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So you’ve created an amazing landing page to promote a special offer. You’ll need form conversion to turn your hard work into leads.

Where you place your forms, how they’re designed, and the language in your call-to-action all shape your visitor experience. Get these elements right, and you can grow your lists.  

This post explores how you can optimize your forms to gather high-quality leads. You’ll learn the following:

• What is form conversion?
• 10 Tips to Optimize Form Conversion
• Getting Started with Form Conversion

A “good” conversion rate falls between 2% to 5%, according to CRO platform company Adoric. However, Hubspot research from 2020 found that only 22% of companies were satisfied with their conversion rates. Email collection forms were the most successful method for converting customers, with a 15% conversion rate in 2020.

10 Tips to Optimize Form Conversion

If you want to transform your underperforming lead-generation forms, you’ll need to give both your webpage and the form itself a refresh. Start with these 10 tips to optimize form conversion.

1. Move your form above the fold.

Conversion forms should be above the fold on your landing page. That means visitors shouldn’t have to scroll down the page to see your form. There’s no need to search to find your offer. Doing this removes friction from your lead generation process.

For example, visitors on the landing page below instantly know they’ll need to fill out the free demo form.

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2. Make your form headline a call-to-action.

Encourage visitors to complete your form by making your headline a call-to-action. This tells your visitors exactly what they will get once they sign up.

For example, the form below starts with the call-to-action, “Start Your Free Trial Now.” This call to action is then repeated in the button at the bottom of the form, reinforcing the message.

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If you’re unsure of what to include in your form headline, consider the following.

• Get Your Free [OFFER]
• Sign Up for [OFFER]
• Register for [WEBINAR/EVENT] Now!
• Yes, I Want This [OFFER]
• Download the [OFFER]
• Claim Your [OFFER]
• Save Your Seat at [WEBINAR/EVENT]

3. Include the right number of fields.

When it comes to creating your form fields, use the Goldilocks method: Try to find the number that’s just right.

A long form will overwhelm people and dissuade them from filling it out. However, shorter forms can generate a high number of submissions, but your leads may be low quality. You’ll want to find the perfect number of fields to get high-quality leads without scaring prospects away.

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The length of your form depends on two factors.

• The offers stage in your buying cycle. If you’re giving away a free checklist or infographic, you might only want to collect first name, last name, and email. However, more substantial lead magnets, like an ebook or whitepaper, indicate the prospects are further along the research process. In these cases, ask for more detailed information.
• How many leads you generate. If your sales team has many leads to sift through, add more fields to your forms so your reps can better qualify each lead, and identify those worth calling. While more fields may produce fewer leads, these leads are often better.

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4. Make the required form fields noticeable.

If you’re still wary about your form length, determine which information is a must-have vs. a nice-to-have.

For example, fleet safety software company Nauto built the form below to get sales-qualified leads. Besides the regular form fields, they have required fields for job title, company fleet size, and primary vehicle type.

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This compulsory information leads to fewer, but better, leads. Put another way, their sales reps will effectively use their time to close these leads.

You can typically denote required fields with an asterisk (*). Optional fields will not have an asterisk.

5. Hide previously completed fields.

For first-time visitors, HubSpot’s conversion forms are long. We get a lot of leads, so we need extra form fields to determine the lead quality. This allows us to correctly rotate the leads to the right reps.

However, we only show these extra fields to first-time visitors. Notice the difference in the form?

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We did this by enabling smart form fields. Smart form fields can allow you to get your contacts’ information the first time they sign up to receive an offer.

The best part? They create a better user experience for visitors because you can generate questions specific to a set of your audience.

6. Edit your submit button.

After studying the landing pages of over 40,000 HubSpot customers, we found buttons labeled “Submit” had lower conversion rates. Meaning, the default text of your submission button will cause missed opportunities.

Your submit button offers a final chance to convince visitors to fill out those last few fields. To get better conversions from this button, customize the text based on your offer.

Here are some examples.

• Download This eBook
• Sign Me Up for a Demo
• Show Me This Presentation
• Claim Your Coupon
• Save Your Seat

These calls-to-action are all more enticing than “submit.”

7. Do an A/B test to choose your CTA color.

Randomly choosing a CTA color is not ideal. An A/B test can help you make an informed decision.

Early on, Performable ran a test using green and red CTA buttons. What did they find? Conversion rates for the red button were 21% more than the green button.

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Pro tip: Understanding color psychology is a great first step to picking a CTA color. However, if you want to really find out what color resonates, consider using A/B tests to find the color with the highest conversion rates.

8. Guarantee the privacy of your visitors.

The laws of the United States, European Union, Canada, and Australia require you to link to your privacy policy. Besides allaying the fear of hesitant visitors, a privacy policy makes you seem trustworthy. This can increase your conversions.

In your form, you can link to your privacy policy before the submission button while including a snippet. Here’s how this looks on our forms.

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If you don’t know what should go on your privacy page, get some ideas from HubSpot’s privacy policy. People want to know how we’ll use their contact information, making this page one of the most visited on our site.

9. Use the right form layout.

Choosing the right form layout involves knowledge of human behavior. The best forms create a frictionless experience for potential leads. Here’s how you can optimize your form’s layout.

• Place form labels above the corresponding input fields.
• Do not separate a form into more than one column.
• Only ask one question per row.
• Match the size of input fields to the expected length of the answer.

Let’s apply these best practices to the form below.

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The input field lengths are ideal for both first and last names. However, the email field is not optimized, as most professional emails aren’t that lengthy.

10. Consider multi-page forms.

Perhaps you need to gather more user data to find qualified leads. A lengthy, single-page form may scare off potential prospects. You can instead create a form with multiple pages to break up the user experience.

Let’s look at the form below as an example.

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The first page asks simply for the visitor’s name. The second page gathers the person’s contact information, and the third gathers information about the person’s business. The final page asks for the size of the company.

Each page of the form asks for more information than the last. However, by creating multiple, easy steps, the visitor isn’t overwhelmed by the amount of information they need to share.

Getting Started with Form Conversion

Simply asking for information isn’t enough. Your forms have to create a frictionless user experience to create leads. You’ll also need compelling offers bolstered by top-notch design and the right message.

Becoming a form conversion expert will take time. Remember: Increasing your conversion rate will involve trial and error. Experiment with different messaging and placements to see what works. Make note of the best practices that work specifically for your organization.

Knowing your customers is a crucial component of successful inbound marketing. Get started with buyer persona questions that can help you understand customers’ mindsets.

We’ve gathered 20 questions that can help you identify your audience. After you explore the answers, use this free buyer persona template to share your findings with the rest of your company. 

Remember: you’ll need a content marketing strategy to reach your buyer personas. Find out how with HubSpot Academy’s free content marketing training resource page.

Download our free buyer persona template here to learn how to create buyer personas for your business.

Download Now

Questions About Their Personal Background

1. Describe your personal demographics.

Collecting demographic information is a great place to begin drafting your personas. These questions paint a clearer, more personal picture of your customer. 

Understand what communities they are a part of, and how those identities impact their interaction with your brand.

What to Look for in the Answer

Are they married? What’s their annual household income? Where do they live? What are their cultural and racial backgrounds? What is their gender identity? How old are they? Do they have children?

2. Describe your career path.

Having an idea of your client’s background tells you a lot about the type of information that they consume and the problems that they can face regarding their work. This can be especially helpful if you sell a B2B product. 

What to Look for in the Answer

How did they end up where they are today? Has their career track been pretty traditional, or did they switch from another industry?

3. Describe your educational background.

Get specific here. “Boston University” is better than “liberal arts college.” Where a person went to school can impact their worldview. That includes both the size of the college, their major, and the location of the school. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What level of education did they complete? Which schools did they attend, and what did they study? 

Questions About Their Company

4. What is the size of your company?

Keep an eye out for specific details about the company. The size of a business impacts how many people use your product, as well as the way they use your offering. Understanding the amount of revenue can help you set appropriate pricing. 

Knowing details about your persona’s company, like the number of employees, will help you when you’re building the fields for your landing page forms.

What to Look for in the Answer

How many people work at the company? How much revenue does the company generate? How many customers does the company serve? 

5. In which industry or industries does your company work?

The answer to this question isn’t the department in which your buyer persona works. Your buyer persona’s industry is the type of service they deliver to their clients, and knowing this can help you measure your business’s impact in the markets you’re targeting.

Depending on the challenges your buyer persona faces, it might also be worth getting information on the industries your client’s business serves, not just the actual service they provide. 

