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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that over 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021 — this is what’s now known as The Great Resignation.

As there has been a significant increase in the number of vacant positions and the number of workers who have left their position, it makes sense that hiring priorities may have changed.

In this post, we’ll discuss The Great Resignation’s impact on hiring with insight from marketing decision-makers and expert HubSpot recruiters.

Has The Great Resignation Impacted Recruiting?

Gabby Reynoso, a Marketing Recruiter, says, “What the great resignation has done is highlight the importance of flexibility, growth opportunities, and work-life balance in the workplace.” She adds that the pandemic has empowered employees, more than ever, to prioritize flexibility, growth opportunities, and work-life balance in the workplace in their current positions and those they are considering.

Kanani Rose, a Senior Sales Recruiter, says, “Anecdotally, I’ve seen a bit of a cool-down in this phenomenon as the market continues to be unpredictable, but I’m certain that one of the long-term effects of the Great Resignation is that workers will continue to be interested in the scope of their work, from a wider lens than just their general job responsibilities.” This can include health insurance, financial benefits, 401K, stock options, work from home stipends — incentives that are becoming just as important as the job itself.

She also says that compensation and job satisfaction were and continue to be top reasons candidates apply for specific positions, but the push that many businesses made to have their employees return to in-person work drove many workers to the job market in search of more flexible work opportunities.

How Has Recruiting Changed Post Great Resignation?

When it comes to the recruiting landscape, candidates are more selective: “Employer branding, pay transparency, and empathy in the recruitment process have all been key strategies on our recruitment team to make sure that we are giving candidates the power to make the best decisions for themselves in a competitive market.”

Rose says, “As a sales recruiter, I’m no stranger to candidates fielding multiple offers during the hiring process, but the market was especially tough in 2022.”

In a recent Glimpse survey, marketing decision-makers in the U.S. have stated that their hiring processes have changed in the past six months, primarily due to the economic changes that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most commonly reported changes are:

• Having a harder time getting recruitment traffic and finding qualified candidates
• Using more and more virtual resources in the hiring process (like online recruitment tools and video interviews)
• Hiring with remote work in mind as people want more and more flexibility in how they work
• Working harder to fill positions and attract qualified candidates through things like referral bonuses, sign-on bonuses, more time off, etc.

Over to You

As recruiting and finding top talent is likely a top priority for your business, it’s important to stay on top of workforce trends and what employees are expecting from the businesses they choose to work for.

If your hiring and recruiting have taken a significant hit post great resignation, consider how your business can speak to employees’ selection criteria when applying for jobs, like offering flexible work options, virtual recruiting, increased benefits, etc. You don’t have to overhaul your entire process, but you can forge a new path to successful recruiting.

 

In 2022, 51% of B2C marketers plan to increase their marketing budget.

The question is where is that budget going? Will marketers reinvest in the same strategies or try new trends?

To understand what trends B2C marketers are leveraging in 2022, we surveyed 1,067 global marketing professionals working in B2B and B2C companies. 

From influencer marketing to virtual events, there are so many efforts brands can focus on. Let’s see what our latest research says about what worked well for B2C marketers this year and where they plan to invest in 2022.

1. Short-form video will be a priority.

Short-form video took off in early 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down.

Back then, TikTok was the number one place to go for short-form content. Today, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are also competing for users’ attention.

This is good news for brands, as the short-form video trend content offered the second-highest ROI for B2C marketers in 2021, behind influencer marketing.

Despite coming in second for ROI, it’s the trend marketers plan to invest in the most in 2022. Roughly 33% of B2C marketers already invest in short-form content, while one-third of those who haven’t will do so for the first time in 2022.

Why now? Well, short-form video is such a key feature in social media today. And according to the data, social media takes the lead in marketing investments for businesses.

That’s likely because three key goals B2C brands will have when running marketing campaigns in 2022, will be increasing brand awareness (49%), advertising products (44%). and increasing revenue (43%). 

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With social media, you can accomplish at least two out of three. Brand awareness was always the main benefit of using social media but things have evolved.

Today, with so many platforms offering in-app shopping experiences and advanced ad formats, brands can meet more of their marketing goals.

2. Influencer marketing will still be a key lead/revenue driver.

For most B2C marketers, the power of influencers is clear.

In 2022, 61% of B2C marketers surveyed in the study plan to leverage it. In fact, it’s the third-highest trend they plan to prioritize, behind short-form video content and inbound marketing.

This is because in 2021, it offered B2C brands the best returns. When asked to select their top ROI driver from a list of 27 tactics and strategies, 11% of B2C marketers chose influencer marketing. 

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What might be different in the future is the type of influencer brands focus on. Historically, brands have focused on the biggest and most popular influencers to partner with.

However, some data suggest that micro-influencers with under 100K followers may be more effective.

While the verdict is still out on that, one thing is clear: Influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere.

3. Audio content will take a front seat.

Data suggests that video is the leader when it comes to content marketing. However, audio is slowly creeping up into the mix.

According to the survey, only 19.1% of B2C marketers use podcasts or other audio content in their marketing. Of those who do use it, 37.4% find it to be one of their most effective trends.

Even though adoption was seemingly low in 2021, the data suggests that more B2C marketers will add audio content to their marketing efforts in the new year.

Roughly 43% of B2C marketers plan to increase their investment in podcasts in 2022 while 38.4 plan to keep it the same. Another interesting fun fact is that this particular piece of data is virtually the same for B2B marketers.

This suggests that across all industries, brands recognize the power of audio content.

4. Social responsibility will be more important.

Now more than ever, consumers want and expect brands to be more transparent and take a stand on social media.

In fact, a 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer survey revealed that many consumers see trust as a leading factor in their purchasing decisions.

In the past two years, particularly in the height of the COVID-19 crisis and calls for social justice, consumers have started holding brands more accountable. In 2022, brands will be addressing that demand.

Currently, only a third of B2C marketers surveyed find social responsibility to be an effective marketing trend. Despite that fact, 45% plan to increase their investment in 2022.

5. Brands will continue to apply inbound marketing strategies.

Inbound marketing is all about meeting consumers where they are. Instead of marketing efforts that push messaging out to consumers, this focuses on attracting them toward you.

Behind short-form video, inbound marketing is the top trend marketers will invest in next year.

In fact, over 80% of marketers plan to keep the same budget or add more for this strategy.

This is done by following the “Attract, Delight, Engage” model that leverages content marketing, SEO, marketing automation, social media, and more to nurture consumers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

There you have it – some of the top trends B2C marketers will invest in 2022. Between publishing regular video/audio content on social media and developing a strong inbound marketing strategy, marketers have a busy year ahead.

To keep up with the latest trends in marketing, stay tuned for more upcoming marketing strategy research posts, download the 2021 HubSpot Not Another State of Marketing report to learn what marketing professionals focused on this year. 

Every marketer faces different challenges. And, ever since 2020, the ways we’ve had to pivot, adjust campaigns, and address challenges has been unlike anything many of us have had to do before.

And, even if you’ve somehow navigated the past three years without any surprising or tough marketing challenges, there’s likely at least one task, tactic, or strategy you’ve always wanted to improve upon. 

Today, marketing is so fast-paced that it can be difficult to identify which areas you’ll want to develop to facilitate stronger growth in 2022 and beyond. For that reason, it’s important to pause for a moment and reflect on the biggest challenges marketers feel they’re facing this year.

Below, let’s review the current global marketing issues impacting the industry, according to data from HubSpot’s 2023 Marketing Industry Trends Report and marketing experts.

1. Generating Traffic and Leads

While this was the second biggest marketing challenge in 2022, it’s the top challenge marketers will focus on in 2023, with 19% of survey respondents saying it will be their biggest hurdle. As you might expect, generating traffic and leads is always top of mind with marketers. And, even if teams are doing well with these metrics, they’ll always want to improve them. 

Why It’s a Challenge

John Lee, Head of Evangelism at Microsoft Advertising, believes that generating leads will be a particularly big challenge for marketers. He told me, “Getting quality traffic isn’t a challenge today, and likely won’t be tomorrow. There has been growth in search and content marketing in 2021. New channels continue to surface and show promise, too (TikTok or audio chat rooms anyone?).”

Lee adds, “‘Sea change’ is the phrase that comes to mind for the state of digital marketing today. Change in the realm of privacy, identity, and changes to cookies. Change in the form of lost data clarity (will cookie-based conversion tracking continue to work, GA4, access to search queries, etc.). And all of this sits within the context of change to how and where we work and economies in flux as the world continues to move through the pandemic.”

Fortunately, privacy changes don’t mean the end of generating leads — it simply means learning how to re-think strategy.

As Lee told me, “To weather this storm of change, marketers need to be vigilant in monitoring and understanding industry-wide acceptance of privacy protocols and updates to search, social, and display/native platforms (consumer-side and marketing/advertising-side). And last, but not least — lean into the power of peer support and networking for sharing best practices and learning.”

Additionally, marketers are struggling with producing enough demand for their content. And as the year’s progress and competition stiffens, this will only become truer. With so many options of platforms for marketers to publish their content and even more ways to promote it, it’s hard to know where to focus your efforts.

What You Can Do

When it comes to creating content that produces enough traffic and leads, marketers should ask themselves two questions: Are you truly creating high-quality content — the type of content people would pay for? And, do you know the type of content your audience actually wants?

For instance, when asked how they’d most like to learn about a product or service, 69% said they’d prefer to watch a short video over a text-based article, infographic, or ebook. This means, if most of your product-related content is in ebook format, you could be missing out on the majority of consumers who prefer video.

Additionally, the length of videos produced by businesses has increased (albeit more slowly than the increased creation rate of short video). While short-form video is still King/Queen, the number of videos in the 30-60 minute category grew 140% in 2021, compared to 2019 — suggesting that long-form video content is still a viable option for companies.

To ensure you’re creating content that resonates best with your audience, you’ll want to refer to analytics often. Use effective tools to properly track the types of content that perform best with your audience to generate more leads in 2022.

Additionally, once you know you’re creating the type of content your audience wants, the focus shifts to promoting it in a way that makes your audience take notice.

More than ever before, people are being flooded with content. Consumers don’t have to use a search engine to find answers. Instead, articles fill their news feed or buzz in their pocket via mobile notifications. To keep up, consider exploring alternate distribution methods — like social media or podcasting — to increase brand awareness.

Lastly, if you have the budget for online advertising, one example of a helpful distribution method is by promoting your content with HubSpot’s LinkedIn Ads Integration. Learn more about it here.

2. Hiring Top Talent

While “Hiring Top Talent” was low on the list of challenges faced by marketers in 2022, it’s expected to be the biggest challenge of 18% of marketers in 2023.

And, we’re not too surprised. Hiring talent with a great track record takes time, effort, and money — which many marketing teams do not have. 

While hiring is a challenge marketing teams have faced throughout the past five years or so, concerns are continuing news of worker shortages and recruiters competing for applicants that have chosen to shift roles due to the global pandemic or management interests in mandatory office returns. 

Why It’s a Challenge

Many companies are shifting more resources to inbound marketing, which means higher and higher demand for top marketing talent. But supply simply isn’t keeping up. From sourcing the right candidates to evaluating for the right skills, finding the perfect person could take months … or more.

What’s more, the type of marketing talent companies are looking for is changing, too. According to a report from LinkedIn, employers are seeking marketers with soft creative skill sets as well as hard technical skills. And the quick rate at which the demand for these jobs are rising has caused a marketing skills gap, “making it difficult to find candidates with the technical, creative, and business proficiencies needed to succeed in digital marketing.”

