your business — how and by which method they come across your company. This is known as a lead source.

Lead Source

In this blog post, we’ll review the definition of a lead source, why lead sources are so important, common types, and best practices for managing and tracking them.

Why do lead sources matter?

By understanding and identifying lead sources, you’re able to gain context around why and how your audience members find you. As a result, you can improve the customer experience and buyer’s journey with targeted content, communications, interactions, and more.

This allows you to determine which lead sources are most valuable to your business so you can hone in on them as well as measure your success over time in attracting and converting leads.

Additionally, knowing which lead sources bring in the most qualified leads helps you focus your resources where they matter most and where you’ll get the greatest ROI.

Identifying and understanding your lead sources is also a major part of lead management, the process in which you manage — or nurture — your leads until they decide to convert.

These are all details you need to improve the buyer’s journey, effectively target your unique audience, and shorten the sales cycle.

Types of Lead Sources

There are several types of lead sources. Here are some common examples.

• Email marketing (email campaigns)
• Organic search (lead sources from the search engine results page/ SERP)
• Paid ads (PPC, display ads)
• Social media
• Direct mail
• Referrals or word-of-mouth
• Gated/ premium content offers
• Blog articles
• Events (in-person or virtual)
• Backlinks (link from a page on one website to another — if another website links to your website, you have a backlink from them)
• Traditional advertising (billboards, TV, radio)

Next, let’s talk about a handful of best practices when it comes to your lead sources. You should keep these in mind while identifying, analyzing, and improving your lead sources.

1. Identify and track your lead sources.

If you’re looking to identify, track, and measure your lead sources, you’ll likely use a lead tracking tool. These tools are often part of your CRM, marketing software, or sales software.

Lead Source Tools

Here are some examples of powerful tools that can help you with lead source tracking.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform for scaling businesses with powerful marketing, sales, service, and ops software and tools. There’s more than one way to use HubSpot to collect, track, manage, and measure leads and lead sources.

For instance, with HubSpot CRM Lead Management and Tracking Software, all contact records for your leads are logged automatically. That includes all of your interactions and communications with those leads as well as all related sales activity — this provides insight into how, where, and when interactions with leads happened.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot’s Lead Management and Tracking Software to automate and view contact records, view lead and contact communication history, and manage your leads all from a centralized location.

With HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, your Lead Collection and Tracking Software focuses more on leads and lead management within the marketing org so leads and lead data are readily available for the sales team.

This tool makes it easy to keep an eye on your lead’s email opens, content downloads, page visits, social media interactions, and more so you can track lead source data with ease. It also helps you organize all of your lead and contact information and interactions in a single database. You can segment your leads and score them based on qualification.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot’s Lead Collection and Tracking Software to organize contact data and interactions, segment leads, and score those leads all from a single and integrated database.

2. MoData

MoData is a sales analytics and revenue acceleration tool with pipeline reporting features that come with lead source tracking capabilities.

Pair this tool with your HubSpot CRM (using the integration) to compare your lead sources as well as your sales reps so your data and team members are aligned and on a central source of truth. View, send, and share out-of-the-box reports, as well as customize pipeline dashboards with ease.

3. CallRail

CallRail is a call tracking and marketing analytics platform that offers reporting for lead attribution by source. This feature uses multi-touch attribution to provide you with reports for every lead source and interaction type that your team cares about in CallRail, throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey.

View all of the lead sources you’re tracking in the tool — your top five lead sources are displayed in a graph with more details about your other sources below. You can view raw leads versus qualified leads as well as filter by company, time frame, and report model.

2. Determine which sources bring in the most qualified leads.

After identifying your lead sources, determine which of those sources bring in the most qualified leads for your business.

Again, a tool like HubSpot can help with this — it assists with tracking your leads and the sources by which they come from and then segmenting those leads based on an assigned lead score (which tells you how qualified they are).

In fact, HubSpot automatically scores your leads for you based on the criteria that you choose (based on behavior or characteristic). This is not only helpful for your marketing team but it also helps sales reps prioritize their lead follow-up.

3. Then determine which of those sources are converting the most leads into customers.

Once you’ve determined which sources bring in the most qualified leads, identify the source that converts the greatest number of leads into customers.

In other words, which lead source do you see the most customers coming from? Maybe it’s the source that you see the most qualified leads coming from, but maybe not. So, take some time to determine which lead sources you see the greatest number of new customers coming from.

4. Experiment with different channels to bring in more qualified leads.

Just because you know which channels and sources are currently bringing in the greatest number of qualified leads, and where the most conversions are currently coming from, doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax. As your business grows, your audience grows, too — and that evolving audience may not spend time exactly where your initial audience did.

Experiment with different channels to see how many qualified leads and conversions you can bring in. This experimentation may be how you surface your most valuable lead source. 

5. Measure and analyze the success of your lead sources.

Measure the success of your lead sources over time. This is something you’re already going to be doing throughout the previous steps (e.g. scoring leads, identifying the most effective lead sources, etc.) but it’s also important to spend time here. In doing so, you’ll be able to ensure you’re focusing your resources in the right places.

The data obtained from your lead source analysis will also help you more effectively target, reach, resonate with, and convert your audience on the channels they like to use and via the touchpoints they like to interact with most. Remember, this part of the lead source management process should be ongoing.

Tap Into Your Lead Sources to Improve the Buyer’s Journey

Begin identifying your lead sources to improve upon the buyer’s journey with highly-tailored content, interactions, and communications, all via the channels and sources your audience prefers. Remember, the more you know about your audience, leads, and customers, the more effectively you can target and reach them.

I have most of my best ideas at 3:00 AM or in the shower. But turning those shower ideas into a business opportunity requires further investigation. That’s where market opportunity analysis comes in.

While you and your team may have many new business ideas you want to explore, you don’t have time to head down every path. Some of those paths may even end up being dead-ends.

How do you choose which ideas to pursue, and which ones to let go of? Market opportunity analysis can help you narrow down your options to the ones with the greatest potential.

Who should conduct a market opportunity analysis?

That answer is, “everyone.” All sizes of organizations will benefit from better understanding the industry in which they’re operating or approaching. Whether you work in B2B, B2C, government, or non-profit organizations, defining and analyzing the market will help you make better decisions.

This kind of analysis can help you grow your existing business, pivot into new markets and opportunities, or expand into the periphery of your current market.

There are many reasons to take the time and examine the full range of options before forging ahead. Here are five important benefits you’ll get from market analysis.

1. Make better long-term strategic decisions.

Your business is impacted by many external factors. Without taking the time to examine the current market trends, you’ll be flying blind.

A market opportunity analysis can provide the insight you need to see into the future. What will the market look like in a year? Five years? 10 years? What forces are acting on the market today? How is the demographic of your target audience shifting?