For example, if your buyer persona provides renewable energy plans for hospitals. They are in the environmental services industry for education and medical customers. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What sector do potential buyers work in? Are they in a broad industry like healthcare or insurance? Are they in a more niche market? 

Questions About Their Role

6. What is your job role? Your title?

The importance of your buyer persona’s job depends on the product or service you’re selling.

If you’re a B2C company, you may simply consider this information as another way to better understand the nuances of your persona’s life.

If you’re a B2B company, this piece of information becomes more crucial. Is your persona at a managerial or director level, and well versed in the intricacies of your industry? They’ll need less education than someone at an introductory level, who may need to loop in other decision-makers before making purchasing decisions.

What to Look for in the Answer

How long have they had this role and title? Are they an individual contributor, or do they manage other people? 

7. To whom do you report? Who reports to you?

If you have a B2B offering, knowing your buyers’ seniority levels is especially important. This information can help your sales team understand who prospects might be.

For B2C companies, your users’ seniority level can give you insight into their lifestyles. Do people spend most of their time in the office? Are they often in meetings? That will impact when and where they use your product. 

What to Look for in the Answer

How senior is your buyer? How many people work for them? Where are they in the larger organization? 

8. Which skills are required to do your job?

If they were hiring someone to replace them and had to write a job description of what’s required, what would it say? Understanding your buyer’s skillsets can help you understand the level of training they need when using your product. 

Or perhaps, your product is intended to supplement a skill they lack. Knowing where their strengths are can help you focus your product development efforts. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What are the ideal skills for this job, and how good is your persona at each of them? Where did they learn these skills? Did they learn them on the job, at a previous job, or by taking a course?

9. What does a typical day look like?

This should include both the tasks they do for their job, as well as what happens during the day outside their job. Knowing your personas’ schedules can help you understand when they use your offering. That holds true for both B2B and B2C products. 

What to Look for in the Answer

For their time in the office, look for the following.

• What time do they get to work and what time do they leave? 
• What do they do when they’re most productive? 
• What’s their “busy work” look like?

For time spent outside of the office, take note of the following.

• Are they spending more time at work or at home? 
• Where would they rather be? 
• What do they like to do for fun? 
• Who are the people in their life that matter most? 
• What kind of car do they drive? 
• Which TV shows do they watch? 
• Heck, what outfit are they wearing? Get personal here.

10. How is your job measured?

You should know what metrics will make your user successful, and what they might be worried about when it comes to “hitting their numbers.” This can help your marketing team identify which features to highlight. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Which metric(s) is your persona responsible for? Which numbers or charts or waterfall graphs do they look at every day?

11. What knowledge and tools do you use in your job?

Understanding what products they love (and hate) to use can help you identify commonalities in your own product (and adjust your positioning accordingly). You can also understand how your product integrates with their pre-existing tech stack.

What to Look for in the Answer

Which applications and tools do buyers use every single day? Every week? How much do they like these existing tools? 

Questions About Buyer Goals

12. What are you responsible for?

This goes beyond the metrics they’re measured on. Your team should know what their primary job responsibilities are. With this knowledge, you can better explain how your offering makes buyers’ lives easier. 

You can also identify ways to help your persona achieve their goals and overcome their challenges.

What to Look for in the Answer

What’s their primary goal at work? What about their secondary goal? What are their daily responsibilities? Quarterly responsibilities? Annual responsabilities? 

13. What are your biggest challenges?

You’re in business because you’re solving a problem for your target audience. How does that problem affect their day-to-day life? Go into detail, and focus on the nuances that illustrate how that problem makes them feel.

For example, let’s say your company sells personal tax software directly to consumers. One of your personas may be a first-time tax preparer. What are the pain points of first-time tax preparers? They’re probably intimidated by the prospect of doing their taxes by themselves for the first time, overwhelmed by a tax code they don’t understand, and confused about where to start. These pain points differ from those of a seasoned tax preparer.

Try coming up with real quotes to refer to these challenges. For example, “It’s been difficult getting company-wide adoption of new technologies in the past,” or “I don’t have time to train new employees on a million different databases and platforms.”

What to Look for in the Answer

What are the different challenges for demographics? How do pain points vary by seniority and experience level? How do these challenges affect their daily life? 

14. What does it mean to be successful in your role?

Companies that take the time to understand what makes their personas successful will likely enjoy more effective communications from both the sales and marketing teams.

What to Look for in the Answer

What can you do to make your personas look good? What features of your product already help them achieve their goals?

Questions About How Buyers Learn

15. How do you learn new information for your job?

If you’re going to market and sell to these personas, you need to understand how they consume information. Dive into their required upskilling at work, as well as the professional development your buyer individual sought. Your goal should be to best understand their learning style. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Do they go online, prefer to learn in person, or pick up newspapers and magazines? If they’re online learners, do they visit social networks? To Google? Which sources do they trust the most — friends, family, coworkers, or industry experts?

16. Which associations and social networks do you participate in?

You should already be investing time and resources in social media marketing. Identify the associations and social networks where your buyers spend their time. Then, you can prioritize which accounts to create and which conversations to participate in.

What to Look for in the Answer

What in-person or community-based gatherings do buyers attend? How are these gatherings promoted? What do they learn from these events?

What social media platforms do your buyers prefer? How much time do they spend on these platforms? What platform features do they actually use? 

17. Which publications or blogs do you read?

To piece together a typical day in their life, figure out where they regularly go to stay informed. If you know how they prefer to gather information, you can make yourself present in those spots. The next step is to establish credibility in those communities.

What to Look for in the Answer

What magazines or news outlets do they read? Are there blogs they frequent? Which trusted thought leaders do they turn to? 

Questions About Their Shopping Preferences

18. Describe a recent purchase.

You should understand your buyers’ evaluation process when making a purchase. How do they decide what they buy?

If you can anticipate the objections your persona will have, you can be prepared for them in the sales process. You will also be able to educate them in your marketing collateral to help allay fears right away. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Why did you consider a purchase, what was the evaluation process, and how did you decide to purchase that product or service?

Is this their first time purchasing a product or service of your kind? If not, what caused them to switch products or services? What might make them reticent to buy from providers in your industry? 

19. Do you use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, how do you search for information?

These questions will help you determine which sources of information your buyer trusts. This can help you identify what type of reviews you would like to elicit. You can also plan your marketing collateral appropriately. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Which avenues are they using to find new information? Do they search online, look at review websites, ask their friends and family, or do something else?

20. How do you prefer to interact with vendors?

You should know the best ways to get in touch with potential buyers. From there, you can understand how they want to interact with you — as well as how frequently. The experience of purchasing your product should align with your persona’s expectations. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What should their sales experience feel like? Is it consultative? How much time do they expect to spend with a salesperson? Do they anticipate an in-person meeting, or would they rather conduct the sales process online or over the phone?

What’s next?

Once you’ve gone through this exercise and worked out any lingering questions about what makes your persona tick, browse through some stock imagery and find an actual picture to associate with your persona. Going through this exercise forces you to clarify an image of your target audience in your entire organization’s mind that will help keep your messaging consistent.

Another useful exercise is to practice being able to identify your buyer persona so you can tailor your communications. How will you know when you’re talking to this persona? Is it their job title? 

Once you’ve established not only who your persona is, but also how you can identify them when you encounter one or another, your employees will be able to maintain a consistent voice that is still customized to each person they talk to.

Then, use our free, downloadable persona template to organize the information you’ve gathered about your persona. Share these slides with the rest of your company so everyone can benefit from the research you’ve done and develop an in-depth understanding of the person (or people) they’re targeting every day at work.

Want to learn about some of the best real buyer personas? Check out seven companies with awesome buyer personas.

The job search process can feel daunting. Every step of the process — from finding relevant opportunities to interviewing — is a major time investment. However, an organized to-do list can keep you on track.

In this post, you’ll learn the essential steps for an organized job search and tips to help you land your dream gig. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• 10 Important Steps in the Job Search Process
• 10 Job Search Tips
• 3 Resume Examples Tailored to Different Niches
• Starting Your Job Search

10 Essential Steps for Your Job Search Process

Without a roadmap, finding a new job can be overwhelming. This to-do list guides you through the essential steps of any job hunt.

1. Start with your mindset.

Job hunting begins with your mindset. The right attitude can help you approach the process with resilience.

Be prepared to wait for the right opportunity. Don’t be upset if you haven’t secured a new job within a couple of weeks. The average duration of unemployment is five and a half months, according to 2022 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, just moving from an interview to an offer takes 23.8 days on average.

However, timeframes heavily depend on the industry, your experience, and the urgency to fill a role. For example, a government role will have a longer time to hire than many corporations.