What You Can Do

In 2023, hiring talent could grow even more difficult — particularly as more companies deal with transitions back to office life, competitive hybrid perks, as well as salary budget limitations due to the shifting economy.

Stefanie Grieser, co-founder of Shine Bootcamp, a professional speaker accelerator for women, understands the challenge of hiring top talent.

She told me, “When I talk to high-growth companies or marketing agencies (and the marketers running those teams), I’ve found that hiring not only top talent, but diverse top talent is extremely challenging. In fact, I was just having a conversation with an agency owner who hires SEO and paid marketers, and he told me, ‘Hiring is still the biggest challenge we face.'”

Fortunately, Grieser provided me with a few tips for employers to stand out from the crowd. She told me, “My suggestion here is for marketers to invest heavily in their employer brand for the long-term. Just like you need to market your product, you also need to dedicate resources, time and energy into marketing your company as an employer.”

Grieser adds, “I would suggest Diversity Tech Co, Tech Ladies, and Girlboss as go-to resources to post jobs. These organizations are run by incredible individuals who really care about diversity, equity, inclusion and intersectionality. I’m also seeing niche communities and job boards pop up. For marketers specifically, I would post your open roles here: Dave Gerhardt Marketing Group, Hey Marketers, and Superpath (which is focused on content marketers specifically).”

While it might seem random to discuss employer branding in a post about marketing challenges, it isn’t — since it’s often the marketing team that cultivates a strong employer brand.

As Grieser points out, “Airbnb has an Engineering and Data Science blog, Intercom has an Instagram dedicated to their design team, and Dooly posts short, LinkedIn posts (see an example here) interviewing their fun team with a few fun hashtags #doolydreamteam and #meetadooligan.”

“Guess who leads this initiative? The marketing team. Think about how you and your team can showcase your work and your team’s work. I won’t try to assume that employer brand falls solely in your court, but as a marketer, you have natural skills that will lend themselves to marketing the company as whole.”

LinkedIn data shows that the number one reason candidates will consider or accept a job is career growth. This means that job listings and a company culture that offers employees a plan for growth will see the most interest from talent.

3. Marketing Plan Pivots

In 2020, we began learning the art of the pivot as many brands had to stop everything they had planned, observe the current state of everything, and navigate the bbest way forward. But, every time we think we get closer to a boring day in the marketing world, something evolves or changes that will cause us to need to pivot.

And, while some marketers are excited by the idea of working in a fast-paced, ever-evolving environment, it can get very tiring for others. That’s why we’re not shocked that 17% of marketers say that marketing strategy pivots will be the biggest challenge they face in the new year. 

Why It’s a Challenge

While you might think pivoting during COVID-19 gave you all the skills needed to change course when its necessary, every unprecedented event that we aren’t expecting often poses new challenges (as those definitions suggest). When marketers don’t plan for the unexpected, they could risk their performance metrics, budget, or even their audience if they market to targets that are forward-thinking and find untrendy or out of touch brands uninteresting to them. 

What You Can Do

At HubSpot, and many other companies with excellent marketing departments, our marketers always try to be one-step ahead of the potential result (or even a lack of results). 

When creating a large campaign or implementing a big strategy, it’s important to ask yourself and your team, “What do we do if it doesn’t work?” or “How do we pivot if the world changes overnight?”

When it’s time to make that pivot, try to gather as much information as you can about your customers, audiences, and platforms to learn how everything has changed or evolved, and then use what you’ve learned to determine the best course of action. For example, when COVID-19 was declared an emergency, many of our marketers paused comms with audiences and notified them through emails or social posts that it was because we wanted to focus on offering the most helpful or valuable content unrelated to sales and revenue at that time. Then, while we were on pause, we met with each other and performed market research to help us put ourselves in the audience’s shoes and learn how we could best help them.

If you do pivot, learn from what worked effectively and what didn’t. This will help you in future scenarios where a pivot is necessary — even if the situation is totally different next time.

For more information and expert tips on how to change up your content plan in a rush, check out this helpful post.

4. Training Marketing Teams

In 2022, training top talent was the top challenge marketers were focused on. However, as more marketers now focus on recruiting and retaining greaat talent in this time of faster workplace movement, training seems to have fallen to number four. 

However, this doesn’t mean training isn’t an important factor to pay attention to, especially if you have a growing workforce.

After all, even top-tier talent need to have paths to grow, challenge themselves, learn, and become even better at what they do. 

If you’re a manager or marketing leader, you’ll need to take time to teach that employee how your company works. This could include voice and messaging training, helping them understand buyer personas, or getting them acclimated to the tech stack or processes you use. 

Meanwhile, regardless of whether you’re a seasoned marketing team employee or new hire, you might wish your company had more opportunities for training, onboarding, or professional development that could allow you to excel and learn while also hitting your KPIs.

Why It’s a Challenge

Unfortunately, in the fast-paced world of marketing, it can be challenging for leaders to find the time to train while employees might not have the time or money to access professional development outside of their day-to-day tasks. 

That’s why it’s not shocking that 30% of marketers say that team training was the biggest challenge of 2021 and 21% say it will continue to be the top challenge for marketing departments in 2022. 

What You Can Do

The first step to solving this problem, regardless of whether you’re an individual contributor or manager, is reframing what “training” means to you. Remember that even the most top-tier, ROI-generating unicorn marketer will need time to get used to how your company works and grow as an employee and potential leader.

Ultimately, businesses should think of training and professional development offerings as indirect ROI generators. Ultimately, even the most top-tier, unicorn talent will need time to get used to how your company works.

On one end of the spectrum, companies and leadders can retain employees and save money on talent searches because of their offerings. Meanwhile, their talent will learn more, grow more, become even more competitive, and — most importantly — feel more fulfilled and supported in their role. Additionally, you don’t always have to hire instructors or take time out of your day to train. For example, you can:

• Encourage project managers or individual contributors looking for visibility to present experiments, strategies, or learnings at events, weekly meetings, or annual team conferences.
• Book an annual professional development day during a slow season where all employees are asked to take a free online course of their choosing and report back on how it went.
• Consider hosting quarterly or bi-annual new employee or new manager training days where newer hires and new managers can plan to go to in order to train with minimal impact on their quarterly projects. 
• Create evergreen training videos, internal quizzes, or other resources that you can send to new or newly promoted employees on their first day.
• Have managers develop 100-Day Plans for new hires or those that transfer to their team which includes training assignments, resources to read through, and a contact list of people to meet or schedule training with.  

On the other hand, if you’re an individual contributor, participating in your company’s professional development training and/or taking free or affordable courses online could help you negotiate a stronger role and salaries for yourself at your company or elsewhere. 

If your company doesn’t offer training or reimbursement for it, check out this list of free courses. 

5. Keeping Up With the Latest Trends

As you’ve seen, the world is always changing. Even aside from the things you’ve seen all over the news, a brief skim of any social media feed once weekly will show you how much trends change. In one day, we’ll open our TikTok feed and see constant clips filled with “Stranger Things” references all over the place. The next day, we’ve moved on to “CornTok” (a trend that involved us sharing videos with a remixed song sung by a boy who really loves corn). 

Why It’s a Challenge

Essentially, no matter where you look, trends are constantly changing. And, if you’re publishing out of touch content that leverages very out of date or out of touch trends, your audiences might get bored and move on to a brand that feels more interesting to them.

Unfortunately, marketers might not always have the bandwidth or budget to lean into every trend out there. So, what are we supposed to do?

What You Can Do

Just like picking the right channels or social platforms that make the most sense for your brand, pay attention to the industries and trends that make the most sense for you to lean into, or brands that you know most of your target audience is leaning into. For example, one brand that perfectly leaned into “CornTok” was Rumba, which creatively published a TikTok of its products cleaning up — you guessed it — corn. 

 

 

6. Facing Competition

In our 2023 survey, 16% of marketers cited their biggest challenge as “increasing competition from other brands.” And, that’s not shocking at all.

Business competition is a tale as old as time. And, even when you feel like you’re winning on one channel or another, competitors can come at any moment ready to outperform you. That’s why every platform, from social media to search engines, has gotten vastly more competitive over the past 10 years — and will only get more saturated with competition.

What You Can Do

The concerns of competition are obvious. Ultimately, they could take business or attention away from you and harm your revenue. Luckily, it doesn’t take a marketing genius to get ahead of them. 

Start with a competitive analysis of all of your biggest competitors that you’re most likely to lose audiences or customers to.

Examine their websites, social media, search keyword profiles, and other channels and make a list of what they’re doing right that you can learn from, what they’re doing wrong that you’ll avoid, and the gaps in their strategy that you can take advantage of.

While we encourage you to highlight your unique perks and not copy the competition exactly, use your analysis results to think about the competitive selling points you can market and strategies you can use to innovate on what they’re missing. 

7. Securing Your Budget

In 2023, 16% of marketers are concerned about securing. gaining, and keeping stakeholder support for their marketing budgets. And, although we aren’t surprised that a large chunk of marketers selected this concerm, we were a bit shocked that more marketers aren’t seeing this as top of mind given the current economic landscape.

Why It’s a Challenge

Securing a budget has always been a pressing challenge for marketing globally. And, while marketers seemed to be getting what they needed for budget in 2022, companies could be eager to shift back to pre-pandemic strategies of placing money into sales, facilities, and other departments in the future — especially if the U.S. or other countries enter a recession.

Often, getting and keeping more budget is easier said than done — especially for smaller organizations that aren’t working with sizable or flexible marketing spend. But the key to securing more money for your team might not be that complex. Here’s what you can do.

What You Can Do

The key to unlocking budget lies in being able to prove the ROI, of your marketing efforts (as we’ve noted above). Use your whole budget to demonstrate need, but also ensure you’re spending money on things that will provide high performance, like high-traffic, lead-gen, or revenue-generating projects or headcount.

According to our research, organizations that can calculate ROI are more likely to receive higher budgets.

Again, success with inbound marketing also plays a large role in driving higher budgets. Effective strategies obviously produce results and make a strong case for increasing your budget. But remember, inbound marketing is a long game. If you get off to a slow start, you shouldn’t back off — in fact, you might consider doubling down.

To learn more about how to understand and leverage marketing ROI, check out this simple guide.

8. Demonstrating ROI of Marketing Activities

While this item didn’t make our top challenge list this year, we still think it’s very important to highlight here and focus on in 2023, especially if your business is focused on spending budget wisely — or only on things that provide ROI. 

And, in 2021. 28% of marketers saw it as their top challenge, while 21% of marketers expect to see this continue to be their biggest issue in 2022. 

Measuring and gaining ROI continues to be a vital way for marketers to understand the effectiveness of each particular marketing campaign or piece of content. It also can be what decision-makers at your company rely on when determining if they’ll invest more in your project, deparment, or team headcount in the future. 

Ultimately, proving ROI often goes hand-in-hand with making an argument to increase budget: No ROI tracking, no demonstrable ROI. No ROI, no budget.

Providing ROI often comes down to using effective analytics measurement tools. For instance, Beautiful.ai Director of Marketing Kim Giroux told me, “Marketers are constantly challenged to illustrate the ROI of their efforts and [this year] is no exception. Proving ROI doesn’t always have to mean extra work or effort though. In fact, certain technologies bake ROI into existing work processes.”