2. Evaluate product or service demand.

You may have invented the next Google Glass: a great product with tough, niche demand. A market assessment will show the potential for selling your product or service. This analysis will help you evaluate if expanding into a potential new market is worthwhile for your company.

You may find that there is no existing market for your idea, leading to a “Blue Ocean Strategy.” “Blue oceans,” explain authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, “denote all the industries not in existence today — the unknown market space, untainted by competition. In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid.”

While that might be the case, you might also fail to create the market, or need to spend time and energy educating customers on the value of your new idea.

3. Identify potential marketing strategies.

The four P’s of your marketing mix are price, place, product, and promotion. Through the process of a market opportunity analysis, organizations can gain a deeper understanding of who their target customers are, what they want, and how they make their decisions.

After assessing the current market, you’ll be able to price your product effectively and know which promotion strategies will work best. Are there partnerships you should pursue? Will direct sales or inbound marketing work best?

4. Uncover areas for further research.

When you start to better understand the market, you may identify even more new opportunities to explore. As the saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” You may discover a new government initiative that encourages sustainable businesses.

A customer research project may identify a new pain point that you didn’t realize existed. The benefit of knowing your marketplace really deeply is that you’ll be ready to leverage any new opportunities that pop up.

5. Identify and navigate potential roadblocks.

A SWOT analysis looks at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a potential strategy. Identifying the weaknesses and the threats to your market opportunity is key to your success. No business idea is perfect. But knowing where you might run into trouble before you even begin can help you plan ahead and mitigate those risks.

Examples of Market Opportunity Analysis

Before we get into the step-by-step instructions of how to do your own analysis, let’s look at the results of two very different case studies. The purpose of both of these research projects was to identify new opportunities, however, they were done in two different industries: elderly care options and the automotive industry.

1. Say Yeah! ElderCare Case Study

Consulting agency Say Yeah! conducted a market opportunity analysis for a company looking to expand its business model into the elderly care industry. They started by mapping the customer journey for an adult child caring for their elderly parent, along with all the decision points they encounter.

By examining market forces — such as government subsidies, the changing demographics, and all the options older adults have — Say Yeah! was able to uncover several different options by which ElderCare could increase their profits.

Notably, they recommended ElderCare expand its referral business to include retirement homes, in-home care, and other social services.

“Their initial business premise is validated: by shifting the industry to a subscription-based model, led by an online marketplace, this business could carve out a significant piece of profit in the elder care industry by providing far more value to retirement homes at less cost.”

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2. Ipsos Business Consulting Automotive Case Study

A global automotive conglomerate was interested in the growing electronic vehicle (EV) market, specifically three-wheelers in India. Ipsos conducted a study of the EV market through customer interviews, business model analysis, and government research. At the end of the study, they provided recommendations around charging station locations, leasing vs purchasing options, and other infrastructure requirements.

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How To Conduct a Market Opportunity Assessment

1. Identify potential opportunities.

Your first step is to lay out the potential opportunities you want to investigate. What segment are you hoping to expand into? What type of customer are you hoping to attract? Are you looking to acquire or partner with another business? Have current events created a potential opportunity?

Knowing whether you want to expand, pivot, invest, create, or reposition your offerings will inform the next steps of your market research.

Once you’ve identified market opportunities, you’re ready to start researching their potential.

2. Understand the customer.

In every opportunity, the customer will inform your success. Does this product meet their needs? Do they have the purchasing power to make this idea profitable? How do they make their purchasing decisions? The second step in the analysis is to really, deeply understand your potential customers and their needs. This research may include any of the following tools:

• Customer interviews
• Customer journey map
• Surveys
• Demographic data

3. Research competitors.

Next, you’ll want to understand who all the players in the existing market are. Competitor research can help you understand how big the market share is, how existing products are positioned in the market, and how crowded the market is. Here are some questions you might want to ask:

• What is their value proposition?
• How is their product offering different from ours?
• Who are their partners?
• What do their reviews say about their product or service?
• Are there any gaps we could fill?
• How likely are new competitors?

4. Consider external factors.

External factors are always shaping and changing the marketplace. The acronym “STEEP” can help us dive into the five main forces we need to be aware of.

Social

How is culture changing the market? For example, more employees working from home during the pandemic has opened up an entire sector of the market that didn’t exist before. Jumping on trends can be a lucrative strategy unless the trends disappear too quickly.

Technical

What new innovations have influenced the market? Can you apply this technology in other ways or in new industries?

Economic

What is the current economic climate like? Will you be able to get a loan if needed? Do your customers have disposable income? How does the market forecast look for the next year? Five years?

Ecological

What impact does this idea have on the environment? Can you improve the sustainability of the product or service?

Political

You may be pleasantly surprised to learn that your local government is offering grants, tax breaks, or other incentives for businesses in your industry. Alternatively, you may find that there are regulatory roadblocks in your way that you’ll need to account for in your analysis.

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5. Be aware of internal forces.

Finally, dive into your own business’ capabilities. Do you have the skills, workforce, technology, and financial resources to invest in a new product? If you’re launching a very innovative product, are you going to be able to hire people with the necessary skills? What new departments or teams will you need to create to manage this new opportunity?

Make better decisions with market opportunity analysis.

Not every idea is worth pursuing — but many are. With market opportunity analysis, you’ll learn which business strategies will help you grow, along with their potential risks. Don’t launch your next product or service without doing your homework.

92% of U.S. workers feel that they could collaborate better with their colleagues.

Managing multiple projects at once, delegating tasks, and collaborating across teams is difficult on a good day — but can become downright impossible when unforeseen obstacles get in the way. The data proves that project management is no walk in the park for most of us.

When that impacts the business, it becomes an even bigger problem. Miscommunication and inefficiencies in your project management process can lead to confusing and stressful experiences for your employees. It can hinder your company’s ability to satisfy your clients’ needs or hit end-of-year goals.

Fortunately, there are plenty of free project management apps to keep your team on track without breaking the bank.

In a free project management tool, you’ll typically be able to create various projects, come-up with to-do lists, assign tasks to team members, and track a project’s progress until completion. Paid project management tools offer more storage, more projects, and more seats for the team. But for small teams, a free project management tool will do the trick.

The low buy-in makes it a natural choice. With free project management software, your team can collaborate much better, reducing the risk of miscommunications and keeping everyone up to speed on team-wide projects. It’s also helpful for individual team members. They can use it to boost their productivity and ensure they’re on track.

To streamline your process and ensure everyone on your team is on the same page, take a look at these exceptional free project management tools.

1. HubSpot Project Management Software

HubSpot’s project management tool includes task creation, task automation, and pre-made to-do lists. It’s specifically designed for marketing teams and integrates seamlessly with Marketing Hub. With this tool, you can keep track of tasks alongside your marketing projects — so that both are integrated and not managed on different tools.