Another reminder: don’t take “no” personally. Any job seeker inevitably faces rejection — direct and indirect. Sometimes, you don’t hear back on your application. Other times, you receive a direct refusal with a concise explanation of why you didn’t make the cut.

Don’t let small losses set you back. Set yourself up for success, and keep trying.

2. Set your job search parameters.

Don’t just apply to every job you see. List what positions you’re interested in and start searching from there.

Think of what skills you’ve already acquired. Do you want to pursue the same role or explore a new career path or industry? Ask yourself what you’re passionate about and what you would like to do long-term. Reflect on your thoughts by writing them down.

If you’re looking to stay in your industry, consider your experience. Focus on positions that align with your expertise. Knowing what you’re good at will help you tailor your CV and secure a new job faster.

Pro tip: Create an ideal job description that details your desired responsibilities, location, and benefits. This outline can help keep you focused.

3. Understand your field.

Industry research can help you tackle your job search with updated knowledge. You should find out the education requirements, level of experience, and responsibilities associated with your desired roles.

You’ll also discover which qualities and skills employers are looking for in your field. That can help you showcase your competitive edge in resumes and cover letters.

Pro tip: Open any job board — Indeed, Glassdoor, Tech Ladies — enter the job name, and analyze the job descriptions of five open vacancies. Then you can decide whether the future job resonates with your interests.

4. Know your worth.

How much money would you like to earn within a year? It’s important to know if your expectations correlate with the job market.

Analyze the market averages using Indeed or Glassdoor’s salary calculator. You can then gauge the average yearly salary based on your role and location.

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You can also reach out to people in similar positions and ask what salary range you should expect for a certain position. Tap your network, or find relevant people on LinkedIn.

Lastly, turn to Google. Many companies conduct compensation research so you can get a more accurate salary range for your industry.

Remember: Compensation isn’t just salary. Decide what benefits and bonuses your ideal package includes. For instance, you might be looking for comprehensive healthcare coverage or a 401K package. Understand which benefits are on your need-to-have list.

5. Review your social media accounts.

You’ll want to impress recruiters with your first-class LinkedIn profile. Here’s what recruiters look at when scrolling through your page:

• How you represent yourself — your headline and the about section.
• An appealing photo and a cover image also play a role. Use a neutral cover image or write a short message.
• Detailed work experience. Highlight achievements in your previous positions: show numbers and your impact.
• Certificates.
• Skill endorsement and feedback. Ask friends and colleagues to endorse your skills.
• Your activity. Keep your profile active — post, like, and comment on relevant stories.

While recruiters spend most of their time on LinkedIn, you’ll want to clean up your social media presence on other platforms. Make sure your posts are office-friendly.

Pro tip: Google your name in an incognito web browser to see how your social media profiles may appear to recruiters that search your name.

6. Polish your resume and application materials.

Work smarter, not harder. Instead of pure volume, focus on building custom applications for the roles you’re most interested in. A well-tailored resume and cover letter will have better results than a generic approach.

Start with your resume. You can use a resume builder to create a professional. Hubspot offers free templates to help you get started. For creative roles, consider designing your resume using Canva or VistaCreate’s templates.

When writing a cover letter, write directly to the recruiter or hiring manager. If you can find the person’s name, be sure to address them specifically.

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Pro tip: Create one document with all of your professional experience and accomplishments. Then, paste relevant bullet points into a resume template. That allows you to take a customized approach for every company, without re-writing your job experience for each application.

7. Upskill while waiting.

Are you missing one or two required skills? While applying for jobs, enroll in free online courses to help fill these gaps. You can then show recruiters that you’re eager to learn new skills.

HubSpot Academy offers a wide range of digital marketing courses for entry-level and professionals for free.

Udemy and Coursera are also reputable online learning platforms that offer paid and free courses. Sessions are made by industry leaders from Meta, IBM, Google, and other top companies. You can also find courses created by universities like Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford.

8. Prepare for the interview process.

Instead of cramming the night before, start preparing for interviews while you apply for jobs. That way, you’ll always be prepared to provide evidence of your skills.

Start with these common interview questions:

• Why did you quit your last job?
• What makes you a great candidate?
• Why are you interested in this opportunity?
• What did you like about the company?
• What are your hobbies?
• What motivates you?
• What last book did you read/course you took?
• What did you dislike about your previous boss/company?

LinkedIn’s course on “Expert Tips for Answering Common Interview Questions” is another great way to prepare. The course takes job seekers through commonly-asked interview questions and offers tips on how to answer correctly. Plus, you’ll learn how to negotiate your salary.

You can also role-play interviews with friends or sign up for an interview prep service to help polish your skills.

9. Research potential employers.

Can you see yourself working at a certain company? Diving into organizations’ histories and cultures can help you assess your fit. Start by investigating companies’ LinkedIn profiles. Then read reviews from employees on Glassdoor and Indeed.

If you’re applying for a startup, research founders and see what their past experiences look like. A first-time founder isn’t necessarily a red flag. Look for those who have experience in different roles and managerial positions. They’re more likely to understand how to drive a company’s growth.

Pro tip: Networking can also be a powerful tool. Reach out to people from the company, preferably in the department you’re applying to, and ask for their insights. Make a list of questions beforehand to keep your conversation focused.

This can all help you understand if a company aligns with your needs and what hiccups you might expect.

10. Prepare a “thank you” email.

After an interview, you can also stand out by sending a customized thank you email to your recruiter.

The best approach is to share your true emotions and experiences of the interview. Specify what part of the interview got you excited. Also, highlight your unique value.

You should also express gratitude to anyone you networked with during the interview process. That person may endorse you to the recruiter.

 

10 Job Search Tips

Now that you’ve structured your job search process, here are 10 more tips to help you get hired.

1. Analyze your personality type to understand yourself better.

Complete the 16Personalities MBTI test or the DISC test as a tool for self-reflection. These tests can help unveil your core strengths and weaknesses. Results often come with suggestions for career paths suited to your personality type.

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2. Leverage the STAR method when answering recruiters’ questions.

Ace the interview with the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Results). Recruiters want you to back up your intangible skills, like leadership, with examples. Getting familiar with the STAR method in advance will give you leverage during an interview.

3. Include external links in your resume to bolster your skills.

You should always include your LinkedIn on your resume. Depending on the role, other supplemental links may be appropriate.

For example, a graphic designer should include a link to their Behance profile. For content writers, create a spreadsheet, and list all your published articles on it. Use GitHub to showcase your tech skills.

4. Master your English speaking skills.

Worried about your language skills? Take quick courses to master the interview process for an English-as-a-second-language job seeker.

Want to nail a tech interview with flawless English? Play with Interview Warmup by Google to practice key questions and get feedback from the AI assistant. Choose your field and start practicing.

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5. Network with industry peers.

Join online communities relevant to your job. Reach out to industry professionals for advice. This can be especially helpful if you’re trying to land your first job in a field.

6. Be bold and dedicated.

On LinkedIn, you can find fantastic examples of how folks with close to zero experience landed their first jobs in sales, marketing, or tech. The key is to focus on transferable skillsets. Be bold about your abilities, while demonstrating a dedication to learning new skills.

We love the story of how a bus driver with no college degree nailed an SDR position proving himself out of 350+ applicants.

7. Know where to seek niche jobs.

Want to join a startup or a high-end enterprise company? Considering only remote positions? Many job boards specialize in these types of positions. Here are some sites to consider:

• WeWorkRemotely or Remotive — for remote job offers only.
• LinkedIn Jobs — specify filters by industry, company, job types, etc.
• Hired — for tech job search; companies reached out to candidates to offer a role.
• AngelList or Y Combinator Jobs — for finding a dream job at a startup.
• Indeed and Glassdoor — the largest free job boards.

8. Put yourself in the spotlight on LinkedIn.

Be active on LinkedIn. Start posting every day. Share your experience. Build new connections.

Pro tip: Allocate 1-2 hours daily to build your LinkedIn presence. If you’re active on LinkedIn and bring value to the industry, job offers will flow into your inbox.

9. Get everything ready for the interview.

The day before the interview, allocate dedicated preparation time. This is essential for both in-person meetings and online calls.

For online interviews, start by checking your internet connection. Charge your laptop and smartphone the night before. Be sure to test that your microphone and headset work properly.

For offline interviews, decide what clothes you want to wear, and iron them. Be sure to research how long the commute is to the interview location. Get enough sleep and have breakfast to look energetic.

10. Find ways to lower stress.

The interview process can be the most stressful part of the job search. Five minutes before an interview, take deep breaths and calm your mind. Hold a Superman pose for a minute to fuel confidence.