Giroux adds, “Take presentation software, for instance. Savvy marketers today can create and use pitch decks with built-in presentation analytics that offer real-time data — such as how much time was spent viewing individual slides. Armed with these insights, marketers can better gauge stakeholder interest, inform their strategies, and adjust their campaigns.”

Christina Mautz, CMO of Moz, believes measuring ROI comes down to redefining the marketing process as a whole. She told me, “My biggest challenge, and one all marketers face in providing ROI, is the prospect of meeting traditional KPIs in the modern workspace.”

Mautz says, “Instead of leads and trade show success, marketing wins are now largely digital: engaging prospects and generating more clicks, downloads, and page visits.”

CMO of Moz Christina Mautz says, “To better measure marketing progress, we have to redefine the marketing process, encouraging collaboration with sales and reaching KPIs together.”

“For example, statistics such as page visits per sale or rising higher in the search engine results page (SERP) give marketers and SEOs tangible evidence as to how their work is meeting their ROI. New buying patterns and a customer-centric world require a divergence from the old, but measuring ROI will look far different than it did before and some leaders may not understand how or why.”

When it comes to providing ROI, there’s a strong case to be made for dedicating time and resources to establishing links between marketing activities and sales results.

This means using both marketing software (like HubSpot) and a CRM solution (like HubSpot’s free CRM) and then tying them together to close the loop between your marketing and sales efforts with a service-level agreement (SLA). That way, you can directly see how many leads and customers are generated through your marketing activities.

Other Common Challenges

While our survey identified the biggest challenges in marketing, teams are still facing dozens of other challenges that are worth mentioning, but weren’t one of the top concerns. Here are just a few:

Website Management

In 2021, 64% of companies said they were investing in website upgrades. Meanwhile, 27% of survey participants said that managing their website was the top challenge in that year, with a chunk more saying they continued to rise to this challenge in 2022. 

In 2023, website challenges aren’t going anywhere. If you have an online presence for your business, your website serves as a key place that consumers will go to when researching your brand.

There, they might find company information, marketing content, and other resources that nurture them into becoming a lead or buying your product. On the marketing end, your site can also be a tool that can help you drive search result and social media awareness when it is optimized and shared around the web. 

Although managing a website is consistently a challenge to marketers, it seems to be growing less threatening. While website management was the third-biggest challenge facing marketers in 2021, it didn’t even make the Top Five Challenge list for 2022. 

Chances are, your website’s performance is high on your list of priorities — particularly since website speed and performance plays a major role in your website’s SEO ranking. It’s an asset that works around the clock to draw in visitors, convert them, and help you hit your goals.

Issues with website management include a variety of different factors, from writing and optimizing the content to designing beautiful webpages. Here are a few things marketers can do to deal with this challenge.

What Can You Do?

First, try HubSpot’s free website grader to determine how your website stacks up on key metrics including SEO, mobile, and security performance — and how you can improve it. 

If your primary challenge with managing a website has to do with the skills and resources you have available, you aren’t alone. This is especially true for small companies who don’t have all the talent in-house required to cover content, optimization, design, and back-end website management.

One solution? Hire freelancers and agency partners. To find freelancers, we recommend:

• Tapping into your personal and professional network by posting on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networks with a description of what you’re looking for.
• Browsing freelance writers and designers based on their portfolios and areas of interest. 
• Browsing HubSpot’s Services Marketplace, which lists a wide variety of designers from partner companies and agencies we’ve deemed credible.

Overall, you can make website management easier on your team by hosting your website on a platform that integrates all your marketing channels like HubSpot’s CMS.

Social Media Marketing Challenges

In our survey, 16% of marketers said that their biggest challenge of 2023 will involve keeping up with the latest social media platforms, as well as their growing lists of new features. 

And, with the constant evolution of how social media looks, feels, and functions comes a mess of other social media challenges that marketers are worried about, including — but certainly not limited to:

• Creating engaging content (which 22% of social media marketers cited)
• Gaining and keeping followers (22%)
• Reaching your target audiences (21%)
• Finding ideas for content (21%)
• Creating content that generates leads (20%)

Content Marketing Challenges

The content marketing world is vast and full of different strategies. And, each major tactic comes with its own challenge. 

For example, if you’re a blogger or video creator, SEO and ranking on Google will likely be one of the biggest hurdles and opportunities your team will face because both blogs and videos are always competing for the covered first page of search results on Google.

Meanwhile, if you focus on multimedia, such as videos, podcasts, or design, views, view-time, and shareability could be key to nurturing a lead. And, as many marketers struggle with demonstrating ROI — your efforts will be no different. While bloggers could include a form, purchasing link, or landing page URL in their posts which are easier to track, you won’t always be able to easily determine the ROI of content that doesn’t allow URL embedding in it. 

As a content marketer, it’s important to determine which goals are most important to your team and company’s growth and focus first on the challenges that will hinder reaching them. 

Email Marketing Challenges

Over the last year, email marketers have run into all sorts of challenges, such as pandemic-related low engagement and Apple iOS 15‘s privacy protection policy impacting open tracking and open-rate based strategies. 

But, by far, the biggest challenge email marketers will probably always face is gaining and retaining subscribers. In fact, our research found that 19% of marketers see email and social media list growth being a top challenge throughout the year. 

If you identify with our participants, check out this post with more data on why consumers subscribe and unsubscribe from email. 

Some of these challenges aren’t new.

If you’re a marketer who sees the same challenge year-over-year, it might be a barrier worth putting on your radar. However, some challenges can be industry-wide. Year-over-year challenges across the industry are incredibly important to note, regardless of whether they impact you or not.

Why? These challenges might not just be something you’re facing, but could also be faced by your competitors. If you can figure out how to navigate a reoccurring industry challenge effectively, you could have a leg up against the competition. 

Way back in 2021, I surveyed over 120 marketers on our HubSpot Marketing Blog subscriber list to gauge the biggest challenges affecting the industry. Here’s a quick graph highlighting what they said. 

By far, “Generating traffic and leads” was marked by nearly half as the biggest challenge marketers are facing this year. 

This challenge was followed by 21% who said “providing ROI for your marketing activities” was their biggest challenge. 

“Delivering an account-based marketing strategy” (8%), “securing enough budget” (6%), and “managing your website” (5%) were the other three notable challenges marketers feel they’re facing in 2021. 

It’s important to note, a few other marketers marked “targeting content for an international audience”, “training your team”, and “hiring top talent” as their top challenge … but these three challenges were marked by less than 3% of the respondent pool, so they’re less statistically significant. 

Identifying Your Marketing Challenges

A thorough analysis of your marketing strategy and its current performance will help you discover where your biggest marketing opportunity lies. This will allow you to focus on improving the areas that need the most attention, so you can start making your marketing far more effective.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, sometimes, the best challenges to focus on could involve solving for the biggest pain points of your companies executives or leaders. And while the post above focuses on the challenges of general marketers at all levels, we also did a follow-up survey to learn about the key challenges and pain points director+ marketing leaders are facing daily. Check out this post, from our Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader blog series (fully launching Nov. 1), which includes tips from marketing execs and experts at companies like Microsoft, HubSpot, Help Scout, ZoomInfo, Sprout Social, and more.

Just interested in learning about general marketers? Be sure to check out our 2022 State of Marketing Report, which you can download for free below — or get our predictions for how marketing will change in the next year with the HubSpot Blog’s follow-up 2023 Marketing Trends Report.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2012 and has been updated annually to include new, exclusive HubSpot data and expert insights. 

 

If the last few years taught us anything, the real test of a marketer’s skill is how well they adapt to change.

In fact, in our most recent research, nearly 80% of marketers say their industry changed more in the past three years than in the last 50. 

That also means consumer attitudes and preferences are changing just as quickly. And, it’s up to brands to keep up.

So, how can you succeed in a world where the unprecedented has become common?

To help you answer that and other burning questions, we surveyed 1,200+ global B2B and B2C marketers on their goals, challenges, and strategies.

Before we dive into the sections of our survey, let’s quickly discuss the biggest theme we found across the results.

Our Biggest Finding: Agile, Data-Driven Marketers Will Win 2023

Overall, the survey results pointed to two tactics that will be vital in keeping up the pace in the coming year:

1. Use deeper data to know the ins and outs of your audience.

Go beyond basic demographic information – it’s crucial to know their interests and hobbies, how they like to shop, where they consume media, the online communities they are part of, the challenges they face, and the social causes they care about.

2. Always plan to pivot. 

From pandemics to political turmoil – and now a looming recession – the last few years have been a roller coaster for brands and consumers alike. Not only did over half of marketers pivot in 2021, 83% of those who pivoted changed course two to four times in one year.

We also found that 20% of marketers have already pivoted due to the potential recession. Chances are 2023 will continue to see shifts around this. 

Ultimately, you need a plan for when things go off course. Will you increase your marketing budget? Will you cut down on marketing channels? How will you adapt your messaging to resonate with consumers’ evolving experiences? Most importantly, do you have the data you need to guide your decisions?

While the two tactics above reflect the broad findings in this report, let’s dive more specifically into the biggest strategic changes marketers expect to see in 2023 and how that’s changed from our last 2022 survey.

While we discussed some of these strategies an trends in our 2022 Report,

it’s worth noting that we’re seeing more emphasis on data-based decision-making, agile marketing, as well as social media brand-building (which often majorly contributes to the fast-paced tactics and pivots needed in the marketing industry each day). All in all, more marketers are speeding up processes and tactics to meet the digital, hyper-connected world we’re existing in today. 

Below, we’ll discuss a few of these items in more depth. But, we’ll also continue to release more deep-dive data content to help you meet all of these changing strategies with success. 

The top trends marketers are currently leveraging are short-form video, mobile-friendly web design, creating content that reflects their brand’s values, and using social media DMs for customer service. Not far behind are SEO, mobile messaging, influencer marketing, and selling products directly in social apps.

1. Short-form video will see the most growth in 2023

Not only is short-form video the most popular trend among marketers, with one-third using it, but it’s also the most effective and has the highest ROI. 

On top of all that, short-form video will see the most growth of any trend in 2023, with marketers planning to invest more in it than any other trend. 

90% of marketers using short-form video will increase or maintain their investment next year, and 21% of marketers plan to leverage short-form video for the first time in 2023, also the highest of any trend.

2. Influencer marketing will continue to grow its high ROI.

Over 1 in 4 marketers currently leverage influencer marketing and it offers the 2nd highest ROI of any trend. Luckily it can be leveraged with short-form video to take advantage of both of the highest ROI trends at the same time!

Influencer marketing will also see significant growth in 2023 with 17% of marketers planning to invest in it for the first time, the 2nd highest of any trend. 

Influencer marketing also comes in second for the trend marketers plan to invest in more than any other in 2023 and 89% of marketers using it will increase or maintain their investment next year. 

On top of all that, our consumer trends survey shows that 33% of Gen Zers have bought a product based on an influencer’s recommendation in the past three months. And when they’re making purchase decisions, Gen Z says influencer recommendations are more important than recs from their friends and family.

3. Branded social media DM tactics are growing.

Using social media DMs for customer service is relatively new, but already used by 29% of marketers. It has the 3rd highest ROI of any marketing trend and use will grow in 2023, with 15% of marketers planning to try it for the first time. 

On top of that, 87% of marketers using social media DMs for customer service will increase or maintain their investment in 2023.

As social media apps like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook continue developing their e-commerce capabilities, providing customer service through DMs will only become more crucial.