Features include:

• Task management right alongside your marketing workflows
• File attachment capabilities to keep track of important assets
• Pre-made to-do lists to immediately launch projects
• Custom templates for recurring projects
• Landing pages, emails, and workflows available in the same tool

Pricing: Free with HubSpot Marketing Hub

2. Project.co

Project.co is a client-facing project management system that connects your team with your clients’ teams in one place. Each piece of work you do can be set up as its own project, with its own discussion feed, notes, tasks, team, and payments. You can also record time spent on each project.

A variety of different task and project views are available, including calendar, scheduler, and Kanban view — to give you an overview of the work that’s happening within your team.

Features include:

• Ability to quickly add/invite both internal and external users
• Discussion feed for each project — with email alerts (and the ability to reply by email without logging in)
• Variety of task views — which can be filtered — giving your whole team, each department, and even individual users their daily/weekly task lists
• Reporting tools that measure your most and least profitable or efficient projects
• Ability to integrate payment solutions and quickly, securely take card payments through the system

Pricing:
Free for 14 days; $10/user/month

3. Toggl Plan

Toggl Plan is an effective project management tool to automate your task delegation process and visualize which project tasks have been completed, and which haven’t. If your team often collaborates with other departments on projects, this might be a useful tool for you.

Features include:

• Gantt-chart visualization to track important deadlines and projects
• Integrations with Slack, Github, Evernote, and others
• Team collaboration option through shared calendars and task notes

Pricing: Free for 14 days; $8/user/month (Team); $13.35/user/month (Business)

4. ClickUp

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ClickUp provides a few impressive features to customize the all-in-one project management tool to suit your team members, including the option for each user to choose one of three different ways to view their projects and tasks depending on individual preference. If your marketing team overlaps with sales, design, or development, this is an effective solution, as it provides features for all of those four teams.

Features include:

• The ability to organize your projects based on priority, and assign tasks to groups
• The option to set goals to remind teams what they’re aiming to accomplish
• Google Calendar two-way sync
• An easy way to filter, search, sort, and customize options for managing specific tasks
• Activity stream with mentions capability
• Image mockups
• 57 integrated apps

Pricing: Free; $5/user/month

5. nTask

Another free software that comes with a variety of features for project and task managers is nTask. This program has a couple of free-range tools for anyone looking to work as an individual or a professional project manager.

nTask supports multiple projects and task creation. Users can also define team leader roles, budget, milestone and time tracking criteria that are specific to relevant projects. Understanding the needs of advanced project managers, nTask also offers an interactive Gantt chart feature. It can be personalized by a simple drag and drop mechanism to align the project to ongoing real-life changes.

Features include:

• A powerful in-app collaboration system
• Integration with Slack and many other third-party apps
• The ability to invite stakeholders to view ongoing projects
• Resource management
• Team management via an admin-controlled process
• Multiple workspaces dedicated to different projects and tasks

Pricing: Free (Basic); $2.99/user/month (Premium); $7.99/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)

6. Teamwork

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Teamwork is a project management software and collaboration platform that helps in-house and remote teams stay organized and productive. Each project lets you easily upload files, assign tasks and deadlines, and chat with teammates. By centralizing your project information, you can help eliminate more misunderstandings and missed deadlines.

Features include:

• Easy integration with HubSpot
• Teamwork Chat Instant Messenger to help you stay in your workflow and be most productive
• Time tracking to understand capacity and where a team spends their time
• Dashboards, Substasks, and Milestones to help track progress of projects

Pricing: Free; $10/user/month (Deliver); $18/user/month (Grow); Custom (Enterprise

7. Freedcamp

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Freedcamp is a feature-rich project management tool that’s designed for personal and professional use. Each project has its own tasks, milestones, files, discussions, and timelines, as well as an issue tracker and calendar. The dashboard gives you a clear, concise overview of what’s going on in your team, including activity, projects, and tasks.

Features include:

• Message-board discussion feed, with the ability to create and carry out discussions on any topic
• Powerful calendar view that lays out all upcoming events
• Third-party integrations including Google Drive, Google Calendar, Dropbox and more

Pricing: Free; $1.49/user/month (MInimalist); $7.49/user/month (Business); $16.99/user/month (Enterprise)

8. Asana

Asana, one of the most well-known project management solutions, has a clean and user-friendly interface. The all-in-one tool lets you create boards to visualize which stage your project is in, and use reporting to keep track of finished tasks and tasks that need your attention.

Features include:

• The ability to create templates to automate mundane tasks
• The ability to collaborate and share information across the team, privately and securely
• The option to set security controls and designate admins
• Over 100 integrations for a more efficient start-to-finish process
• The ability to create custom project fields, share documents, and filter tasks
• HubSpot integration for seamless syncing of workflows and contact activity

Pricing: Free (Basic); $10.99/user/month (Premium); $24.99/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)

9. Monday.com

Monday.com, a project management tool that also offers HR and IT tools, allows you to create team member status updates so your remote and flexible teams know their coworkers’ schedules. It allows you to easily access project updates at-a-glance so that nothing falls between the cracks.

Features include:

• Customizable workflows to prioritize your team’s needs and take care of menial tasks
• Gantt chart for visualizing due dates and project timelines
• Integrations with popular tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Calendar
• Team member status updates for remote or flexible team members
• HubSpot integration so that everyone can collaborate on contact and deal management

Pricing: Free for 14 days; $8/user/month (Basic); $10/user/month (Standard); $16/user/month (Pro); Custom (Enterprise)

10. Wrike

Wrike stands out as an exceptional project management tool for teams who want the option to customize workflows and edit and revise projects from within the platform itself. The tool offers the ability to color code and layer calendars, and its mobile app allows colleagues to update project information on-the-go. You can add comments to sections, videos, or documents, and create custom fields to export data most relevant to your company.

Features include:

• Security measures to ensure only authorized personnel can access information
• Activity Stream to allow project managers to micromanage small tasks, see activities in chronological order, and tag team members
• The option to unfollow activities to declutter your own personal Stream
• Email and calendar synchronization
• Built-in editing and approval features

Pricing: Free; $9.80/user/month (Professional); $24.80/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)

11. Paymo

Paymo’s free version only allows access for one user, but if you’ve got a small team or you’re a freelancer, this could be an efficient option for tracking billable hours and invoicing clients. Along with tracking finances, Paymo also allows you to organize project timelines, create to-do lists, and stay on top of your budgets for multiple projects at once.

Features include:

• Kanban boards for easy, at-a-glance project updates
• Time tracking to keep everyone on the same schedule
• File sharing and Adobe CC extension for easy sharing of assets
• Timesheet reporting to keep stakeholders in the loop
• Project templates to jumpstart projects with a click

Pricing: Free; $9.95/user/month (Small Office); $15.79/user/month (Business)

12. Trello

Trello is a drag-and-drop tool that lets you move projects — personal, or professional — through workflow stages, all the way to completion.