Smile and get ready for introductions. Prepare answers or topics for two-minute of small talk.

3 Resume Examples

Different positions require customized CVs. Let’s break down best practices for resumes related to different roles.

Digital Marketing Resume

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In digital marketing, it’s essential to demonstrate your impact on business metrics. Candidates should briefly outline what they’ve accomplished strategically and what results they’ve achieved.

Your resume should focus on impact. Include numbers where possible. Let’s say you increased the home page conversion rate in your last role. Here are two ways you could write that bullet point.

• Lackluster: Improved homepage conversion rate.
• Specific and impactful: Enhanced homepage conversion rate by 27% through A/B testing CTAs and layouts.

Your summary section can also pique a recruiter’s interest. Provide a concise description of your work history, mentioning your biggest achievements. See a sample summary below.

• Digital marketing specialist with 5 years of experience implementing SEO and content marketing strategies. Helped grow Twilio Blog to 358,000+ monthly organic traffic within 2.5 years. Managed a team of 10 freelance writers and link-builders. Experienced with Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, HubSpot, copywriting, and editing.

Tech Resume

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This resume paints a complete picture of the candidate’s technical skills and business acumen. Recruiters can see examples of their work at the candidate’s GitHub link. Plus, the resume links the candidates’ accomplishments to revenue impact.

Pro Tip: Include all relevant certificates and training. This shows your eagerness to learn and upskill.

Internship Resume

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Internship resumes should be customized for each internship program. Candidates should include related projects they’ve worked on in class or personally. You can also highlight relevant acquired skills, completed courses, and certificates.

In a nutshell, internship resumes should reflect proactivity, willingness to learn, and an immediate contribution to the company.

Starting Your Job Search

Landing your dream job takes a thoughtful job search, tailored application materials, and the right attitude. Invest time into researching your ideal work environment and positions. After investing in preparation, you’ll be well on your way to your next career opportunity.

Are you planning a virtual event and not sure which platform to use?

From large platforms like Hopin to smaller, more niche platforms, we’ve got you covered. Check out our list of the 10 best platforms to host your next virtual event.

• What is a virtual event platform?
• Key Features to Look For in a Virtual Event Platform
• Best Virtual Event Platforms

You might be wondering, is a virtual event platform the same as a video conferencing platform like Zoom? Technically no. Although both tools will have features that intersect, they are designed for different purposes.

A virtual event platform is designed to scale, and offer immersive experiences and interactive elements meant to simulate in-person events. A video conferencing platform, on the other hand, is unlikely to support interactive features beyond chatrooms and breakout rooms, as their main focus is video conferencing.

Key Features to Look for in Virtual Event Platform

If you’re in the market for a virtual event platform, you’ll want to look for one that’s scalable, customizable, and user-friendly.

Here are some key features to look for:

• Pre-event:
  • Registration system
  • Payment processing
  • Event referral tracking
  • Email marketing integration

• During the event:
  • Polling and Q&A
  • Live-streaming
  • Moderating
  • Gamification
  • Captioning and screen reader capabilities
  • Large attendee capacity
  • Multi-camera options
• Post-event:
  • Analytics dashboard
  • Customizable CTAs
  • Data exports

While this list isn’t comprehensive, it’s a great place to start as you determine what you’re looking for and what you can expect to find from virtual event platforms on the market.

Best Virtual Event Platforms

1. vFairs

Ranked #1 on G2 with over 1,300 reviews, vFairs is one of the best virtual event platforms in the market.

As its name suggests, this virtual event platform specializes in fairs, such as career, job, education fairs, and trade shows. Their solutions include:

• Virtual exhibit hall
• Custom event builder
• Event gamification
• Analytics and reporting tools

In addition to virtual events, they also host in-person and hybrid events, which is great for brands looking for a multi-channel approach.

2. Hopin

As one of the leading virtual event platforms on the market, Hopin is suitable for both small and large events.

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Hopin offers a flexible and scalable platform with everything you will need for your event, from registration support to multi-stage sessions to real-time analytics.

Even the free plan offers unlimited events for up to 2 hours with customizable registration, analytics, and multi-venue options.

If you’re looking for a platform that will grow with you, this is a great option.

3. Airmeet

Looking for an approachable, unfussy solution for your virtual events? Then, Airmeet is worth a look.

With a 4.6/5 rating on G2 out of 549 reviews, Airmeet is a user-friendly platform that works for just about any event. It’s been used by some of the top brands out there, like Forbes, Walmart, and FedEx, yet offers packages that work for businesses of any size.

While they have the top features you’d expect from a virtual event platform, they stand out for their platform’s ease of use.

4. GoToWebinar

GoTo Webinar is the go-to hosting platform for webinars. Whether you’re doing a product demo or conducting employee training, this tool is a great option.

Their pricing starts at $49/month and goes up to $499 for enterprises. Every plan includes reporting and analytics, registration tools, and event-related email marketing.

Some of the most interesting features on the platform include:

• Pre-recorded webinars that still include interactive elements, like polls, Q&As, surveys, and handouts
• Multi-device functionality
• Integration with CRMs, Google Suite, Microsoft Teams, and more

5. Remo

Have a unique vision for your virtual event? Remo will help you bring it to life to your exact specifications.

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Remo allows you to create an entire virtual world for your attendees that will keep them engaged and entertained. Their standout feature is the ability to create custom floor plans so that you personalize your attendees’ experience.

6. Goldcast

If you’re a B2B business, Goldcast is the virtual event platform designed specifically for you.

Their platform is trusted by some of the biggest B2B brands including GitHub, Salesloft, Hootsuite, and Drift. Here are a few reasons why:

• Simple and user-friendly interface for non-technical users
• Frictionless CRM integration
• Dedicated support teams
• Advanced production tools
• Hybrid capabilities

7. Hubilo

If you want to be hands-on in building your virtual event, consider Hubilo.

Many call it a DIY platform, as it has extensive customization features on the front and back end. What’s more, it offers global support for users looking to create engaging in-person, hybrid, and virtual events.

Hubilo is best known for its client support, custom branding options, and extensive engagement features.

8. Zuddl

Awarded “Best Support” for small businesses by G2, Zuddl is definitely worth a look if you’re in the market for a virtual event platform.

Although they offer the standard features you see on many platforms, they focus on three things: customization, ease of use, and branding.

Zuddl allows brands to create immersive, on-brand virtual experiences that invite attendees to connect. Here’s how they do it:

• Easy-to-use templates, widgets, and landing pages for branding
• Tier-based matchmaking, breakout rooms, and virtual business cards for networking
• Live leaderboards for gamification

These are just some of the tools Zuddl has to offer.

9. ON24

While other platforms focus on customization, ON24 promises to deliver on attendee engagement.

They focus on creating rich, interactive virtual experiences while also collecting valuable insights that you can leverage long after the event is over.

With ON24, you can create:

• Live or semi-live webinars
• Engaging roundtable events with video-first participation
• High-converting landing pages
• Accessible events that welcome global audiences

10. Accelevents

From tradeshows and fundraisers to product launches and career fairs, Accelevents does it all.

They offer a 360 virtual event experience for businesses looking for a sleek interface as well as audience engagement. Key features include:

• Integrated live streaming
• Lobby interaction, such as welcome videos, activity walls, and leaderboards
• Analytics dashboard with registration and session reports
• Custom booths and expo halls for sponsors

In addition, Accelevents is on Capterra’s 2022 shortlist for “Emerging Favorite” in the virtual event software category, with an overall rating of 4.7/5.

So there you have it — our top 10 virtual event platforms. This list should help you narrow down your choices for hosting your next digital event.

Forms are often an integral part of a buyer’s journey, and most companies already use web forms as part of their marketing strategy.

In fact, 74% of companies use web forms for lead generation, and 49.7% say their online forms are their highest converting lead generation tool.

Forms can vary greatly in purpose — you might use a form to get more sign-ups to your email newsletter, collect email addresses to send coupons and special offers, create gated content for viewers, or allow leads to sign-up for free versions of your product.

Ultimately, a form is often the fastest and most effective opportunity for you to collect leads and nurture them into sales.

But creating a form can feel like a tricky endeavor, particularly since a form’s design can have a major impact on whether a visitor fills it out, or abandons your site altogether.

Here, we’re going to dive into how to create your first web form to get you started.

How to Create a Web Form

For our purposes I’m going to show you how to create a form in HubSpot’s free form builder, but you could also use Google Forms, WordPress, HTML, or another tool of your choice.