Our Consumer Trends survey also found that over 1 in 5 Gen Zers and nearly 25% of Millennials have contacted a brand on social media for customer service in the past three months.

Using social media shopping tools is another growing, high ROI marketing trend that goes hand in hand with providing support through DMs, with almost 30% of Gen Z and Millennials having bought a product on social media in the past three months.

4. Website SEO continues to shine.

While not new, leveraging a blog with an effective SEO strategy continues to be a powerful tool, with 29% of marketers using a website to attract and convert leads. 

Leveraging SEO ranks #4 in terms of ROI and effectiveness and 88% of those who use it will increase or maintain their investment in 2023. 

When it comes to the trend marketers will invest the most money in for 2023, SEO ranks third behind short-form video and influencer marketing.

5. Marketers will continue to humanize their brands.

30% of marketers are currently creating content that reflects their brand’s values, making it the third most popular trend right now.

It has the 5th biggest ROI of any trend and will see growth in 2023. 16% of marketers plan to leverage content that reflects their brand’s values for the first time in 2023, and 89% of those already investing in it plan to increase or maintain their investment.

6. Marketers will benefit from data in 2023.

As we discussed above, we believe that data-driven marketers will win in 2023. After all, some of the biggest advantages marketers get from using data to inform their marketing strategy are that data helps them reach their target audience more effectively, create more effective marketing content, understand which marketing strategies are most effective, increase the ROI of their marketing efforts,  and prove the value of their marketing and activities.

Which Marketing Trends Will Grow in 2023?

Short-form video, selling products directly in social apps, and influencer marketing will see the most first-time use by marketers in 2023.

Which Trends Could Marketers Leave Behind?

Now let’s take a look at the trends marketers are going to stop leveraging in 2023. 

One in three marketers plan to stop using NFTs and 29% plan to cut out marketing in the metaverse and audio chat rooms in 2023. Voice search optimization and VR/AR are also at the top of the list of trends marketers plan to stop using next year.

While that may seem bleak, there are plenty of marketers who plan on exploring these same trends for the first time in 2023:

For a breakdown of everything brands need to know about consumers and the metaverse, check out this report from our recent consumer trends survey.

Next, let’s look into the top marketing channels for this year and 2023.

The Top 3 Marketing Channels of 2023

Marketers leverage an average of four different marketing channels in their role. Social media is used by over 42% of marketers, making it the #1 channel marketers are currently leveraging. It also has the highest ROI of any channel and will grow significantly in 2023. Additionally, one in four marketers say they use social media shopping tools.

One in three marketers are leveraging their own blog or website, as well as SEO, to land on SERPs. Meanwhile, 32% use email marketing.

Blogs, social media shopping tools, and influencer marketing are neck and neck for the highest ROI of any marketing channel.

Since social media is far and above the top marketing channel, let’s dive into which social media platform is the most effective.

Marketers leverage an average of four social media platforms in their roles. Facebook is the most used social media platform, leveraged by 64% of marketers, followed by Instagram (58%), YouTube (57%), Twitter (43%), TikTok (42%), and LinkedIn (33%).

Now that we’ve looked at what both general and B2B marketers use most often, let’s take a look at each platform more in-depth (in order of their general-marketer popularity) and see how they stack up against one another.

1. Facebook leads in ROI, though other apps will see more growth

Facebook is not only the most used social media platform among marketers but also offers the highest ROI. Facebook is the channel marketers plan to invest the most in for 2023, higher than any other channel. 

While nearly 25% of marketers plan to invest in Facebook for the first time in 2023, this growth is slower than other apps like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter will see next year.

2. YouTube will see the most growth of any platform in 2023

YouTube’s currently used by 57% of marketers and ties for 2nd in ROI with YouTube and TikTok. 

YouTube will see the most growth of any platform in 2023, with 91% of those using it planning to increase or maintain their investment. At the same time, 29% of marketers plan to try YouTube for the first time, the highest of any social app. 

3. Instagram is #2 for ROI and will see high first-time use in 2023

Instagram is used by 58% of all marketers, the 2nd highest of any platform. It also ties in 2nd for ROI with YouTube and TikTok and will see significant growth in 2023.

14% of marketers will invest more in Instagram than any other platform in 2023, and 29% of marketers plan to try Instagram for the first time next year.

4. Over half of marketers eye TikTok for future investments.

TikTok has quickly become much more than just a trendy social app which was once primarily used by Gen Z, and marketers are taking heavy notice. 

TikTok is used by 42% of marketers and ties for 2nd with YouTube and Instagram as a top ROI-generating platform. 

TikTok will only continue to see growing brand interest in 2023, with 56% of those using it planning to increase their investment next year, the highest increase of any social media app, while 34% plan to maintain their current investment.

On top of the points above, 26% of marketers plan to use TikTok for the first time in 2023, while 16% of marketers will invest more in the app than any other next year.

With TikTok, a solid B2C platform, seeing such high marketing growth, you might wonder how the top platforms compare when analyzing B2B and B2C markers. Let’s take a quick look.

B2B vs. B2C Social Media Marketing Data

In terms of which platforms they use, both B2B and B2C marketers look very similar, with the biggest difference being that B2B marketers are more likely to use LinkedIn:

That might not be surprising, but does LinkedIn actually offer B2B marketers a better ROI than other platforms? 

Just 14% of B2B marketers using LinkedIn say it gives them the highest ROI of any platform. That’s a lower percentage than Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

How Marketers Share Content on Social Media

Since marketers are using so many social media apps at once, you may be wondering if they are tailoring their content to each one, or just sharing the same content across the board. 

It turns out that almost half of marketers re-post the same exact content across various social media platforms, while 35% tailor it to fit each app and 19% do a bit of both. 

The Biggest Social Media Marketing Challenges

The top challenges social media marketers face are creating engaging content, gaining and keeping followers, reaching their target audience, finding ideas for new content, generating leads, keeping up with trends, and measuring ROI.

Now that we’ve talked all about the top trends, channels, and social platforms, we can take a look at which media formats marketers are most effective.

In the coming month, we’ll be diving deeper into these themes by surveying more global social media marketers about all the specifics related to their roles. Stay tuned as we’ll continue to publish findings from our additional research.

Which Media Formats are Marketers Leveraging?

Half of marketers are using videos, with 47% leveraging images, followed by 33% posting blogs articles, infographics (30%) and podcasts or other audio content (28%).

Video has the highest ROI of any media format by far, followed by images, blog posts, and podcasts or other audio content.

Use of video will grow significantly in 2023, with 24% of marketers planning to invest more in video than any other media format. Podcasts will see the 2nd highest investment, with 10% of marketers investing more in audio content than any other media format.

Video will also grow the most among first-time users in 2023, with 1 in 3 planning to try leveraging video next year. Images (29%), blog posts (26%), interview (25%), and podcasts (24%) will also see high first-time use among marketers in 2023. 

You might also be wondering how often marketers publish content across these formats. 

One-third of marketers publish content a few times a week, while another third publish daily. Just 13% of marketers put out content multiple times a day.

We also asked content marketers about the biggest challenges they face with their content strategy. Content marketers are currently struggling most with creating content that gets high levels of engagement, reaching their target audience, finding ideas for new content, creating content that generates leads, and creating content that attracts traffic to their website. 

What are the Top Challenges Marketers Face?

The top challenges marketers are facing are generating traffic and leads, hiring top talent, pivoting their marketing strategy, training their team, keeping up with the latest trends, and increasing competition with other brands. 

While we ran this survey in late 2022, these challenges are fairly consistent with what marketers cited in the research we did for our State of Marketing Report, which you can download for free here.

Of the challenges marketers face, those they struggle with most right now are:

1. Updates to data privacy regulations, 
2. Growing a global audience, 
3. Using their CRM to its fullest potential
4. Sales/marketing alignment
5. A lack of high-quality data

When it comes to the biggest challenges marketers anticipate in 2023, keeping up with the latest trend tops the list, followed by increased competition, leveraging their CRM to its fullest potential, and having to pivot their marketing strategy.

Key Theme: Marketers Still Struggle to Understand Target Audiences

What’s stopping marketers from having the data they need on their target audience? 

The biggest challenges involve data privacy regulations, consumers being less trusting with their personal data, how fast their audiences evolve,, a lack of information on their shopping habits, and the technological issues and learning curves that come with collecting data.

If marketers are able to collect data with the tools and technology they have, data privacy regulations and consumer distrust in sharing personal data can cause marketers to miss critical information.  On top of that, poor data quality caused by these and other impacts noted above, can make it harder to keep up with the rapid changes happening in your targets’ lives.

While we surveyed general marketers for this portion of the report, we also did a follow up survey to learn about the key challenges and pain points executive and director+ marketing leaders are expecting to face. Check out this post, from our Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader blog series (fully launching Nov. 1), which includes tips from marketing execs and experts at companies like Microsoft, HubSpot, Help Scout, ZoomInfo, Sprout Social, and more.

Let’s dive more into how they performed in 2022 and how it compares to the data we collected earlier for our State of Marketing Report.  If you want to dive deeper into the challenges we’ve discussed above, check out this post.

In 2022, marketing goals revolved around increasing revenue/sales (27%), improving the customer experience (22%), boosting brand awareness/reaching new audiences (20%), as well as increasing engagement, and strengthening brand loyalty through customer relationships (18%). 

Marketers also focused their 2022 strategy on better understanding their customers, growing their social media following or community, and improving sales-marketing alignment. 

But in 2023, half of marketers say these goals will change.

For those marketers making a pivot, increasing revenue/sales still tops the list, but the focus will shift to improving sales/marketing alignment, fostering relationships with customers to increase brand loyalty, revving up advertising, improving customer understanding of their products/services, and understanding audience targets better.Setting goals is one thing, but meeting them can be challenging. Let’s get into the biggest challenges marketers are facing right now and the blockers they expect in 2023.

How are Marketers Performing in 2022?

With the year nearly over, we asked marketers to reflect on their 2022 marketing strategy, and 91% say what they’re doing has been effective. 

Just 2% called their strategies ineffective while 7% say their marketing efforts made no major negative or positive impacts.

Most marketers see their strategy as effective, so let’s dive into the marketing metrics or KPIs they use to measure their success.

The Most Important Marketing Metrics and KPIs

When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of their content marketing strategy, marketers say sales, web traffic, and social engagement are the most important metrics, followed by conversion rate, follower/subscriber growth, and lead generation. 

When planning out the next year’s goals, strategies and KPIs, especially without knowing if we are or aren’t going into a recession, you might ask yourself, “How we’ll I pay for these things? And what are other marketing teams doing. 

Next, let’s take a look at how marketing budgets have recently changed and will continue to change in the coming months. 

How are Marketing Budgets Changing?

54% of marketers saw their budgets stay the same from 2021 to 2022, while 39% saw an increase and just 8% report a reduction in budget.

For 2023, 47% of marketers expect their budget to increase, while 45% expect it to stay the same, and 7% think it will decrease.

When it comes to how that budget is invested, most (58%) marketers are somewhat confident when deciding how to invest their budget to maximize ROI, while just 28% feel very confident. About 14% do not feel confident in how they invest their marketing budget.

To round out the Marketing Trends 2023 report, we’ll dive into some work trends to understand how and where marketers are working this year.

Marketing Workplace Trends

In our State of Marketing Report published earlier this year, we revealed how marketers were thinking about their goals and what work they planned to do to get there. With this most recent survey, we dove into what that work and their work environment looks like.