You define what those stages are — whether it’s work project statuses like ‘On Hold,’ or personal project categories like ‘Things to buy!’ — with tasks represented as ‘cards.’ Each card can be given a name, assigned to an individual, given a due date — and have files, such as images, attached to it.

Features include:

• Templates for a range of different project types, from business to education to personal productivity
• Ability to add attachments such as images to any card on any board
• Customise your workflow stages to reflect your actual process
• Simple drag-and-drop movement of cards through workflow stages
• HubSpot integration for syncing marketing, sales, and service workflows into to-do lists

Pricing: Free; $10/user/month; Custom (Enterprise)

13. Todoist

Todoist is a simple but powerful tool that lets you create powerful, interactive to-do lists. To-do items can be assigned priority levels, assigned to people in your team and flagged — with customizable reminders (although these are a premium feature). Actionable items can also be categorised into different projects, making a simple, easily understandable structure where each ‘list’ has a title (project name) and a series of actions. This all makes it an extremely flexible, customizable tool to get work done.

Features include:

• Template lists to inspire and guide you
• Recurring due dates for regularly recurring tasks
• Productivity visualizations and ‘Karma’ points for completed tasks and streaks
• Labels, notification and discussion feeds to keep you organized

Pricing: Free; $3/user/month (Pro); $5/user/month (Business)

14. MeisterTask

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MeisterTask is a project management tool that allows you to create Kanban boards, set recurring tasks, track project times, and create custom fields. You can automatically import data from other tools such as Trello and Asana, allowing you to get immediately to work without losing time.

Features include:

• Up to 3 projects on the free version
• File attachments for projects
• Custom project icons to make tasks stand out
• Time tracking so that no deadlines fall through the cracks

Pricing: Free; $8.25/user/month (Pro); $20.75/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)

15. Bitrix24

Britrix24’s project management software includes Kanban boards, Gantt charts, task counters for easy prioritization, and reports for analyzing the time intensiveness of different tasks. You can also create to-do lists within tasks.

Features include:

• Recurring tasks for easy task creation and automation
• Integration with Billable Hours, which is especially useful if you work with freelancers
• Task statuses to easily keep track of progress
• Monthly reports on time spent on tasks

Pricing: Free; $19/month (Start+); $55/month (CRM+ and Project+); $79/month (Standard Business Plan); $159/month (Professional Business Plan)

16. Airtable

Airtable is a customizable spreadsheet and database app that can be used to create a project management tool for your team. Its project tracker template allows you to easily manage projects in a familiar spreadsheet-like environment, making it ideal for Excel and Google Sheets enthusiasts.

Features include:

• Subtask creation within tasks
• Ability to assign tasks and establish time estimates
• Additional templates for keeping remote teams aligned, such as a team hub and asset tracker
• Highly customizable for different teams
• Integration with popular tools such as HubSpot, Asana, Dropbox, Google Workspace, and Slack

Pricing: Free; $10/user/month (Plus); $20/user/month (Pro); Custom (Enterprise)

Streamline Workflows with a Project Management Tool

Using a project management app will empower your team to work more efficiently and collaborate more seamlessly. With hurdles out of the way, you can guarantee that your team can focus on what matters: bringing in more leads, selling to more prospects, and empowering more customers to grow alongside your business.

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

Conversion funnels are a fundamental concept in sales. Personally, I like to visualize the funnel as that big scary slide you wanted to try as a kid. You saw your friends whizzing down, which sparked your interest. You watched how much fun they were having, doing your research. And then the benefits of having fun outweighed your fear, so you climbed up and flew down.

Customers take a similar journey through your company’s conversion funnel when evaluating whether or not to buy from you. You have to pique their interest, build trust, and encourage them to take action.

While the customer journey is more complex than my slide analogy, understanding how conversion funnels work can improve this flow. It can help you optimize your funnel, attract more leads, convert them to customers, and boost your bottom line. But all that requires reducing as much friction as possible. (Think: sliding down with slippery clothes instead of bare skin).

In this post, I’ll explain what conversion funnels are and how they impact your customer journey. Then, you’ll learn how to optimize your funnel to increase the number of people who make it to your conversion point at the bottom.

All leads begin at the top of the funnel. As they learn more about your business, they move down and get closer to purchasing your product or service. This conversion process is called a funnel because companies often have more leads than they do customers, making the top of the funnel a larger pool of people than the bottom.

Understanding how people flow through your conversion funnel is essential to being an effective marketer or salesperson because it helps you engage leads, answer questions about your business, and address concerns. It also lets you organize leads into categories and create customer touchpoints that can entice each group to convert.

That’s why every funnel should be designed for how your customers buy, not how you sell. The focus is on providing such a great experience within the customer journey that you convince them to convert.

Before diving into the details of how to analyze and optimize your funnel, we need to talk about an important aspect of this process: the customer journey.

Customer Journey

The customer journey complements the conversion funnel, but it’s not the same thing. Unlike the generalized, linear conversion funnel, customer journey maps show the individual and circuitous paths people take from the moment they discover your brand to the time they make a purchase.

Let’s say you’re a food blogger who sells cookbooks. Here’s how your customers’ journeys can differ.

• Customer A sees and clicks on your banner ad, visits your blog, reads an article, signs up for your newsletter, gets a discount email, and purchases a cookbook.
• Customer B sees your cookbook in a bookshop, buys it, makes the recipes, visits your blog, and subscribes to your newsletter.

The outcomes for Customer A and B are essentially the same, but the journeys and touchpoints are different. So if you know the different ways people enter your funnel, you can optimize for those entry points. That way, you can meet potential buyers where they are and entice them to convert.

That said, most funnels have similar points that ultimately lead to conversion. So let’s look at an example to get a mental picture of this process.

Conversion Funnel Visualization

The top-middle-bottom funnel is a classic model used by sales teams, which focuses on sparking interest, informing potential customers, convincing them to purchase, and building loyalty so they become repeat buyers.

HubSpot has transitioned to thinking of the customer journey as less of a funnel and more of a flywheel — building more momentum as customers move through. Here’s a comparison of a tradition funnel next to a more updated flywheel approach to conversion:

Need a bit more of an explanation? Check out this video introduction to the flywheel below:

But let’s get back to talking about tradition conversion funnels:

• Top of the funnel (TOFU): This is the awareness phase. A potential customer enters the TOFU when they engage with your brand, oftentimes through your website, an ad, an email, or social media.

• Middle of the funnel (MOFU): This is the consideration phase. The potential customer knows about your brand and engages with it in order to learn more. They may sign up for your email newsletter, follow you on social media, or download guides and templates.

• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): This is the conversion phase. A prospect is here right before they purchase, which means you’ve given them good information and relevant touchpoints. Help them convert by making it easy to purchase, offering a trial, outlining pricing, or sending a discount for their abandoned shopping cart.

While some conversion funnels are simple, others can be incredibly complex. The detail of your funnel depends on your sales process — the longer your sales cycle, the more complex your funnel. If you have a short sales cycle, your funnel tends to be simpler.

Think about how long it takes to sell $2,000 B2B software versus a $20 t-shirt. The software purchase usually requires months of sales calls, marketing materials, FAQs, and demos. Each of those is a specific point in your conversion funnel. But potential buyers may only need five minutes to figure out that the t-shirt is the right color and fit before purchasing. The touchpoints required here are taking it off the rack and trying it on.

To figure out how complex your funnel is, you can look at the data and perform an analysis. This will help you flush out each part of your customer journey to create a unique visual representation of your funnel.

Conversion Funnel Analysis

Funnels are full of barriers and friction. Analyzing your funnel helps you visualize the flow of potential customers across each point.

You can see key traffic sources and high-exit pages to get a feel for how people end up in each stage of the funnel.

It’s also a way to notice barriers that cause people to leave a page before they convert. If you see a high drop-off rate on one page, for example, you’ll know to prioritize that as you work toward optimizing your funnel.

To understand your funnel, follow these steps for in-depth analysis:

1. Look for high-traffic pages with high drop-off and conversion rates.

High-traffic pages hold a plethora of useful information. Not only are these the pages people see the most, but they’re also where people decide to stay or go. Look at the pages where people drop off (aka leave) and where they convert (take your intended action). Some metrics to collect are:

• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
• Drop-Off Rate
• Conversion Rate
• Number of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
• MQLs to Customer Conversion Rate
• Conversion Rate Per Channel (i.e., social, email, and paid search)

2. Discover where your best customers come from.

Not all leads are the same. Some people drop off near the top of the funnel while others make it all the way down. That’s why tracking leads is so important. When you know where your high-quality leads come from, you can analyze that touchpoint or channel to see what you’re doing right. Ask yourself:

• How is this touchpoint different from other touchpoints?
• What information is resonating with people?
• What are the barriers or friction (if any)?
• How many steps do people have to go through before converting?

Identifying what you’re doing right in your funnel is just as important as figuring out what you’re doing wrong. If you need help digging into the data, check out these sales funnel tools or look into heatmap and session recording tools for information on how people navigate your pages.

3. Create an optimization plan.

After you figure out where people are dropping off and converting, it’s time to make an optimization plan. This should include the goals you want to focus on (i.e., more leads, newsletter signups, demos, or software purchases).

Goals let you determine what you want from each touchpoint within your funnel so you can measure whether it’s working or not.

After your funnel analysis, you’ll have a list of priority touchpoints that need to be optimized. Make sure to focus on the areas with the biggest drop-off rates first.

Conversion Funnel Optimization

Every part of your conversion funnel can be optimized to increase the number of people who turn into customers. Think of conversation funnel optimization as finding out what motivates, blocks, and persuades people so you can give them the best experience possible on their unique journey.

To optimize effectively, you need to think about how to give each customer what they want at each phase of the funnel. Using the phases outlined above, here’s what to consider at each step along the customer journey.

1. TOFU: Awareness

Issues at the top of your funnel? Take a look at how you attract new leads. Compare every channel that brings in customers (i.e., social media, search engines, your blog, and paid ads) to see which attracts the most people.

If you’re unsure how customers found you, send out a survey to ask. Look for trends in how people find new brands and put more effort in your best channels. Just make sure you’re attracting the people in your target audience.

2. MOFU: Consideration

Potential customers made it to the middle of your funnel, but it’s your job to keep them moving toward the bottom.

If you’re having trouble with this phase, look at how people learn about your business and engage with your site. Is it easy for people to navigate your site? Or sign up for your email list? Do you have relevant, rich content? Do you offer pricing and product information? Is it easy to get questions answered?

Depending on your barriers, consider these ideas for improvement:

• Product videos and photos
• FAQ page
• Whitepapers, case studies, or blog posts
• Filters and search options
• Newsletter capture
• Discounts
• Check pages for loading speed and broken elements

3. BOFU: Conversion

As the final stop for potential buyers, this is the phase to turn them into customers. You should remove as much friction as possible and encourage people to take the final steps to convert.

Some ways to optimize this final part of your funnel is to make sure product or service pages are fully built out with interesting descriptions, videos, and photos. Consider your checkout process to see if people have issues with payments or abandoned carts. Make it simple for people to compare pricing and clearly outline all product features. You can also send specific BOFU emails or create ads to remind people of their desire to convert.

Think your job is done once a customer converts? Wrong. While you may have pulled a customer through your conversion funnel, there are plenty of opportunities to re-engage them. Not only is customer retention essential for growing your business, but it’s five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain a current customer.

So, once your customers make it through the funnel, invite them to sign up for a new webinar series, download additional templates, send promotions, join a loyalty club, or follow you on social media.

Find what makes sense for your particular sales cycle and use your existing content and channels to stay in touch. Make sure they value your business and want to come back because you never know who they’ll introduce to the top of that funnel.

Think about those brands you purchase from over and over, even when there are cheaper options out there. Why do you choose the ones you choose?

Do you usually fly on a particular airline? Do you buy your coffee from the same place every morning? Do you recommend a specific restaurant whenever out-of-towners ask for suggestions? Well, there’s a good reason for it.

The reason we stay loyal to brands is because of their values. The best brands combine physical, emotional, and logical elements into one exceptional customer (and employee) experience that you value as much as they do.

When your brand successfully creates a connection with customers and employees, many of them stay loyal to you for life. This helps you increase your overall profitability while building a solid foundation of brand promoters.

But, achieving that connection is no easy task. The companies that succeed are ones that stay true to their core values and create a brand that employees and customers are proud to associate with.

That’s where company mission and vision statements come in to play. In this article we’ll explain what makes them different, and provide you with examples of vision and mission statements from growing companies.

If you’re in a bit of a time-crunch, use this table of contents to find exactly what you’re looking for.

What is a mission statement?

A mission statement is an action-oriented statement, declaring the purpose an organization serves to its audience. It often includes a general description of the organization, its function, and its objectives.

As a company grows, its objectives and goals may be reached, and in turn they’ll change. Therefore, mission statements should be revised as needed to reflect the business’s new culture as previous goals are met.

Both mission and vision statements are often combined into one comprehensive “mission statement” to define the organization’s reason for existing and its outlook for internal and external audiences — like employees, partners, board members, consumers, and shareholders.

What is a vision statement?

A vision statement describes where the company aspires to be upon achieving its mission. This statement reveals the “where” of a business, meaning the direction a business is trying to go and what type of impact they wish to have.