1. To begin creating your form within your HubSpot account, go to “Marketing” > “Lead Capture” > “Forms”.

2. In the upper right, click “Create form”.

3. In the left panel, click “Regular form”. Then click “Next” in the top right.

4. Select Blank template to start with a blank form, or a pre-made template for a specific use case. Once you’ve selected your template, click “Start”.

5. Here, you have the option to drag-and-drop any elements on the left side that you’d like in your form. Generally, although not always the case, shorter forms perform better, so try to only ask for the most critical information from your form recipients.

6. Once you’ve chosen your desired form fields, click “Option” at the top middle of the screen. Here, you can decide what message you want your recipients to see when they complete the form.

 

7. Finally, click “Style & preview” at the top right of the screen to preview how your form will look on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Additionally, you can make some changes here to the style of your form — for instance, choosing a round or sharp-edged “Submit” button, or changing the colors and fonts of your form.

When you’re ready, click “Publish” at the top right of your screen.

8. Once you click “Publish”, you’ll see this pop-up. Copy and paste the code into your website to embed the form onto one of your web pages, or share the link with recipients via email.

While we created this form using HubSpot’s free online form builder, there are other form building tools at your disposal — take a look at 21 of the Best Form Builder Tools for 2019 for a complete list.

Additionally, check out Form Design Best Practices: 15 Tips to Boost Conversions and UX to ensure your form is ready for optimal conversions.

Do you remember your first A/B test you ran? I do. (Nerdy, I know.)

I felt simultaneously thrilled and terrified because I knew I had to actually use some of what I learned in college for my job.

There were some aspects of A/B testing I still remembered — for instance, I knew you need a big enough sample size to run the test on, and you need to run the test long enough to get statistically significant results.

But … that’s pretty much it. I wasn’t sure how big was “big enough” for sample sizes and how long was “long enough” for test durations — and Googling it gave me a variety of answers my college statistics courses definitely didn’t prepare me for.

Turns out I wasn’t alone: Those are two of the most common A/B testing questions we get from customers. And the reason the typical answers from a Google search aren’t that helpful is because they’re talking about A/B testing in an ideal, theoretical, non-marketing world.

So, I figured I’d do the research to help answer this question for you in a practical way. At the end of this post, you should be able to know how to determine the right sample size and time frame for your next A/B test. Let’s dive in.

A/B Testing Sample Size & Time Frame

In theory, to determine a winner between Variation A and Variation B, you need to wait until you have enough results to see if there is a statistically significant difference between the two.

Depending on your company, sample size, and how you execute the A/B test, getting statistically significant results could happen in hours or days or weeks — and you’ve just got to stick it out until you get those results. In theory, you should not restrict the time in which you’re gathering results.

For many A/B tests, waiting is no problem. Testing headline copy on a landing page? It’s cool to wait a month for results. Same goes with blog CTA creative — you’d be going for the long-term lead generation play, anyway.

But certain aspects of marketing demand shorter timelines when it comes to A/B testing. Take email as an example. With email, waiting for an A/B test to conclude can be a problem, for several practical reasons:

1. Each email send has a finite audience.

Unlike a landing page (where you can continue to gather new audience members over time), once you send an email A/B test off, that’s it — you can’t “add” more people to that A/B test. So you’ve got to figure out how squeeze the most juice out of your emails.

This will usually require you to send an A/B test to the smallest portion of your list needed to get statistically significant results, pick a winner, and then send the winning variation on to the rest of the list.

2. Running an email marketing program means you’re juggling at least a few email sends per week. (In reality, probably way more than that.)

If you spend too much time collecting results, you could miss out on sending your next email — which could have worse effects than if you sent a non-statistically-significant winner email on to one segment of your database.

3. Email sends are often designed to be timely.

Your marketing emails are optimized to deliver at a certain time of day, whether your emails are supporting the timing of a new campaign launch and/or landing in your recipient’s inboxes at a time they’d love to receive it. So if you wait for your email to be fully statistically significant, you might miss out on being timely and relevant — which could defeat the purpose of your email send in the first place.

That’s why email A/B testing programs have a “timing” setting built in: At the end of that time frame, if neither result is statistically significant, one variation (which you choose ahead of time) will be sent to the rest of your list. That way, you can still run A/B tests in email, but you can also work around your email marketing scheduling demands and ensure people are always getting timely content.

So to run A/B tests in email while still optimizing your sends for the best results, you’ve got to take both sample size and timing into account.

Next up — how to actually figure out your sample size and timing using data.

How to Determine Sample Size for an A/B Test

Now, let’s dive into how to actually calculate the sample size and timing you need for your next A/B test.

For our purposes, we’re going to use email as our example to demonstrate how you’ll determine sample size and timing for an A/B test. However, it’s important to note — the steps in this list can be used for any A/B test, not just email.

Let’s dive in.

Like mentioned above, each A/B test you send can only be sent to a finite audience — so you need to figure out how to maximize the results from that A/B test. To do that, you need to figure out the smallest portion of your total list needed to get statistically significant results. Here’s how you calculate it.

1. Assess whether you have enough contacts in your list to A/B test a sample in the first place.

To A/B test a sample of your list, you need to have a decently large list size — at least 1,000 contacts. If you have fewer than that in your list, the proportion of your list that you need to A/B test to get statistically significant results gets larger and larger.

For example, to get statistically significant results from a small list, you might have to test 85% or 95% of your list. And the results of the people on your list who haven’t been tested yet will be so small that you might as well have just sent half of your list one email version, and the other half another, and then measured the difference.

Your results might not be statistically significant at the end of it all, but at least you’re gathering learnings while you grow your lists to have more than 1,000 contacts. (If you want more tips on growing your email list so you can hit that 1,000 contact threshold, check out this blog post.)

Note for HubSpot customers: 1,000 contacts is also our benchmark for running A/B tests on samples of email sends — if you have fewer than 1,000 contacts in your selected list, the A version of your test will automatically be sent to half of your list and the B will be sent to the other half.

2. Use a sample size calculator.

Next, you’ll want to find a sample size calculator — HubSpot’s A/B Testing Kit offers a good, free sample size calculator.

Here’s what it looks like when you download it:

Download for Free

3. Put in your email’s Confidence Level, Confidence Interval, and Population into the tool.

Yep, that’s a lot of statistics jargon. Here’s what these terms translate to in your email:

Population: Your sample represents a larger group of people. This larger group is called your population.

In email, your population is the typical number of people in your list who get emails delivered to them — not the number of people you sent emails to. To calculate population, I’d look at the past three to five emails you’ve sent to this list, and average the total number of delivered emails. (Use the average when calculating sample size, as the total number of delivered emails will fluctuate.)

Confidence Interval: You might have heard this called “margin of error.” Lots of surveys use this, including political polls. This is the range of results you can expect this A/B test to explain once it’s run with the full population.

For example, in your emails, if you have an interval of 5, and 60% of your sample opens your Variation, you can be sure that between 55% (60 minus 5) and 65% (60 plus 5) would have also opened that email. The bigger the interval you choose, the more certain you can be that the populations true actions have been accounted for in that interval. At the same time, large intervals will give you less definitive results. It’s a trade-off you’ll have to make in your emails.

For our purposes, it’s not worth getting too caught up in confidence intervals. When you’re just getting started with A/B tests, I’d recommend choosing a smaller interval (ex: around 5).

Confidence Level: This tells you how sure you can be that your sample results lie within the above confidence interval. The lower the percentage, the less sure you can be about the results. The higher the percentage, the more people you’ll need in your sample, too.

Note for HubSpot customers: The HubSpot Email A/B tool automatically uses the 85% confidence level to determine a winner. Since that option isn’t available in this tool, I’d suggest choosing 95%.

Email A/B Test Example:

Let’s pretend we’re sending our first A/B test. Our list has 1,000 people in it and has a 95% deliverability rate. We want to be 95% confident our winning email metrics fall within a 5-point interval of our population metrics.

Here’s what we’d put in the tool:

• Population: 950
• Confidence Level: 95%
• Confidence Interval: 5

4. Click “Calculate” and your sample size will spit out.

Ta-da! The calculator will spit out your sample size.

In our example, our sample size is: 274.

This is the size one your variations needs to be. So for your email send, if you have one control and one variation, you’ll need to double this number. If you had a control and two variations, you’d triple it. (And so on.)

5. Depending on your email program, you may need to calculate the sample size’s percentage of the whole email.

HubSpot customers, I’m looking at you for this section. When you’re running an email A/B test, you’ll need to select the percentage of contacts to send the list to — not just the raw sample size.