Where Marketers Work

Whether by force or by choice, marketers are shifting back to the office in 2022. 80% of marketers are back in the office at least part-time, while just 20% are fully remote.

• 38% of marketers work in-office in 2022, a 73% YoY increase
• 42% of marketers work in a hybrid model in 2022, a 16% YoY decrease
• 20% of marketers work from home or remotely in 2022, a 29% YoY decrease

How Marketers Feel About There Workloads

When it comes to their workload, 70% of marketers describe their workload as high, while 26% say it is neither high nor low, and only 5% describe it as low. On top of that high workload, 46% of marketers say their workload increased from 2021 to 2022. 

The average marketer works on five campaigns at a time and a total of seven campaigns per quarter. Additionally, 42% of marketers say the number of campaigns they work on each quarter increased from 2021 to 2022. Marketers think their workload will increase again in 2023, when they expect to be working on nine campaigns per quarter.

The Biggest Timesuck for Marketers

Needless to say, marketers are strapped for time and they only expect their workload to keep getting heavier. To make matters more difficult, marketers spend an average of six hours per day on manual, administrative, or operational tasks, leaving them less time to do more impactful work. 

Luckily, automation is here to help – our data shows that marketers who report an effective marketing strategy this year are more likely to use automation in their role than ineffective marketers.

Biggest Marketing Takeaways for 2023

While you might think so much change has happened that the industry could eventually slow down – think again. In the most recent months, 20% of marketers have already had to pivot their plans due to the potential recession. 

Ultimately, our data shows that marketers who invest in understanding their target audience, the latest trends, and how their audience is changing will be most prepared to pivot their strategy and beat out their competition in 2023.

To wrap up, here are some highlights from each section that you should take away with you when planning a new year of marketing strategies:

• Short-form video, influencer marketing, and social shopping/using DMs for customer service were the top trends marketers used in 2022 and could continue to gain steam in 2023.
• Facebook takes the throne as the highest-ROI social media platform, but YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok will see more growth than Facebook in 2023.
• Marketing budgets aren’t shrinking. Despite the pandemic, recession, data-privacy changes, and whatever else 2023 will throw at us, it seems marketers are actually being given funding needed to step up in unexpected or difficult times.
• Marketing roles are shifting back to in-person. A whopping 80% of marketers are at least partially back in the office in 2022, while only 20% are fully remote.
• Marketers have a high workload with no relief in sight. They reported workload increases from 2021 to 2022, and expect to see more pile up in 2023. Leveling up your automation tools can help you and your team spend more time on high-impact tasks.

Like what you’ve read and want more? Keep following the blog for even more coverage of this report, and check out our 2022 State of Marketing Report below to compare the 2022 data with the 2023 predictions above.

As the creator economy continues to expand, so do the needs of content creators. Whether it’s crowdfunding, financial guidance, or new ways to connect — there are many moving parts content creators must consider to be successful. Fortunately, new creator economy startups are providing the tools, resources, and platforms needed to make the business side of content creation easier for digital creatives.

From marketplaces to website building tools to fresh opportunities to connect with followers — let’s explore several of the creator economy startups that are game-changers for content creators.

10 Startups Contributing to the Creator Economy

1. Huddles
2. Ko-fi
3. Fanhouse
4. Beacons
5. Pearpop
6. Buy Me a Coffee
7. Cameo
8. Passionfroot
9. Karat
10. Bildr

Top Creator Economy Startups

Here are 10 of the top creator economy startups boosting the creator economy:

1. Huddles

Originally called “Clash,” this video-hosting app was initially released in January 2020 as a successor to Vine. Like Vine, Clash allowed users to upload short-form videos between 2–16 seconds long. Clash rebranded to Huddles in August 2022 when the company decided it wanted to move away from “infinite scroll” feeds and avoid competition with TikTok.

Instead, Huddles allows content creators to upload short-form videos directly to their profiles or their Huddles group chats. Creators can also monetize their content on the platform by having fans pay monthly subscriptions to paywalled content or private conversations. The Huddles app is available on both iPhones and Androids.

Best for: Building a tight-knit community with followers and monetizing exclusive content.

2. Ko-fi

Ko-fi is a platform that allows people to make donations to its users, many of whom are creators. Creators often use the platform to supplement their income and fund upcoming projects. Ko-fi also features commissions and storefront options, which are popular features among artists looking to connect with their audience.

Speaking of connecting, Ko-fi can also function as a personal blog for creators to share updates with their fans and receive words of encouragement with donations. Also, creators aren’t required to post content regularly to get paid, allowing them to work and connect at their own pace.

Ko-fi doesn’t require subscription options, meaning it can act as a one-time digital tip jar. But perhaps the most popular aspect of Ko-fi is that it doesn’t charge fees, meaning the app doesn’t take a percentage of users’ donations.

Best for: Crowdfunding for projects, supplementing income, and keeping followers updated on the latest happenings involving their favorite creators.

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3. Fanhouse

Fanhouse is a subscription-based platform where content creators can monetize their social media presence. Creators can post content like videos, photos, and status updates to followers subscribed to their Fanhouse account. The app was founded by social media personality Jasmine Rice and her Twitter mutuals Khoi Le and Jerry Meng as an alternative to OnlyFans.

OnlyFans is also a subscription-based platform, but it’s often associated with creators in the adult entertainment industry — though other kinds of creators like celebrities and fitness influencers also use it. Rice was uncomfortable with the adult content on Onlyfans, so she decided to create Fanhouse, which prohibits nudity and sexual content.

Instead, Fanhouse operates pretty much the same as Twitter or Instagram if those apps were to become solely subscription-based. Furthermore, creators keep 90% of every paid transaction on the platform. Fanhouse only takes 10% to cover the cost of operating the platform.

Best for: Monetizing your social media content and building community. If you tend to go viral on Twitter or people genuinely enjoy your online personality, this platform can be a great way to generate income.

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4. Beacons

Beacons is a “link-in-bio” platform — like Linktree — creators can use to point their followers to a landing page with all their relevant links, such as their social media accounts, online shops, and website. Like other link-in-bio platforms, Beacons allows users to build their profile and customize its appearance to their liking.

However, what separates Beacons from other similar platforms is its donations and e-commerce features. These features allow creators to raise money via donations or sell digital products like ebooks, artwork, and videos.

Best for: Keeping all of your online accounts in one place for your followers to access, and it’s a great place to raise money or sell digital items.

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5. Pearpop

Pearpop is an online marketplace that connects brands and creators for projects like campaigns and brand deals. Its most notable feature is Pearpop Challenges, allowing brands to instantly launch creator campaigns on demand. Famous faces on Pearpop include Tony Hawk, Heidi Klum, and Snoop Dogg.

Best for: Content creators and brands looking for collaborators for campaigns and deals.

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6. Buy Me a Coffee

Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding company that allows creators to collect donations from supporters. Similar to Ko-fi, donators can also send encouraging messages along with donations. The company charges no monthly fees; however, it charges a transaction fee of 5 percent of any support a content creator receives.

Best for: Crowdfunding for projects and getting feedback from supporters.

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7. Cameo

Cameo is a unique app where content creators, influencers, and celebrities record personalized messages for fans upon request. Users can pay as little as $20 to have their requests accepted. The most popular requests are birthday shout-outs, catchphrases, and congratulations.

Best for: Connecting with fans and supplementing income.

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8. Passionfroot

Passionfroot is a digital workspace where creators can keep track of projects and clients and manage their finances. The platform is browser-based and a no-code tool. Passionfroot charges creators based on a three-tiered pricing structure for its software.

Creators can also open a digital storefront to field requests and manage operations like invoicing. Creators should note that the platform also takes a small percentage of every transaction.

Best for: Keeping organized and expanding your business.

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9. Karat

Karat is a financial service for content creators. According to its website, “Karat provides customized financing, rewards, and support for creators so you can access more money as you grow.”

Karat offers bookkeeping services, tax preparation, business expense cards, and more geared toward the unique financial needs of content creators.

Best for: Managing finances and filing tax returns correctly because many content creators do not have the resources to file their income as an entrepreneur properly.

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10. Bildr

Bildr is a no-code website and app builder with many tools creators can use to create their own digital space. Creators can use Bilder to make web apps, Saas products, and Chrome extensions.

Best for: Building and customizing your website and apps, especially if you don’t know how to code.

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Now that you know the tools and resources available to creators via the above creator economy startups, you can find new ways to expand your business and reach your goals. Which of the above startups do you want to try out?

Social media is an undeniably powerful channel for marketing in 2020.

In fact, social networks are the biggest source of inspiration for consumer purchases, with 37% of consumers finding purchase inspiration through social channels.

However, if you’re using social media as a tool for organic exposure and brand awareness, rather than just a channel for paid ads, it can be difficult to track the success of your efforts.

As any social media manager knows, successful implementation of a social media strategy is contingent on countless factors — and all companies prioritize different channels, metrics, and criteria for success.

For example, is paid more important than organic to your business, and if so, to what extent?

Is more importance placed on audience engagement, or audience growth?

Has a posting cadence been directly tied to revenue?

With so many areas of focus for social media marketers, it’s crucial to choose, analyze, and report on your key social media metrics with a social media report.

A social media report can help you clearly convey what factors your social media team prioritizes, why those factors matter, and how you’re performing against those goals.

In this post, we’ll highlight the importance of a social media report, list the metrics you should consider including in one, and walk through a step-by-step process for building a social media report yourself.

For a quick and easy solution to your reporting woes, click here to download HubSpot’s Free Social Media Reporting Template.

Why Use a Social Media Report?

A social media report is the best way to distill the key metrics your social media team is tracking on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and/or annual basis.

Since social media encompasses so much, gathering and reporting on the data and channels that you’ve determined are most important for your business provides a lens of focus for your social media marketing team, and delivers a necessary high-level overview for leadership.

Social media doesn’t just affect marketing. Prospects ask questions, customers write reviews, and thought leaders follow you for company news. Because social media coincides with nearly every aspect of your organization, gathering and distributing the state of your social media channels is a move that shows transparency and encourages cross-company alignment.

You can also use a social media report to report on campaign-level analytics. If your social media account is serving as a cog in a larger company initiative, this report shows to what extent social media contributed to the project’s success.

Featured Resource: Free Social Media Report Template

HubSpot’s free social media report template has pre-made slides for you to report on all of your predominant social media metrics. Download the template today and simply plug in your own metrics to customize a social media report for your organization.

Social Media Metrics to Report On

Your business likely values some metrics over others when it comes to social media reporting. Likely, these metrics also vary between your channels — since LinkedIn doesn’t let you retweet, and Twitter doesn’t let you click a cry-face button.

Before you start reporting on your social media channels’ performance, read through this list of options of social media metrics so you can determine which ones you should include in your report.

1. Audience Size and Growth

This metric tells you how large your reach is and how quickly that reach is growing. This is typically seen as the core social media metric, as it shows how large of an audience you can leverage with your posts and content.

2. Cadence of Posts

A rather self-explanatory example, this metric represents how many times you posted in a given time period. This metric is usually compared alongside other metrics — such as engagement rates — to help you determine the right cadence for your audience.

This metric should also be channel-specific, because it makes sense to post more frequently on some channels than others.

3. Post Engagement

Post engagement measures how your fans and followers are reacting to your posts with likes, comments, and shares. A healthy post engagement suggests you have a loyal audience — and that your content is reaching them.