The difference between mission and vision statements lies in the purpose they serve.

A mission statement is a literal quote stating what a brand or company is setting out to do. This lets the public know the product and service it provides, who it makes it for, and why it’s doing it. A vision statement is a brand looking toward the future and saying what it hopes to achieve through its mission statement. This is more conceptual, as it’s a glimpse into what the brand can become in the eyes of the consumer and the value it will bring in longevity.

In summary, the main differences between a mission and vision statements are:

• Mission statements are the current purpose a company serves, like its functions.
• Vision statements are a look into a company’s future or what its overarching vision is.

Now that we know what they are, let’s dive into some effective examples of each across different industries.

1. Alzheimer’s Association: A world without Alzheimer’s disease.

The Alzheimer’s Association conducts global research and provides quality care and support to people with dementia. This vision statement is a look into the future where people won’t have to battle this currently incurable disease. With the work that it’s doing in the present, both employees and consumers can see how the organization is achieving its vision by helping those in need.

2. Teach for America: One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.

Teach for America creates a network of leaders to provide equal education opportunity to children in need. This organization’s day-to-day work includes helping marginalized students receive the proper education they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. Its vision statement is what it hopes to see through its efforts — a nation where no child is left behind.

3. Creative Commons: Realizing the full potential of the internet — universal access to research and education, full participation in culture — to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity.

This nonprofit’s vision statement is broad. It helps overcome legal obstacles to share knowledge and creativity around the world. By working closely with major institutions, its vision is an innovative internet that isn’t barred by paywalls.

4. Microsoft (at its founding): A computer on every desk and in every home.

Microsoft is one of the most well-known technology companies in the world. It makes gadgets for work, play, and creative purposes on a worldwide scale, and its vision statement reflects that. Through its product offering and pricing it can provide technology to anyone that needs it.

5. Australia Department of Health: Better health and wellbeing for all Australians, now and for future generations.

This government department has a clear vision for its country. Through health policies, programs, and regulations, it has the means to improve the healthcare of Australian citizens.

6. LinkedIn: Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

LinkedIn is a professional networking service that gives people the opportunity to seek employment. Its vision statement intends to give employees of every level a chance to get the job they need.

7. Disney: To entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds and innovative technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment company.

Disney’s vision statement goes beyond providing ordinary entertainment. It intends to tell stories and drive creativity that inspires future generations through its work. This is an exceptional vision statement because it goes beyond giving consumers programs to watch, but ones that excite and change the way people see them and the world around them.

8. Facebook: Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook.

Facebook is a major social media platform with a concise vision statement. It provides a platform to stay in touch with loved ones, and potentially connect to people around the world.

9. Southwest: To be the world’s most loved, most efficient, and most profitable airline.

Southwest Airlines is an international airline that strives to serve its flyers with a smile. Its vision statement is unique because it sees itself not just excelling in profit, but in outstanding customer service, too. Its vision is possible through its strategy and can lead its employees to be at the level they work toward.

10. Dunkin’: To be always the desired place for great coffee beverages and delicious complementary doughnuts & bakery products to enjoy with family and friends.

For this coffee company, its vision is beyond remaining a large coffee chain. It wants to be known as a coffee provider that gives its customers joy. It wants to become a place known for fun, food, and recreation.

Now that we’ve gone over successful vision statements, what does a good mission statement look like? Check out some of the following company mission statements — and get inspired to write one for your brand.

Free Guide: 100 Mission Statement Templates & Examples

Need more examples to build your mission statement? Download our free overview of mission statements – complete with 100 templates and examples to help you develop a stand-out mission statement.

1. Life Is Good: To spread the power of optimism.

The Life is Good brand is about more than spreading optimism — although, with uplifting T-shirt slogans like “Seas The Day” and “Forecast: Mostly Sunny,” it’s hard not to crack a smile.

There are tons of T-shirt companies in the world, but Life is Good’s mission sets itself apart with a mission statement that goes beyond fun clothing: to spread the power of optimism.

This mission is perhaps a little unexpected if you’re not familiar with the company’s public charity: How will a T-shirt company help spread optimism? Life is Good answers that question below the fold, where the mission is explained in more detail, with links to programs implemented to support #GrowTheGood initiative and the Life is Good Kids Foundation page. We really like how lofty, yet specific, this mission statement is — it’s a hard-to-balance combination.

2. sweetgreen: To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.

Notice that sweetgreen’s mission is positioned to align with your values — not just written as something the brand believes. We love the inclusive language used in its statement, letting us know that the company is all about connecting its growing network of farmers growing healthy, local ingredients with us — the customer — because we’re the ones who want more locally grown, healthy food options.

The mission to connect people is what makes this statement so strong. And, that promise has gone beyond sweetgreen’s website and walls of its food shops: The team has made strides in the communities where it’s opened stores as well. Primarily, it provides education to young kids on healthy eating, fitness, sustainability, and where food comes from.

And, the sweetlife music festival attracts 20,000 like-minded people every year who come together to listen to music, eat healthy food, and give back to a cause — the sweetgreen in schools charity partner, FoodCorps.

3. Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Patagonia’s mission statement combines both the values that bring market success (building safe, high-quality products) and the values that contribute to a better world (philanthropic efforts to help the environment). For the people behind the brand, “a love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them.” In the name of this cause, the company donates time, services, and at least 1% of its sales to hundreds of environmental groups around the world.

If your company has a similar focus on growing your business and giving back, think about talking about both the benefit you bring to customers and the value you want to bring to a greater cause in your mission statement.

4. American Express: We work hard every day to make American Express the world’s most respected service brand.

Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.

— Simon Sinek (@simonsinek) April 16, 2014

The tweet above is from Simon Sinek, and it’s one that we repeat here at HubSpot all the time. American Express sets itself apart from other credit card companies in its list of values, with an ode to great customer service, which is something it’s famous for.

We especially love the emphasis on teamwork and supporting employees, so that the people inside of the organization can be in the best position to support their customers.

5. Warby Parker: To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.

This “objective” statement from Warby Parker uses words that reflect a young and daring personality: “rebellious,” “revolutionary,” “socially-conscious.” In one sentence, the brand takes us back to the root of why it was founded while also revealing its vision for a better future.

The longer-form version of the mission reads: “We believe that buying glasses should be easy and fun. It should leave you happy and good-looking, with money in your pocket,” which further shows how Warby Parker doesn’t hold back on letting its unique personality shine through. Here, the mission statement’s success all comes down to spot-on word choice.

6. InvisionApp: Question Assumptions. Think Deeply. Iterate as a Lifestyle. Details, Details. Design is Everywhere. Integrity.

These days, it can seem like every B2B company page looks the same — but InvisionApp has one of the cooler company pages I’ve seen. Scroll down to “Our Core Values,” and hover over any of the icons, and you’ll find a short-but-sweet piece of the overall company mission under each one.