To do that, you need to divide the number in your sample by the total number of contacts in your list. Here’s what that math looks like, using the example numbers above:

274 / 1,000 = 27.4%

This means that each sample (both your control AND your variation) needs to be sent to 27-28% of your audience — in other words, roughly a total of 55% of your total list.

And that’s it! You should be ready to select your sending time.

How to Choose the Right Timeframe for Your A/B Test

Again, for figuring out the right timeframe for your A/B test, we’ll use the example of email sends – but this information should still apply regardless of the type of A/B test you’re conducting.

However, your timeframe will vary depending on your business’ goals, as well. If you’d like to design a new landing page by Q2 2021 and it’s Q4 2020, you’ll likely want to finish your A/B test by January or February so you can use those results to build the winning page.

But, for our purposes, let’s return to the email send example: You have to figure out how long to run your email A/B test before sending a (winning) version on to the rest of your list.

Figuring out the timing aspect is a little less statistically driven, but you should definitely use past data to help you make better decisions. Here’s how you can do that.

If you don’t have timing restrictions on when to send the winning email to the rest of the list, head over to your analytics.

Figure out when your email opens/clicks (or whatever your success metrics are) starts to drop off. Look your past email sends to figure this out.

For example, what percentage of total clicks did you get in your first day? If you found that you get 70% of your clicks in the first 24 hours, and then 5% each day after that, it’d make sense to cap your email A/B testing timing window for 24 hours because it wouldn’t be worth delaying your results just to gather a little bit of extra data.

In this scenario, you would probably want to keep your timing window to 24 hours, and at the end of 24 hours, your email program should let you know if they can determine a statistically significant winner.

Then, it’s up to you what to do next. If you have a large enough sample size and found a statistically significant winner at the end of the testing time frame, many email marketing programs will automatically and immediately send the winning variation.

If you have a large enough sample size and there’s no statistically significant winner at the end of the testing time frame, email marketing tools might also allow you to automatically send a variation of your choice.

If you have a smaller sample size or are running a 50/50 A/B test, when to send the next email based on the initial email’s results is entirely up to you.

If you have time restrictions on when to send the winning email to the rest of the list, figure out how late you can send the winner without it being untimely or affecting other email sends.

For example, if you’ve sent an email out at 3 p.m. EST for a flash sale that ends at midnight EST, you wouldn’t want to determine an A/B test winner at 11 p.m. Instead, you’d want to send the email closer to 6 or 7 p.m. — that’ll give the people not involved in the A/B test enough time to act on your email.

And that’s pretty much it, folks. After doing these calculations and examining your data, you should be in a much better state to conduct successful A/B tests — ones that are statistically valid and help you move the needle on your goals.

Whether you’re creating a new content campaign, launching a YouTube series, or revising your social strategy, you’re going to be asked the same question by leadership before getting their support: “How will this impact our company’s bottom line?”

That can be a difficult question to answer — which is why it’s critical you know your key performance indicators (KPIs) to:

a) measure the success of your program, and

b) receive executive buy-in — which is typically a prerequisite for getting the budget and resources you need to successfully launch any new paid marketing program.

There are so many different KPIs any marketer might use to measure success, including sales, web traffic, follower growth, conversion rate, or brand awareness. But which ones matter most to leadership? In other words: Which ones should you focus on if you’re seeking executive approval?

Here, we spoke with executives at LinkedIn, G2, and HubSpot to uncover which KPIs matter most to them in 2023. 

Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader: Data from 500+ Marketing Executives on How to Get Ahead in 2023

What KPIs Matter Most to Execs in 2023

1. Reach and leads.

If you work backwards from your company’s primary goal — of increasing revenue — then it makes sense that reaching new audiences and converting those audiences into qualified leads for sales would be two of the top KPIs that matter most to marketing leaders.

As Jordan DiPietro, HubSpot’s VP of Marketing, told me, “As a marketing leader, it’s important to choose a KPI that is most aligned with your company’s overarching business objectives — it could be a revenue metric, it could be a reach metric, or in the case of HubSpot Media, it could be both! The important thing is that your KPIs and the action plans associated with those KPIs are ones that can be directly connected to the KPIs of the business.”

For instance, DiPietro told me the two KPIs his team focuses on are overall reach (visits, opens, listeners, and views) and leads (net new contacts driven from media content).

He says, “Our reach KPI is indicative of the fact that HubSpot wants to grow top-of-the-funnel awareness for the business. Our media team does this by increasing the reach of our blog content, newsletters, podcast network, and YouTube network.”

He adds, “Our revenue KPI is indicative of the the fact that HubSpot is a SaaS business — so we want to generate leads that can be shared with the sales team in order to turn those leads into qualified leads, and then into satisfied customers.”

When deciding which KPIs to focus on — whether you’re a marketing leader or individual contributor looking for buy-in — you’ll want to consider which metrics will directly connect to your organization’s broader goals. For instance, if your company is hoping to improve its customer retention, then you’ll want to focus your marketing efforts on KPIs like brand sentiment and churn rate.

But perhaps most importantly — don’t choose too many KPIs. As DiPietro told me, “In terms of secondary KPIs, keep it simple. I’ve noticed that sometimes marketing teams can get too distracted by measuring and tracking and not focused enough on actual impact. So I think it’s fair to have a main KPI, and then I limit it at two sub-metrics.”

DiPietro provides two examples of this. In one, let’s say you’re running a newsletter company that relies on advertising. In this situation, your main KPI is likely ad revenue, and your two sub-metrics might be subscriber growth and unique opens.

Alternatively, if you have a subscription business, your main KPI might be overall revenue, and your two sub-metrics could be LTV: CAC and renewal rate.

DiPietro advises, “Whatever type of marketing organization you’re leading — a SaaS team, a content team, a web strategy team, a media team — ensure you stay connected to the objectives of the business, ensure your KPI is laser-focused, and limit sub-metrics to two per KPI to avoid diluting your impact.”

2. Number of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) and conversions to sales.

Ultimately, marketers are only one part of the equation. Which means marketers can only pay attention to the KPIs they can control: Namely, leads and conversions.

As Robin Izsak-Tseng, G2’s VP of Revenue Marketing, puts it, “Though most marketing teams have goals around pipeline, the fact is, marketing doesn’t open pipeline — sales does. Marketing’s role is to create awareness, demand, and inbound interest in your solution. There are factors outside of marketing’s control (changes in sales processes, for example), which can cause wild fluctuation in pipeline production.”

Rather than focusing on pipeline, Izsak-Tseng suggests marketers focus on two primary metrics: MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), and conversions.

For starters, she says marketers should track a blend of metrics, including MQL production, as an indicator of inbound interest. It’s equally critical that marketing leaders pay attention to SAL (sales-accepted leads), since that is another indication of lead quality.

A few other metrics Izsak-Tseng suggest marketing leaders focus on include:

• Conversion of total pipeline to revenue: To track how marketing-sourced pipe is performing against pipe sourced by outbound efforts. Since marketing-sourced pipeline is inbound, the conversion to revenue should be consistent and strong.
• CAC (customer acquisition cost): Track this over time. Rising costs can indicate diminishing returns on marketing programs — or show that it’s time to explore new markets.

Izsak-Tseng adds, “All of these metrics give growth leaders a view of the full funnel and help us understand marketing’s impact on revenue (not just pipeline). Much of this can also be applied to retention. In 2023, when budgets are likely to be even tighter, teams that are primarily focused on acquisition need to embrace goals around renewals and customer growth. Finding ways to create greater value for your customers and community will protect revenue — especially during uncertain times.”

Considering it costs 5-25X less to retain customers than capture new ones, it’s a good idea to focus on customer retention as a primary KPI. But customer retention isn’t always easy. To satisfy and retain more customers, you’ll need to:

• Build trust with your customers. Ensuring your account managers check-in and show support for customers over the course of a year — and not just when it’s time to renew — is critical for demonstrating to your customers that you care about them and their success.
• Implement a customer feedback loop. This will help you collect, analyze, and distribute customer reviews and surveys to strengthen areas of your customer experience that aren’t working for your current customers.
• Provide a personalized customer experience. Providing each customer with tailor-made solutions and content designed to fit their needs is vital for retention. Your customers don’t want to feel like they fit into a one-size-fits-all approach. Ensuring your organization helps them with their specific challenges and needs is critical.

(P.S. Already a G2 customer? Click here for 20% off eligible HubSpot products, or get started for free.)

3. Return-on-investment (ROI) and brand strength.

During times of economic uncertainty when businesses’ budgets are tight, it’s become increasingly important to be able to demonstrate the ROI of your marketing efforts to your leadership team.

In fact, one-third (33%) of marketing executives, VPs, and directors say that using data to demonstrate the ROI and business value of their efforts became more important in 2022.