You can also track engagement as a percentage of your audience to determine engagement rate.

4. Mentions

One metric you have a little less control over is mentions. You can track mentions from customers, prospects, and even news outlets to gauge perception of your business and brand online.

5. Clickthrough Rate

When a post links to a page on your website, you can measure how many people and what percentage of your audience clicked through to the page. A strong clickthrough rate shows you’re sharing website pages that your audience finds relevant.

6. Conversions & New Contacts

Conversions comes into play if you’re using social media to generate leads, subscribers, or even customers. If you want to attribute contacts to your social media team’s efforts, make sure you’re using proper tracking and setting reasonable goals, as it’s rare in some industries to go straight from social media to becoming a customer.

7. ROI

Directly tracing ROI (return-on-investment) to social media efforts can be tricky. However, if you determine it’s worth reporting on this metric, make sure you have proper expectations set and attribution models established.

8. CPM / CPC

This metric is essential for monitoring the performance on your social media ads. If you’re solely reporting on organic social metrics, you can ignore this one.

9. Competitor Metrics

To provide a benchmark, consider analyzing the aforementioned metrics for your competitors. Obviously, these metrics can vary drastically based on publicity, paid budget, and the size of the company, but it’s still worthwhile to make the comparison.

How to Make a Social Media Report

Step 1: Choose Your Presentation Method

For consistency and clarity, make sure you’re using a social media report presentation, spreadsheet, or memo template. This way, each time you update your metrics, you’ll simply need to copy over your most up-to-date metrics onto that template rather than reinventing the wheel every time.

We suggest using a PowerPoint or Google Slide Deck template, because you can share it with your team via email, use it for an in-person meeting or presentation, or both.

Need a template to get started? Try this one.

Step 2: Determine the Metrics You’ll Be Reporting On

Like we’ve established, different companies and different social media teams value different social media metrics.

It’s your job to choose the metrics that matter most to your team and your organization.

Using the list from the section above, narrow down the essential metrics you believe are worth presenting to your team at large. Remember, you can change which metrics you report on for each of your organization’s social media platforms.

If your social media report is campaign-specific, reach out to the project stakeholders to see if they’re hoping to see reporting on any certain metrics in the social media report.

Pro Tip: For your first few ongoing social media reporting presentations, ask your peers which metrics they’d like to see, or which ones they need clarification on. Making these changes sooner rather than later helps you keep your team informed and engaged.

Step 3: Gather Your Data

Once you know what you’re reporting on and how you’re reporting it, it’s time to start collecting data.

When you’re first setting up your social media reports, create bookmarks for your data sources. Make a folder for the analytics page for each social media channel you’re analyzing and/or your social media reporting software for an all-encompassing view.

If you’re tracking click-throughs to your website, make sure you’re analyzing from a single master location, such as your tracking URL builder or your traffic tracking tool like HubSpot or Google Analytics.

Step 4: Add in Some Visuals

A chart of numbers on a slide deck is, well, pretty boring.

While a numerical chart is important for sharing as much info as possible in an organized way, using visuals is a better way to convey the growth and success metrics of your social media performance. Try incorporating one or all of the following into your social media reports:

• Linear graphs to show followers over time.
• Pie charts to show clicks to different pages of your website (blog pages vs. case studies, for example).
• Bar graphs to show number of engagements on each platform.

These examples are more eye-catching than numbers on a slide and further illustrate what you want your team to walk away with. If data visualization is new to you, check out our Guide on Data Visualization for Marketers.

Step 5: Think of Your Story

A running social media report should always remind people about where you came from and where you plan on going. That said, make sure your reports make reference to how your numbers have changed since the last period of time on which you presented, in addition to why numbers have changed.

Did follower growth as a percent increase drop last month? Maybe that’s because one of your posts from the month before went viral and resulted in unprecedented growth that was impossible to match. Make that clear and add context to the numbers.

Additionally, each report should contain clear action items about how you plan to continuously improve your social media performance. Social media is constantly evolving, so your approach and strategy for it should, too.

Now that you’re equipped with the knowledge to build, design, and share your social media report, download your social media report template and get to work!

In the last 12 months, 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement. Cold prospects get to know and trust you, while you stay top of mind (or top of inbox). However, your team needs to drive signups to reap the benefits.

That all starts with your sign-up form. Better email sign-up forms can help grow your lists, increasing your brand’s engagement. See these email newsletter sign-up form examples for inspiration.

Table of Contents

What Is an Email Sign-up Form?

Ways to Increase Subscribers for Your Email List

Email Sign-up Form Best Practices

Great Email Newsletter Sign-up Form Examples

Building Better Sign-up Forms

The best thing about email opt-ins is that you can build a pipeline of leads to nurture. Over time, your email list can turn into a valuable source of revenue. Here are our tips for how to get more mailing list sign-ups.

1. Monitor your metrics.

Your conversion rate refers to the percentage of website visitors who convert on your opt-in. To calculate your conversion rate, divide the number of conversions from that form or offer by the amount of traffic to the page or post it’s on.

Let’s say you have two forms for the same newsletter. One form has a 3% conversion rate. The second converts .8% of page visitors. The form with the higher conversion rate generates more leads and produces more value for the sales team.

With 1000 website visitors, the first form would generate 22 more leads than the second. That’s why conversion rate optimization is so important.

2. Incorporate calls-to-action.

Conversions to your email sign-up form only happen if the form is seen. For this reason, you should be putting the opportunity in front of your website visitors.

Identify your highly visited pages and put your form or calls-to-action (CTA) on them to maximize visibility.

3. Investigate pipeline gaps.

If you don’t have a large amount of traffic, finding ways to increase it may be a more worthwhile activity. Conversions only happen when there’s an opportunity to convert. With no traffic, there’s no opportunity.

You won’t have the means to increase your conversion rate if the starting number is zero. If traffic is low, your conversion rates may not be statistically significant.

4. Use contrasting colors.

The last thing you want is for a potential subscriber to miss the opportunity to convert simply because they didn’t notice it was there. Use contrasting colors to make these conversion elements stand out.

For instance, in the example below, Kiss Metrics has identified correlations between specific colors and shopper psychology. Specific hues and contrasts elicit specific responses. Using color theory can encourage prospects to act.

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5. Consider placement.

Prominent page placement is a game-changer when it comes to increasing conversion rates on email sign-up forms. A form or call-to-action can go in many places, including:

• The top of the page.
• Within the text of the page.
• In the sidebar.
• At the bottom of the page.
• As a pop-up generated from a user action.

You’ll want to test which placements work for your conversion rates. For example, if people aren’t making it to the bottom of a post, they may not see your call-to-action. Through testing, you’ll be able to determine the placements that work best for your audience.

6. Offer value and choice.

Today’s internet user knows handing over their email address may result in email solicitation or, in some cases, spam. That may not be your intention, but that doesn’t erase their caution. To overcome this caution, you must incentivize them to give it up.

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Promising high-value content that they want, providing social proof that your newsletter is valuable, holding giveaways or contests, and being transparent about what they can expect are all ways to provide the incentive.

Another option is to offer the user the choice of what type/category of content they’d like to receive. Nothing like autonomy to keep ’em coming back!

7. Reduce friction.

“Dollars flow where friction is low.”

— Brian Halligan, INBOUND 2019

The more friction that a visitor encounters, the less likely they’ll sign up.

One way that you can reduce friction is by removing form fields to make the process of signing up faster. The number of required form fields should be proportional to the amount of value you’re providing. Too many fields will cause the user to bounce. Instead, ask for less up front and have your team gather additional information after the individual has become a lead.

8. Try out different phrasing.

Don’t be afraid to scrap phrasing that is underperforming. Maybe the word “newsletter” fails to appeal to your specific audience. Switch it out with something different and monitor your metrics to see what happens.

9. Consider user intent.

Your website visitors landed on your page for a reason. If your offer doesn’t help them meet that need, they won’t be incentivized to convert.

For example, let’s say you have a blog post that compares your product or service to a competitor’s. The visitor arrived here because they want to see how well you match up with others in the industry.

If your on-page offer is an ebook with “Reasons Why You Should Buy [Product/Service],” you may fall flat. If the user is already comparing providers, they already know the value of the product or service. They’re just figuring out which provider to go with.

In this scenario, an offer suited to this intent, like a product demo, will work much better.

Consider the intent on your pages and craft offers that match up with that intent.

10. Minimize the number of forms and CTAs.

As the old saying goes, “A confused mind says no.” If you present website visitors with too many choices, you run the risk of driving them away completely.

Consider presenting one offer or conversion element per page. If that’s not possible, find other ways to reduce the confusion and make it clear exactly what you want the website visitor to do.

11. Use a form builder.

Some form builders (like HubSpot’s) can remove form fields if the CRM already knows the information. This clears the friction of the user typing that information again. Creating an easy user experience will increase your conversion.

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12. Use pop-ups.

Pop-ups may seem intrusive. However, when used correctly, they convert! By using a pop-up tool, offering something of value, and using specific triggers (such as exit intent), you can create a pop-up experience that isn’t annoying and generates leads.

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13. Test everything.

Testing has been mentioned already in a few of the tips above, but it stands to get its own section. Improvement doesn’t happen in a vacuum. By testing hypotheses and continuing to iterate improvements, you’ll learn about your audience and increase email sign-ups as a result.

A lead might provide their email address for any number of reasons — to receive details about sales, blog post notifications, a discount code, or information about your business. In any case, that makes your email sign-up form one of the most important things on your site.

Let’s go over some ways to create a sign-up form that will get more leads on your email list.

Whether you’re looking to reach ten people or ten million, you’ll need to create a sign-up form that gets people excited to sign up. Here are some best practices that will help you create a high-converting email sign-up form.

1. Clear Value Exchange

An email address is a valuable commodity. Your offering should be worth their while. Add a short description to the top of your email sign-up form that describes what your lead will get in return for signing up and make it good.

For example, instead of saying ”Sign up for our weekly newsletter” you should say, “Sign up for our newsletter to receive exclusive deals.” A strong incentive means your website visitors are more likely to convert.

Pro tip: Your leads should be able to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” when they complete your form.

2. Double Opt-In

You don’t necessarily need more sign-ups. You need quality sign-ups. These quality sign-ups mean fewer fake leads wasting your time. Plus, there are fewer chances that you’ll end up in SPAM.

To ensure quality sign-ups on your form, consider using a double opt-in. This is the type of email subscription that confirms your lead wants to be added to your email list twice. The first time is when the lead enters and submits their information using your web form, and the second requires the lead to click an additional CTA (usually in their inbox) that confirms their submission.

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A double confirmation means a high-quality relationship with your leads.

3. Simplicity

Successful email sign-up forms are straightforward and clear. A lead should be able to look at the form, enter their information, hit “submit”, and carry on with their lives within a matter of seconds. If your form is too complex, you risk losing the interest of your website visitors.

Remember: Your email sign-up form is just a way for visitors to sign up for emails. Your team can build from there.

4. Place and Time

The placement of your email sign-up form on your website matters. Think about how you want your website visitors to find your form. Do you want your form to pop up on the page the second someone lands on your website? Do you want them to scroll down to the bottom of your homepage to find your form? Or do they need to land on a specific page on your site?

Form placement isn’t one-size-fits-all. Think about where most visitors land on your site, how your buyer personas want to interact with your brand, and the overall user experience.