We love the way the statements are laid out under each icon. Each description is brief, authentic, and business babble-free — which makes the folks at InvisionApp seem trustworthy and genuine.

7. Honest Tea: To create and promote great-tasting, healthy, organic beverages.

Honest Tea’s mission statement begins with a simple punch line connoting its tea is real, pure, and therefore not full of artificial chemicals. The brand is speaking to an audience that’s tired of finding ingredients in its tea that can’t be pronounced, and have been searching for a tea that’s exactly what it says it is.

Not only does Honest Tea have a punny name, but it also centers its mission around the name. For some time, the company even published a Mission Report each year in an effort to be “transparent about our business practices and live up to our mission to seek to create and promote great-tasting, healthier, organic beverages.”

8. IKEA: To create a better everyday life for the many people.

The folks at IKEA dream big. The vision-based mission statement could have been one of beautiful, affordable furniture, but instead, it’s to make everyday life better for its customers. It’s a partnership: IKEA finds deals all over the world and buys in bulk, then we choose the furniture and pick it up at a self-service warehouse.

“Our business idea supports this vision … so [that] as many people as possible will be able to afford them,” the brand states.

Using words like “as many people as possible” makes a huge company like IKEA much more accessible and appealing to customers.

9. Nordstrom: To give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible.

When it comes to customer commitment, not many companies are as hyper-focused as Nordstrom is. Although clothing selection, quality, and value all have a place in the company’s mission statement, it’s crystal clear that it’s all about the customer: “Nordstrom works relentlessly to give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible.”

If you’ve ever shopped at a Nordstrom, you’ll know the brand will uphold the high standard for customer service mentioned in its mission statement, as associates are always roaming the sales floors, asking customers whether they’ve been helped, and doing everything they can to make the shopping experience a memorable one.

10. Cradles to Crayons: Provides children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive – at home, at school and at play.

Cradles to Crayons divided its mission and model into three sections that read like a game plan: The Need, The Mission, and The Model. The “rule of three” is a powerful rhetorical device called a tricolon that’s usually used in speechwriting to help make an idea more memorable. A tricolon is a series of three parallel elements of roughly the same length — think “I came; I saw; I conquered.”

11. Universal Health Services, Inc. : To provide superior quality healthcare services that: PATIENTS recommend to family and friends, PHYSICIANS prefer for their patients, PURCHASERS select for their clients, EMPLOYEES are proud of, and INVESTORS seek for long-term returns.

A company thrives when it pleases its customers, its employees, its partners, and its investors — and Universal Health Services endeavors to do just that, according to its mission statement. As a health care service, it specifically strives to please its patients, physicians, purchasers, employees, and investors. We love the emphasis on each facet of the organization, by capitalizing the font and making it red for easy skimming.

12. JetBlue: To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground.

JetBlue’s committed to its founding mission through lovable marketing, charitable partnerships, and influential programs — and we love the approachable language used to describe these endeavors. For example, the brand writes how it “set out in 2000 to bring humanity back to the skies.”

For those of us who want to learn more about any of its specific efforts, JetBlue’s provided details on the Soar With Reading program, its partnership with KaBOOM!, the JetBlue Foundation, environmental and social reporting, and so on. It breaks down all these initiatives really well with big headers, bullet points, pictures, and links to other web pages visitors can click to learn more. Finally, it ends with a call-to-action encouraging website visitors to volunteer or donate their TrueBlue points.

13. Workday: To put people at the center of enterprise software.

Workday, a human resources (HR) task automation service, doesn’t use its mission statement to highlight the features of its product or how it intends to help HR professionals improve in such-and-such a way.

Instead, the business takes a stance on the state of enterprise software in general: There’s a lot of great tech out there. But at Workday, it revolves around the people. We love how confident, yet kind, this mission statement is. It observes the state of its industry — which Workday believes lacks a human touch — and builds company values around it.

14. Prezi: To reinvent how people share knowledge, tell stories, and inspire their audiences to act.

If you know Prezi, you know how engaging it can make your next business presentation look. According to its mission statement, the company’s clever slide animations and three-dimensional experience aren’t just superficial product features. With every decision Prezi makes, it’s all about the story you tell and the audience that story affects.

15. Tesla: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

A car company’s punny use of the word “accelerate” is just one reason this mission statement sticks out. The main reason Tesla makes this list is because of how its mission statement describes the industry.

It may be a car company, but Tesla’s main interest isn’t just automobiles — it’s promoting sustainable energy. And, sustainable energy still has a “long road” ahead of it (pun intended) — hence the world’s “transition” into this market.

Ultimately, a mission statement that can admit to the industry’s immaturity is exactly what gets customers to root for it — and Tesla does that nicely.

16. Invisible Children: To end violence and exploitation facing our world’s most isolated and vulnerable communities.

Invisible Children is a non-profit that raises awareness around the violence affecting communities across Central Africa, and the company takes quite a confident tone in its mission.

The most valuable quality of this mission statement is that it has an end goal. Many companies’ visions and missions are intentionally left open-ended so that the business might always be needed by the community. Invisible Children, on the other hand, wants to “end” the violence facing African families. It’s an admirable mission that all businesses — not just nonprofits — can learn from when trying to motivate customers.

17. TED: Spread ideas.

We’ve all seen TED Talks online before. Well, the company happens to have one of the most succinct mission statements out there.

TED, which stands for “Technology Education and Design,” has a two-word mission statement that shines through in every Talk you’ve seen the company publish on the internet. That mission statement: “Spread ideas.” Sometimes, the best way to get an audience to remember you is to zoom out as far as your business’s vision can go. What do you really care about? TED has recorded some of the most famous presentations in the world, but in the grand scheme of things, all it wants is to spread ideas around to its viewers.

Inspire Through Brand Values

Brand values play a much larger role in customer loyalty than you think. Showing that your business understands its audience — and can appeal to them on an emotional level — could be the decision point for a customer’s next purchase. We hope you found some insight in this post that can help you brainstorm your own inspiring vision and mission statements for your business.

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

Did you know that YouTube is the second-largest global search engine and the biggest video platform of all time?

That’s right. Each day, millions of people around the globe visit the site to learn more about a topic, find YouTube content when Google-searching a question, or stream a YouTube video embedded on another brand’s website.

But, despite the YouTube’s ginormous audience, developing a strategy for the broad platform can be an absolute mystery to marketers.

One of the biggest hurdles brands and new creators often face is learning how to pull in solid views for each video. Despite the millions of people who use it regularly, unlocking solid viewership can feel daunting, impossible, or like a total waste of time.

According to many marketers who manage video successfully, this content is definitely worth your effort in 2020. Recently, our State of Marketing Report revealed that brands were prioritizing video over all other types of marketing content — including blogs. 