Jim Habig, VP of Marketing at LinkedIn, agrees that ROI is important — but he encourages marketers to think full-picture when they’re considering their top KPIs, too.

As he puts it, “It’s paramount that we think about the full funnel when it comes to measurement. Of course, ROI is a slam dunk since it represents how our work directly impacts the bottom line.”

He adds, “But let’s not discount the importance of other measures of long-range brand strength. With only 5% of buyers in-market at any given time, you need to ensure your brand creates pull for decision-makers now and in the future.”

To create a strong brand identity, you’ll want to:

• Create a memorable brand voice.
• Communicate your consumers’ pain points — and how you can solve for them — effectively.
• Demonstrate how you’re different from your competitors.
• Broadcast your brand’s mission statement and brand values to build connection with your audience.
• Use type, colors, and imagery to represent your brand’s personality.

If you’ve created a brand identity already but need to build brand awareness, consider channels that will help you reach new audiences — like podcasting, or other social media platforms. Alternatively, perhaps you can create a strong co-marketing campaign to build credibility in your industry and generate new leads.

Once you’re investing in brand awareness, you’ll want to measure branded keyword search volume to see how many impressions and search volume your brand is getting. This will help you evaluate your brand awareness efforts over time — if your branded keyword search volume is rising, it’s a sign your brand awareness plays are working.

While this is a strong starting point, you’ll need to do your own research to determine your organization’s goals for 2023, as well as your executive team’s marketing plans in particular. From there, you can determine how your KPIs for a specific marketing campaign or program might fit in.

If you can’t see a strong through-line between your own KPIs and the KPIs of the business, it might be time to reassess where you’re focusing your efforts and whether shifting your strategy might better impact the bottom line — and help achieve buy-in from leadership.

In many ways, marketing leadership has never been harder.

Over the past year alone, you’ve needed to navigate economic turmoil; a workplace shift to more globally distributed teams; and new trends that felt like they arose overnight (TikTok, anyone?).  

Which is why 76% of marketing leaders say marketing has seen more change in the past three years than the last 50. 

Change isn’t always bad, but it is always challenging. And, as we prepare for the year ahead, many marketing leaders are wondering: What should I prepare for? Where should I focus my efforts? And what are my biggest blind spots? 

To help you create a powerful and agile strategy for 2023, we’ve surveyed 500+ marketing executives on the biggest challenges, opportunities, and trends ahead of us. Plus, we’ve interviewed some of the biggest experts across the industry — ranging from CMOs and VPs at LinkedIn, Uber, Microsoft, Dropbox, SEMRush, and more — to uncover best practices for becoming a better, more effective leader. 

If you’re not a marketing leader, but interested in becoming one, you’re in luck. We also have plenty of content and best practices on getting ahead in your career — including how to get executive stakeholder buy-in, and how to get promoted on both an individual contributor and manager-level. 

Let’s dive in. 

Executive Leadership Survey Results [Top Findings You Need to Know About + Expert Insights] 

1. The biggest challenges marketing leaders’ expect to face in 2023 include generating revenue, securing budget, and improving sales-marketing alignment.

When asked which challenges marketing leaders’ expect to face in 2023, 14% said generating revenue and securing the budget they need are tied as the top challenge they believe they’ll face. 

Both of these concerns stem from the possibility of an upcoming recession. When asked how marketing leaders would respond if a recession were to occur, 30% of marketing leaders say they would respond by increasing their marketing budget, while 1 in 4 plan to reduce their budget in an economic slowdown.

Other top challenges marketing leaders expect to face include: 

• Improving sales-marketing alignment (13%)
• Having to pivot your marketing strategy due to major events, e.g. recession, pandemic, political turmoil (13%)
• Facing increased competition from other brands (12%)

Additionally, we surveyed marketing executives in our Marketing Trends report earlier this year, and 14% of marketing leaders say they anticipate ‘adopting a data-driven marketing strategy’ to be a top anticipated challenge of theirs in 2023. While this isn’t a top challenge in our Executive Leadership report, it’s still worth pointing out as many of the experts we spoke with told us it’s a big concern of theirs. 

Collecting data has gotten increasingly difficult as consumers’ become increasingly concerned with protecting their privacy. So adopting a data-driven strategy in 2023 will require marketers to ensure they’re effectively combining first-party and third-party data. 

Microsoft’s Global Head of Programmatic Evangelist, Daniel Godoy, says, “Shaping your strategy by leveraging 1P or 3P trustable data becomes necessary to expand potential reach and start piloting your data strategy for the future.”

Plus, to create a powerful data-driven strategy, you’ll want to collect custom audience attributes (not just basic descriptive information), and then create dynamic prospect lists through audience segmentation. From there, you’ll want to develop unique messaging that resonates with your prospects. 

ZoomInfo’s Chief Marketing Officer, Bryan Law, told me, “You’ll need to figure out how to convey your ability to alleviate their challenges in a unique way to penetrate the significant market noise. Practice consistency in your overall theme, and include contextual personalization when applicable.”

The Top Challenges Marketing Leaders Expect to Face in 2023 & How You Can Solve For Them [Expert Insights & Data]

2. Out of those that struggle with growing a global audience, 62% say it’s their biggest challenge right now. 

For some context: In our Marketing Trends report, we asked 1,000+ marketers to identify the challenges they’re currently facing. 

Then, we asked them to select the one challenge they struggle with the most. 

And over half — 62% — told us growing a global audience is their biggest issue. 

The good news? We asked Neil Patel, a New York Times bestselling author, one of the world’s most influential marketers according to the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, and co-founder of NP Digital to provide us with solutions to marketers’ biggest challenges from 2022. Take a look at the full video, below: 

3. Marketing leaders agree that increasing revenue and sales is their top goal for 2023.

Increasing revenue and sales is a top priority for most marketing leaders in 2023, with 22% — or roughly one-fourth — saying it’s their number one goal. 

To increase revenue, marketing leaders will want to identify areas of the customer journey that can be further optimized. For instance, perhaps you’ve observed your audience reach plateau-ing or even shrinking. To continue increasing revenue, you’ll need to consistently reach bigger pools of qualified leads. You might do this by testing out new platforms like TikTok or podcasting. 

Alternatively, maybe you notice your marketing team is attracting plenty of leads, but they’re not converting at high rates. To combat this challenge, you’ll want to create stronger offers or a more effective lead generation strategy.  

Gaurav Agarwal, Chief Growth Officer at ClickUp, says increasing revenue and driving sales is a top priority for his team in 2023.

He told me, “As a fast-growing company with industry-leading NDR, adding in new revenue sustainably is our top priority. We are hyper-focused on building out different growth and sales capabilities to achieve that goal. As we embark on our 2023 planning, we do so with a renewed focus on efficiency and clear goals around our different self-serve and sales-assisted motions.”

Michelle Keene, Dropbox’s Sr. Director of Global Marketing, Document Workflows, agrees that increasing revenue is a top-priority.

As she puts it, “In 2023, a year that is expected to be dominated by economic uncertainty, the shift to profitable growth [rather than growth at all costs] will only be accelerated — moving from a nice idea to a requirement.”

The Top Goals of Marketing Leaders in 2023 [New Data + Expert Insights from Uber, Dropbox, and ClickUp]

Instagram and TikTok are apps typically used to share special moments, connect with others, or promote our brands — but can we also use these platforms to create and share resumes? In 2021, TikTok launched TikTok Resumes, a program designed to “continue expanding and enhancing TikTok as a new channel for recruitment and job discovery,” according to a news release.

The New York Times calls TikTok the new search engine for Gen Z, so it makes sense that Gen Z users could also search for employment opportunities on the app. It also makes sense brands looking for young talent may turn to the app for job postings. But are marketing managers and recruiters watching TikTok videos and accepting them instead of resumes?

To find out, I asked recruiters at HubSpot and surveyed marketing decision-makers for their thoughts on resumes in the form of TikTok videos. Here’s what you need to know if you’re thinking of filming your next resume.

What is a TikTok resume?

A TikTok resume is a 60-second video posted to TikTok showcasing the job experience, skills, and creativity of a user looking for employment. To ensure the resume reaches recruiters, job candidates must include #TikTokResumes in their posts.

Below is an example of a TikTok resume:

Almost half of TikTok users in the U.S. are between the ages of 10 and 29, so the program likely targets job seekers looking for entry-level positions.

What do professionals think of TikTok or Instagram resumes?