Consider questions like, “Will my target audience get frustrated with a pop-up the second they enter our site, or will they find it helpful?”

5. Kickback Emails

Once someone completes your form, thank and welcome them.

A kickback email gives your new lead something in return for their information. In the case of an email sign-up, you’ll want to welcome your new lead and perhaps offer them links to useful content. Get them excited about their decision to give you their personal information.

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This is also where you can provide your new leads with their discount codes, details on future sales, access to exclusive communities, why you value their interest in your business, and how you will support them in the future.

Now that we’ve reviewed email sign-up form best practices, let’s dive into some examples. Here’s a collection of our favorite email newsletter forms and CTAs.

1. The Hustle

The Hustle website has an email sign-up form with a clear benefit statement. Any website visitor could look at this subscription landing page and understand what they will get from signing up in a matter of seconds.

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They also utilize the “Thank You” page to convey a direct statement of how the company values the subscriber’s time and will intentionally curate scheduled-themed content.

2. Blavity

When you head to Blavity’s website, the first thing you see is their email pop-up. That’s because their entire business revolves around a subscription. Blavity is an online publication that gathers top news stories from around the globe. The placement of their sign-up form fits with its offering.

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Blavity also has a landing page specifically devoted to email sign-up.

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3. Anthropologie

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Anthropologie places their email sign-up form towards the bottom of their homepage after users have had a chance to look around and become familiar with the site. Their sign-up form has a short description of what leads can expect once they sign up. Anthropologie also respects their visitors’ time by simply asking for an email address.

4. Lulus

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Lulus form is located towards the bottom of their homepage. Their email sign-up form gets website visitors excited about converting with an offer: a 10% discount code upon signing up.

The form is simple and only requires an email address. After form submission, new leads receive a kickback email that welcomes them and provides them with the code, as promised.

5. Quest Nutrition

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Quest Nutrition’s form is in a pop-up window that dims the background, eliminating any distractions. The form offers incentives like recipes, discounts, and surprises for visitors to sign up. Only an email address is required. Website visitors also have the option to bypass the pop-up and look around the site instead.

Email sign-up forms are a simple, efficient, and effective way to obtain leads, create more conversions, and increase your overall sales. You’ll reach your audience with email sign-up forms that are straightforward and embedded in a convenient location on your website.

So, take a few minutes to create your own email sign-up form and get started broadening your customer base, developing relationships with your potential customers, and increasing your number of leads today. From there, you can close the gap between lead and customer through email marketing.

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

I was only 12 years old when Facebook became available for anyone with a valid email address.

By the time I was 14, one of the top trends was to create a fan page that anyone could follow. I remember that feature being used by friends as a way to tell jokes and post funny content.

But things are a bit more sophisticated in the world of social media nowadays.

Now, Facebook is a great place to advertise your business and interact with prospective and current customers.

Below, let’s discuss how you can use Facebook to promote your business.

1. Sign up for a business page.

The first thing you need to do is create a business page. This is a simple process. All you have to do is log on to Facebook, click “Pages” in the left sidebar, and then “Create New Page.”

To get started, you’ll upload a profile picture, a cover photo, and basic information about your business. This will include what type of business you run whether you run a B2B business, a local business, or an ecommerce site.

Once you sign up, it’s smart to start optimizing your page.

2. Optimize your profile.

Now that your profile is up and running, you’ll want to optimize your page. This means writing your About section, adding business information like your website and business hours, and including a call to action button such as “Book Now,” “Shop Now,” or “Sign Up.”

Additionally, you’ll want to draft several posts that will engage your audience. Think about what type of posts they might like on social media. How are they interacting with your competitors? What posts perform well for your competition? This is the type of content you’ll want to model yours after.

Now that you’ve built and optimized your business page, it’s time to engage with your community.

3. Be active in Facebook groups.

A great way to promote your business on Facebook is to participate in Facebook groups. You can engage with public groups or join private Facebook groups.

To get started with this, you’ll want to consider what type of groups your audience would be a part of. Once you’ve finished brainstorming, you can join the same communities that your audience is active in.

4. Create your own Facebook group.

While it’s important to engage with your audience where they’re at, it’s also important to attract your audience to your own pages. You can do this with your own Facebook group.

Krystal Wu, a social media community manager at HubSpot, says, “Facebook Groups allow our audience to connect with each other and have valuable discussions. Businesses who center a Group around their brand or industry can build a community around it — making our brand and products even more valuable to potential customers.”

5. Promote events.

Another way to promote your business on Facebook is to use the social media platform to promote your events. If you’re a local business, this is especially important.

Attracting people to an event can feel like an undertaking, and you need to use all the tools at your disposal to promote it. That’s why you should post your event on Facebook and also plan an ad campaign.

6. Interact with your followers.

This might seem like social media 101, but it’s important to interact with your followers. The best way to get engagement on social media is to make sure your posts show up for your followers. To do that, you need to create interaction. Make sure you answer questions, respond to comments, and participate in your online community.

7. Use live streaming.

Facebook live is an excellent tool to promote your business and provide valuable content to your audience. You can use this feature to showcase your company culture, host a panel discussion on industry topics, or even display your industry expertise.

Additionally, you can host events virtually on Facebook live as a way to interact with your audience that can’t be at an event in person. This is a great way to promote your business because going live will notify your followers and prompt them to engage with your page.

8. Run Facebook ads.

One of the best ways to promote your business with Facebook is to use Facebook ads. The social media giant has created one of the most popular ways to reach your audience with its advanced targeting options.

To get started with ads, you can review this lesson from Facebook directly. Make sure that you review the types of Facebook ads and various bidding strategies to help you succeed.

9. Talk about your company culture.

When you post on social media, your content should promote your overall brand messaging. A great way to do this is to talk about your company culture. Showcase your employees and their day-to-day tasks.

You can also use Facebook as a recruitment tool, hosting panels on what it’s like to work at your company, or posting jobs right on your business page.

10. Manage contests and giveaways.

Encouraging engagement is one of the main objectives of Facebook promotion. To do this, you can host contests and giveaways that your audience will want to participate in. This will help increase brand awareness and encourage interaction from your followers.

11. Have a customer service representative field comments and requests from customers.

Social media is a great way for your customers to get in touch with you. However, if they choose to reach out to you on Facebook, you need to be prepared to answer their questions and address their requests. To do this, consider having a few people from your customer service team answer messages or comments from your customers.

12. Post valuable content.

Ultimately, the best way to promote your business on Facebook is to provide valuable content for your audience. Content is what attracts people to your social media profile and is the way you’ll build an audience online. You’ll want to include different types of content including images, videos, text, Stories, or even polls.

Facebook is an essential part of your social media marketing. No matter what type of business you’re running, it’s important to develop both organic and paid social media strategies to promote your business on Facebook.

78% of consumers are willing to buy from a company after a positive experience on social media, according to a poll by Harris. But that can’t happen if they can’t find you. Adding social media icons to your email signature makes it easy for customers to connect with you on their terms.

Today, we’ll cover the easiest ways to add social media icons to your email signature, plus offer a few free resources to get it done. After that, we’ll cover a few common questions, including:

• How do I add social media icons to my email signature?
• How to add social media icons to Gmail
• How to add social media icons to Outlook
• How to add social media icons to Apple mail
• Free Social Media Icons for Email Signatures
• Where do I find my social media links?

Below, we’ll discuss how and when you’d use either method.

Use an email signature generator

We recommend using a signature generator, like HubSpot’s free signature generator, for a few reasons. A generator will:

• Automatically size the social media icons properly.
• Make sure your icons match your theme.
• Align the icons properly with the rest of the signature.
• Ensure your links are active.

Those tasks have to be done manually when using the other method, and messing up even one can make your email look unprofessional.

To add social icons with the generator:

1. Simply paste your social links into the right fields and the generator does the rest. (We’ll cover where to find your social links below.)
2. Adjust the look to suit your brand or style.
3. Copy the image or the source code and paste it into your email client.

Make your email signature for free

Add an image within your email client

Maybe you’re already happy with your signature, and you just need to add social media icons. If that’s the case, most email clients (like Gmail, Outlook, etc.) will allow you to add them as an image to your signature.

One important note: You’ll want to add the icons using the image address or image URL, and not by uploading the images to your email client. That second method will add the images as an attachment to all your outgoing emails. Adding unnecessary attachments can potentially affect your delivery rates.

For each social media site you’ll need to:

1. Find icons of the right size, shape, and color. (We’ve got some options below.)
2. Right-click the image of the icon and select “copy image address” or “copy image URL”.
3. In your email client’s signature editor, click on “insert image.”
4. Paste the image URL into the field given.
5. Adjust the placement and alignment of the icon if needed.
6. Copy the social link that matches the icon you’re adding.
7. Highlight the newly added icon image and click “insert link.”
8. Paste the social link into the field.

Add Social Media Icons to my Gmail Signature

1. Click on the cog in the top right corner.
2. Click on “Settings”.
3. Scroll down until you see the email signature editor.
4. Click on “+ Create New”
5. Paste in your email signature (or follow the instructions above to add images).
6. Under “Signature defaults” select your new signature.
7. Scroll to the bottom and click “Save changes”.

See more detailed instructions on how to add a signature in Gmail.

Add Social Media Icons to my Outlook Signature

1. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner.
2. Click on “View all Outlook settings”.
3. Select “Compose and reply”.
4. Scroll down to the email signature section.
5. Paste in your email signature (or follow the instructions above to add images).

See more detailed instructions on how to add a signature in Outlook.

Add Social Media Icons to my Apple Mail Signature

1. Click on “Mail” and then “Preferences” in the top left corner.
2. Click on the “Signatures” tab.
3. Click the + button underneath the middle column.
4. Paste in your email signature (or follow the instructions above to add images)
5. Uncheck the box that says “Always match my default message font.”
6. Close the pop-up window.

Free Social Media Icons for Email Signatures

Feel free to use these social media icons in your signature, or add some automatically with HubSpot’s free email signature generator.

Still not finding what you’re looking for? Below, you’ll find links to each social media site’s brand kit. In each kit, you’ll find other sizes, shapes, colors, and file types.

• Facebook Brand Kit
• Twitter Brand Kit
• Instagram Brand Kit
• LinkedIn Brand Kit
• YouTube Brand Kit

Please note: By downloading the icons from a brand kit and uploading them to your email client, you’ll be adding them as an attachment to all your outgoing emails. Adding attachments could affect your delivery rate.

You can avoid this by adding them using the methods described earlier in the blog.

Should I put social media icons in my email signature?

Yes, you should put social media icons in your email signature. Consider that 20% of Millennial and Gen-Z consumers outright prefer to use social media for customer service, according to a study by ZenDesk.

But no matter what generation your customers are, giving them more options makes it easier for them to contact you.

What size should my social media icons be?

Your social media icons need to be large enough that your recipients can easily click or tap on them. But they still need to be small enough to not distract from the rest of your email signature.

If you’re adding them manually, start by looking for icons that are roughly 21px by 21px and adjust from there.

Otherwise, an email signature generator should automatically size them to fit your signature.

What social media sites should I include in my email signature?

Your email signature should include 3 to 5 links to the social media sites that are most relevant to your business.

For example, a freelance photographer would definitely want to include Instagram. On the other hand, a recruiting agency would want to be sure to include LinkedIn.

Whatever you decide, just be sure not to include any unused icons. Broken links of any kind can make your emails seem unprofessional.