And, as we’ve seen from a number of companies and influencers who pull in millions of views on YouTube each month, it certainly is possible to gain success on the platform. In fact, YouTube even offers a number of tools to help you create the content your fans are craving. 

In this blog post, I’ll highlight seven of the most valuable YouTube features that can help you get more video views. Plus, we’ll dive into what YouTube browse features are — and how to rank on those, as well. 

Tools That Help Boost YouTube Views

YouTube Studio Features

The YouTube Studio is an all-in-one place where video creators can go to monitor, improve, and optimize there overall channel. Within the Studio, you’ll find a Channel Dashboard, Analytics, Insights, Comment Filters and other tools that can inform your strategy. Before we dive into some of the key YouTube Studio features you’ll want to use, here’s a quick demo of how the overall tool works: 

 

1. Channel Dashboard

YouTube Studio is a dashboard that tracks the performance of your videos and channel. It also will inform you of trends, news, and comments that are buzzing on the YouTube platform. You can use this dashboard to learn which videos performed well, which didn’t, or how your channel is progressing. You can also use it to learn about trends or news topics that can inform your content strategy. 

To get to your Studio, simply go to your channel, and click the blue YouTube Studio button. 

Once you click this button, you’ll be sent directly to the Channel Dashboard. Here’s a look at what it looks like before you actually post videos:

2. Channel Analytics

The Analytics tab of the YouTube Studio offers data about how your videos and overall channel are performing. While looking at this data can’t directly get you views, you can use it to make informed decisions about which types of videos will gain more views. 

For example, if you post a well-made explainer which gets high views and sees high average view times, and then post a product promotion that gets lower views, this might mean that your fans prefer to learn more about your brand through the explainer format rather than an over-promotional one. 

The Analytics tab will show you a number of helpful data points including (but not limited to):

• Average view times for each video.
• Channel-specific views and subscribers.
• Drop-off points where many viewers exited the video.
• View numbers for each video.
• Demographic information about your audience and their interests.

Here’s a quick peek at what an Analytics tab on YouTube looks like:

Other Ways to Get More YouTube Views

3. Search Optimization Tools

YouTube might not have inherently created video descriptions, channel About pages, and video or playlist titles for the sake of SEO, but these areas are still incredibly important to optimize for the video search engine, and other sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Aside from optimizing your content by filling in descriptions, you can also customize your video or channel by assigning keywords related to your niche or industry. 

By filling out your descriptions concisely and informatively, you increase the chance of internet users finding you when they search for content related to your channel’s.

Aside from optimizing your channel on the platform itself, you can also use a number of handy and affordable tools to research search keywords you want to target with your content, similarly to how you would do SEO research for a blog post.

For a more in-depth guide to optimizing your YouTube channel, check out this great post. You can also watch this video walkthrough from our Senior SEO Strategist Braden Becker:

4. Featured Video or Playlist Autoplay

On your main YouTube channel, you can feature a video or playlist that can welcome new subscribers or intrigue viewers who might subscribe to your channel. At this point, YouTube even allows you to set a different video for new viewers and subscribers. This means you can create informative or introductory content to convince new visitors to subscribe while still featuring more in-depth content for your current followers who already know what your channel is about. 

To update your featured content, simply click the Customize Channel button on your profile and you’ll land on a page which allows you to personalize your images and your featured content. 

Aside from enabling you to create a more personalized experience for new and returning viewers, featured videos will also pull in views when watched. Once the featured video is selected, you can also set it to autoplay. This might also score you some additional views if a visitor does not pause the video too quickly. 

5. Online “Share” Button

Next time you film or edit a YouTube video, consider encouraging viewers to share it on their social channels. They. can easily do this with YouTube’s built-in share function. 

6. Cards (Formerly Video Annotations)

For almost a decade, YouTube has allows users to post links to other videos or approved websites within a video. This feature, which was formerly called “Annotations” was improved for mobile experience and renamed as “Cards” in 2017. The Card creator for each video can be found in the YouTube Studio. 

Here’s a quick overview of how to set up these prompts: 

Aside from pointing your audience back to your channel or other videos, Cards can be used to direct traffic to your site, or even add interactive features such as polls. This type of internal linking can also help with SEO rankings.

7. Links in Video Descriptions

When you’re writing a handful of blogs, odds are, you’ll link them to pages or other blog posts on your site so that way you get multiple views from a handful of visitors. This is no different with YouTube descriptions, which appear under your video. 

By adding links to your channel or related videos, as well as a quick description of each title, you add to the viewer’s experience by handpicking content suggestions for them while also optimizing your video and channel for search engines. 

This is a common strategy used by Lilly Singh, the host of A Little Late With Lilly, and a popular YouTube creator. Here’s a quick look at the description inserted in one of her most recent videos: 

Another surefire opportunity to get more views is through YouTube’s browse features. Let’s dive into those, next.

YouTube Browse Features

Instagram scrollers beware: your favorite photo-sharing app has a feature that shows friends when you were last online.

Similar to the activity status found on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, Instagram’s “Activity Status” setting shows when you were last on the app. It’s now turned off by default in your account, but it’s better to be safe.

Let’s go over how it works — then take a look at how you can turn it off. 

How does the activity status feature work on Instagram?

The activity status feature shows people you’ve direct messaged (DM’d) when you were last online and whether you’re currently active on Instagram.

Your status is only shown to people you follow. So if someone follows you but you don’t follow them back, they won’t be able to view your status. The same is true for your friends. You can see when they were last online if they follow you back.

Your friends’ status is visible when you navigate to your direct messages:

Remember: the feature only shows whether you’re online and when you last accessed the app. Your friends won’t see the posts you’ve liked or commented on.

On the fence about turning it off? Read on to find out whether you should keep activity status on or off.

Should you keep activity status on or off?

There are a few benefits to keeping it on. It allows you to keep tabs on your friends’ online status without feeling like you’re intruding. That way, if you want to send a funny meme at just the right moment, you can expect your friend to see it immediately or soon afterward.

Turning it off, however, offers the great benefit of being able to access Instagram without anyone knowing. That means that you can answer DMs at your leisure, and you don’t feel as if anyone is keeping tabs on when you’re using the app. The one drawback is that once you turn the feature off, you won’t be able to view anyone else’s activity status.

If you want to keep your late-night puppy picture scroll fests completely private, don’t fret. You can turn off Instagram’s activity status feature with the following quick steps.

Here’s the setting you’re looking for:

Once that setting is toggled off, you’re free to resume scrolling undetected. The best part? You can turn it on at any time if you change your mind.

Stay Private by Turning Off Your Activity Status

Staying private on social media is already difficult enough. To ensure that you’re not accidentally showing your activity status to those whom you’ve DM’d, turn it off in your settings. That way, you can enjoy privacy while you use the app.

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