Since videos on TikTok often find their way to Instagram Reels, I figured it’d be safe to assume users would also upload their videos to Instagram to get more eyes on their resumes. With that in mind, I surveyed 98 marketing professionals to gauge their thoughts on TikTok or Instagram resumes. Here are the results:

• When asked if they’ve ever considered a candidate with an Instagram or TikTok resume, 68% said they have, and 32% said they have not.
• When asked if they would review an Instagram or TikTok resume, 71% of respondents said they would.
• 27% said they would review one, but only with a traditional resume document. The remaining 2% said they do not know and are unfamiliar with Instagram and TikTok resumes.

I also asked respondents to explain their reasoning for why they would (or wouldn’t) accept a TikTok or Instagram resume. Respondents in favor of these video resumes often said they found the resumes to be unique, fun, creative, and interesting.

Respondents not in favor of TikTok and Instagram resumes often said the resumes were unprofessional or wouldn’t give enough insight about the candidate. Once again, some respondents said they’d rather accept the video with a traditional resume document.

I also asked HubSpot marketing recruiters for their perspectives.

“I would more likely want [a TikTok or Instagram resume) as an addition versus replacing a resume completely,” Marketing Recruiter Kassandra Pirela said. “A resume gives more insight on the experience and whatnot … I would like this as an addition to show that they put more effort into applying, and it’s just nice to get to know them a little more.”

Some HubSpot recruiters seemed to agree that video resumes like a TikTok or Reel are best as a supplement, rather than a replacement, for traditional resumes. However, other HubSpot recruiters also pointed out that video resumes can be more efficient than conventional resumes since they’re quicker to view and showcase personality.

However, a common concern brought up by the recruiters is that a video resume could trigger unconscious biases in the job-searching processes. For example, a recruiter may be more interested in the interactive video than a traditional resume, regardless of either candidate’s experience.

Should you make a TikTok or Instagram resume?

In an increasingly digital world, social media resumes could likely become more acceptable in the professional world in the coming years. However, candidates should always research the job they are applying for and adhere to the job posting guidelines.

In other words, if the job posting says to submit a resume document and cover letter — do that. You can include a link to your TikTok resume in your application to stand out, but you still need to have the materials the job posting specifies. A TikTok resume could be beneficial if you’re applying for a reactive position like a videographer or social media manager — but make sure to have a traditional resume on hand.

Having a strong SEO strategy is critical for reaching new audiences and generating leads for your business.

In fact, 43% of marketing directors, VPs, and C-suite executives reported SEO as one of the most effective strategies their companies currently leverage.

Creating a powerful SEO strategy requires consistent testing and iteration. Over time, certain metrics can help you identify which areas of your strategy are working — and which aren’t.

It can be difficult, however, to determine which SEO metrics actually matter. To truly evaluate the success of your SEO, what should you pay attention to? Organic traffic? Leads? Keyword rankings? Conversions?

Here, I sat down with Semrush’s VP of Brand Marketing, Olga Andrienko, to discuss the SEO metrics she’d advise leaders pay attention to in 2023. Let’s dive in.

The SEO Metrics That Matter Most, According to Semrush’s VP of Brand Marketing

1. Focus on the metrics that tie directly back to revenue — like conversions and new MRR.

You might’ve expected Andrienko to start with organic traffic or rankings as a top SEO metric, but instead, she advises leaders to start with the bottom line — revenue — and work backwards.

Andrienko told me, “When we discuss quarterly goals, we always look at new user monthly recurring revenue (new MRR). And, in that case, conversion is the only thing that matters. I think the metrics that matter are the ones that can tie back directly to revenue.”

She adds, “For instance, using analytics, you can see where the user came from, and how long it took them to convert and become a customer. So if we know most users come from organic search, then organic would be the metric I’d be focused on measuring. Whatever your success element is is the most important outcome. Rankings don’t matter much. People need to land on your website, and they need to buy or show they’re interested.”

Hearing ‘rankings don’t matter much’ from the VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush, a platform often used for online ranking data, initially surprised me. But it makes sense.

Let’s say you rank #1 for the keyword query: “What is marketing?” If your company sells products or services related to marketing, that’s great. But if that same post isn’t driving the right kind of traffic, or isn’t converting that traffic into qualified leads and revenue for the business … Does it matter, really?

Focusing on the metrics that tie back to revenue can greatly impact where you spend your time and resources. To effectively evaluate your content based on revenue, consider making a spreadsheet that tracks all your top-converting posts. Even if those posts aren’t the ones that bring in the most traffic for your site, those are the posts you’ll want to focus your historical optimization attention on — since those have proven most valuable to your business’ bottom line.

2. Don’t forget about branded keyword search volume.

Andrienko admits this next metric likely matters to her because of her role as a brand marketing leader, but it’s worth mentioning since it’s a metric that can demonstrate your brand value.

As she puts it, “For me, being a brand marketing leader, I specifically focus on branded keyword search volume — which means how many impressions and search volume the keyword ‘Semrush’ is getting over time. That gives me an understanding of how good we are at strengthening the brand and growing brand awareness.”

This is a particularly important metric if your goal is to grow brand awareness for your business. As you test strategies meant to increase brand awareness, such as co-marketing campaigns, sponsored events, or new types of content like podcasting, you’ll want to obsess over branded keyword search volume. Is it going up over time? If it is, this is a strong indicator that your brand awareness strategy is working.

While this can seem like a more superficial metric, it’s not. Consumers want to buy from companies they trust — and familiarity is a powerful factor when it comes to developing trust with your prospects.

3. Consider click-through rate and how it correlates to organic traffic.

“If you see a lot of people are searching for select keywords, but your CTR isn’t growing, then that means something is off,” Andrienko told me.

She continues, “For instance, we noticed the organic CTR on one of our keywords was dropping, and we discovered it was because Google added an AdWords top search feature — so we bid on the keyword. Ultimately, we saw that even though organic CTR was dropping, we were able to get the clicks anyway in a different form.”

“It’s important you don’t just look at organic traffic … But also how it correlates with the click-through rate. That’s a very important connection to make.”

In a world where almost two-thirds of Google searches end without a click, it has become increasingly difficult to achieve high click-through rates. And Andrienko admits it’s not always feasible. Consider, for instance, a user who searches “How can I measure click-through rate?” They’ll be shown this featured snippet, which concisely answers their query:

This is where the power of long-tail keywords comes into play.

Andrienko told me about one of Semrush’s customers, a dentist. After struggling for a while with attracting audiences to his website, the dentist decided to search for any dental-related queries. Then, he took those keywords, grabbed a recorder, and went to his doctors. After recording their answers to his questions, he put them up on his blog and started ranking for the long-tail keywords related to his industry.

While this strategy might not work for everyone, it’s worth noting that creating content that requires users’ to click on the link to get the full benefits is critical for optimizing your SEO strategy.

For instance, rather than writing a post that answers the query “how can I measure click-through rate?”, you might also create content that answers more long-form queries, like “What are the best strategies to increase CTR?”.

Informative, helpful content that leverages long-tail keywords isn’t just for attracting audiences. It’s also vital for building trust and creating stronger relationships with your audience. In fact, Andrienko told me her favorite type of content is informational. “It’s where you can really help the user because the information is a direct answer to a problem they’re experiencing. It’s not about your company. It’s about helping them, which is where trust is built.”

4. Don’t ignore rankings, backlinks, domain authority, and user behavior metrics.

Finally, Andrienko provided a list of a few other metrics that she believes still deserve a mention in this post.

For one: Rankings and positions.

She told me, “I wouldn’t focus on rankings and positions as the first metric, but you still need to see how you’re performing against competitors. So it’s an important day-to-day metric to watch.”

A few other metrics Andrienko encourages leaders to watch:

• Backlinks
• Domain authority
• User behavior metrics, like page load speed

There are other metrics she uses for more qualitative purposes too, like bounce rate. She says, “Bounce rate is important to track because it indicates whether the content is actually interesting and compelling to your readers.”

She continues, “And pages per session is another metric you’ll want to pay attention to — because let’s say users land on ‘What is SEO?’. We know they won’t immediately convert on that page. We need to encourage them to go to another page, and another page after that, so we’re able to grab their attention and ultimately convert them. If they only visit one page per session, it means we didn’t do a good job of retaining them.”

The SEO metrics you care about ultimately depends largely on your goals as a marketing leader. As you approach 2023, you’ll want to consider your goals, and then work backwards from there to identify which SEO metrics will help you evaluate how aligned your strategy is with those goals.

Not sure which goals to focus on? Take a look at The Top Goals of Marketing Leaders in 2023, or find other helpful content related to leadership in 2023 in the post, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader: Data from 300+ Marketing Directors on How to Take Your Team to the Next Level.