Some popular social media sites to consider include:

• TikTok
• WhatsApp
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Should my social media icons link to my business or personal account?

In general, your social media icons should link to your business’s social media accounts. This creates a uniform customer experience, and it’s also a great way to boost your number of followers.

The exception to this rule is an employee who needs to be contacted directly. For example, a recruiter or sales rep may find it useful to link to their professional LinkedIn account.

You’ll want to avoid linking to personal accounts, even if you’re the sole owner of the business. Your private social media may not always reflect the image you want to convey to your customers.

Where do I find my social media links?

LinkedIn

1. Click on the “Me” icon in the top right of the homepage.
2. Click “View Profile”
3. Click on the “Contact info” button below your profile picture.
4. Your link will look like this: linkedin.com/in/[username]

Facebook

1. Click on the icon of your profile picture in the top right corner.
2. Click on “Settings & privacy”
3. Click on “Settings”
4. Your link will look like this: https://www.facebook.com/[username]

Twitter

1. Click on your profile picture in the top left corner.
2. Copy the URL from the URL bar of your browser.
3. Your link will look like this: https://www.twitter.com/[username]

Instagram

1. Click on your username in the top right corner.
2. Copy the URL from the URL bar of your browser.
3. Your link will look like this: https://www.instagram.com/[username]/

YouTube

1. Open the left-side menu.
2. Click “Customization”
3. Click “Basic info”
4. Your link will either look like: youtube.com/c/[username] or youtube.com/channel/[channel ID]

Be More Social

No matter which method you choose, adding social media icons to your email signature is a benefit to you and your customers. You’ll boost engagement with your brand, and your customers get to use the platforms they’re already comfortable with.

There may be a feature or experience you want to add to your website, but you don’t have the coding chops to build it yourself. A website plugin can help.

So what are website plug-ins? Plugins are extensions that expand the functionality of your website. All you have to do is hit “install.”

In this post, you’ll learn the benefits of using website plugins. You’ll also see 17 website plugins that you can add to your site.

The beauty of website plugins is in their simplicity. All you have to do is download and install — or plug in the plugin!

How to Assess if a Plugin Is the Right Solution for You

When you don’t know how to choose, here are some general rules to find the best plugin for your needs.

1. Understand your website platform.

Plugins are developed for specific content management systems. When picking between plugins, make sure your options are compatible with your website.

For example. if you’re running your website on Shopify, then a WordPress plugin isn’t going to work. In that case, you’d want to look into Shopify apps.

For Wix, you’ll need Wix apps, while Webflow will require Webflow plugins and integrations.

2. Identify your website’s goal.

What are you trying to achieve?

Get specific and outline the issues people are facing on your site. Find out what actions you can take to fix the problem.

For example, “The messaging on the site is too general. If we personalize the messaging, we should see conversions increase by X% within [timeframe].”

3. Conduct research.

Once you’ve narrowed down your goal, conduct research to find a solution best that’s for your specific problem. For example, you may decide a permanent plugin isn’t what you need at all.

A good starting point is to assess your website’s current performance. Website Grader, a free tool by HubSpot, can help with this audit. Website Grader will show you exactly what your domain’s strengths and weaknesses are. Once you’ve eliminated what’s not a problem, you can start shopping for a solution that solves your actual challenges.

Ideally, you’ll want a plugin that has good reviews, is compatible with your site’s platform, and offers the actual features that can help you achieve your goal.

Additionally, check how often the plugin is updated. Old or outdated plugins may pose a security risk for your website. Active plugins that are frequently updated by their developers are always a safer choice.

Once you’ve found a good option, it’s time to get it onto your site for your first test.

Having trouble finding the best plugins? We’ve conducted some of the research for you. Keep reading to learn about our 17 favorite website plugins for the year.

1. HubSpot: Lead Generation WordPress Plugin

HubSpot’s WordPress plugin is an all-in-one marketing and lead generation tool. This plugin can help you collect leads, create pop-up forms, and live chat with visitors. All that data you gather will then be sent to a free CRM to use for campaigns.

The HubSpot platform offers many other growth tools. Many of these tools are free. Premium options can help you accelerate your marketing, sales, and service operations.

Use case: Lead generation and customer relationship management.

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2. Proof: Social Proof Plugin for Websites

Social proof is the idea that consumers will adapt their behavior based on what other people are doing. Testimonials or data about how many people use your product are all social proof.

For example, if a customer sees a million people on your website, they’ll understand that your service is popular and helpful. This increases the likelihood that they will remain a visitor.

Good social proof elements can be the difference between a user committing to buy or exiting your site.

Proof allows you to add social proof in different forms across your site, including current live visitor numbers, notifications of current purchases, and reports of how many people have recently signed up.

Use case: Social proof to boost conversion on landing pages.

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3. Proof Factor: Social Proof Plugin

Proof Factor is another plugin geared toward social proof elements. This plugin can show who recently bought a product and live visitor counts. This allows new visitors to quickly visualize the popularity of your products or services.

Best of all, Proof Factor also offers gamified pop-ups to add another lead generation element to your site and further engage new prospects.

Use case: Display social proof for increased conversion.

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4. All in One SEO: Search Engine Optimization Plugin

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is a WordPress plugin for managing your website’s SEO. It’s perfect for website owners looking to quickly analyze their site’s organic performance.

With this plugin, there’s a smart website wizard that lets you quickly optimize your settings based on your site’s profile. There’s also added functionality for local SEO and WooCommerce SEO.

Use case: Improving website traffic with SEO.

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5. WP Rocket: Caching Plugin for WordPress

If you care about traffic, user experience, and conversions, you shouldn’t overlook your website speed.

WP Rocket is one of the most powerful caching plugins for WordPress. This plugin helps you make your site faster in just a few clicks. Right upon activation, the plugin applies 80% of web performance best practices — simple as that.

Enable the advanced performance features to give your site an added boost. You can easily remove JS and CSS render-blocking resources, minify CSS and JS files, lazy load your images, and more. You’ll save time and optimize your loading time, Core Web Vitals, and PageSpeed Insights score.

Use case: Make your website load fast.

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6. Optimole: Image Optimization Plugin

Nothing slows a site down like large image files. Optimole processes your images and reduces their weight without sacrificing quality. This plugin will automatically take your images and process them in real time with lazy loading.

With Optimole, your images automatically get adjusted to the right image size for your visitor’s browser and device. If they’re on a low-quality internet connection, Optimole will downgrade the image quality accordingly so your user experience won’t be affected.

Use case: Reduce image weight without sacrificing quality.

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7. RightMessage: Conversion Rate Optimization Plugin for Websites

RightMessage helps you serve your customers through personalized content.

You’re able to segment users based on slide-in questionnaires, acquisition sources, or tags from your email service provider or CRM. Then, based on those segments, you can dynamically change messaging and CTAs to better appeal to that segment and increase conversion rates.

Additionally, the plugin integrates with a ton of site platforms including HubSpot, WordPress, and Squarespace.

Use case: Personalize calls to action to boost conversion.

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8. LimeSpot: E-commerce Personalization

LimeSpot is an e-commerce-specific plugin that’s available through the Shopify app directory.

It runs on powerful AI that analyzes user behavior as both an individual, and as part of a cohort to build out their user profile.

Once the AI’s analysis is complete, it makes dynamic product recommendations that are specific to each user. This massively increases relevancy and conversions.

Use case: Conversion optimization for e-commerce.

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9. Hotjar: Website Plugin for Behavior Monitoring

Knowing how your users are interacting with your site is key to identifying UX issues and design problems.

Hotjar’s heat maps provide you with an overview of user engagement. It can help highlight which CTAs and links are too vague, as well as where you’re losing people in long-form content. Hotjar even allows session recordings for real-time analysis.

As a bonus, Hotjar offers feedback polls for more explicit data collection.

Use case: Behavior monitoring to improve user experience.

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10. Qualaroo: User Feedback Collection Plugin

Qualaroo takes the feedback element of Hotjar to the next level.

With Qualaroo you’re given a suite of features that automatically collect user data through more advanced targeting. You also have the option of including elements, like decision trees, to dig deeper into your questions.

Use case: Collect user feedback to improve products and experience.

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11. Jumper.ai: Conversation Checkout Plugin

Jumper.ai is best known as a social commerce tool, allowing brands to sell directly through their social media channels. However, Jumper.ai also offers a plugin that can help you make sales on your website.

This plugin takes Jumper.ai’s checkout bot and allows you to run it directly on your site. With Jumper, you can add this conversational checkout bot directly to your product or service landing pages.

For instance, here’s how it would look on a blog post.

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Use case: Chatbot to help you increase conversions and improve your site’s user experience.

12. Intercom: Live Website Chat Plugin

Intercom allows you to install a small widget in the bottom right corner of your site to engage users with a live chat.

With Intercom, you can set up an automated chatbot and connect customers with live operators. Additionally, you can use the tool to offer in-app support if you’re running a SaaS solution.

Best of all, Intercom also comes with an email marketing solution to further meet your business needs.

Use case: Set up automated chatbots and live chats to walk users through challenges.

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13. OptinMonster: Lead Generation Website Plugin

OptinMonster is a lead generation service that gives you the ability to target offers to specific user segments.

With OptinMonster, you can set offers to appear only after a visitor has been on your site for a set period, displays exit intent, or has visited certain pages. Ideally, this will help you guarantee your offers are reaching people once they’re eager to learn more.

Use case: Capture leads with exit intent pop-ups and other time-sensitive methods.

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14. Yoast SEO: Website Plugin for SEO

SEO is a complex discipline to master. Yoast can help your team follow best practices.

Yoast’s SEO plugin isn’t a perfect solution. However, this plugin works well for SEO beginners who need a good overview of their actions. Yoast’s plugin can help keep your website on track and ensure you’re truly optimizing your site for search.

For instance, the tool can amend meta descriptions for you. This ensures you’re only showing key information in search results and social shares. When you’re busy or don’t have the resources to dedicate to SEO, Yoast can help you level up.

Use case: Beginner-friendly tool to add meta tags without code.

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15. WooCommerce: Ecommerce Plugin for WordPress

WooCommerce is one of the bigger e-commerce solutions out there. It extends WordPress sites into online stores.

It’s a perfect addition for WordPress users who want to start selling their own products.

Use case: Sell products on your WordPress site.

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16. Drift: Conversational Marketing Platform

Drift has taken the concept of conversational marketing to the next level, and is a great addition to other marketing tools in your arsenal.

Drift offers chatbot services that can help make product suggestions or answer common questions. This plugin also allows you to segment messages based on your users’ accounts, creating a more personalized user experience.

Use case: Personalize marketing to boost conversions.

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17. VWO: A/B Testing Plugin

Testing different elements of your site, from headlines and images to CTAs and messaging, is key to improving your marketing results. However, running individual A/B tests can be time-consuming and difficult.

Fortunately, the VWO A/B testing tool is an all-in-one solution that automatically runs A/B tests on your pages. The results can help you improve the overall optimization of your website.

Use case: A/B testing to diagnose issues and increase conversions.

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What website plugin will work for you?

There are countless website plugins out there, and each one aims to solve a unique website problem.

If your goal is to minimize friction in the purchase or sign-up journey for your users, for example, a behavior monitoring tool like Hotjar will help. Figure out your goal, then find a plugin that helps you achieve it.

And if you’re looking for a free website plugin that’ll help you generate more qualified leads, check out HubSpot’s free solution below.