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Have you ever been on a time crunch to create social media content? Most of us have, especially when trying to hop on a trend before it passes. It’s a stressful position — but a social media calendar template can help.

Creating content right before the deadline risks overlooking important goals and making mistakes. Your content may have typos or fall short of the audience’s needs. You may even miss key holidays or events.

Now, what if I said you could minimize the risk? In this article, I’ll share the best social media calendar template options for marketers and some tips for getting the most out of them.

Why do I need a social media calendar template?

Flori Needle, a HubSpot Blog writer, was a social media manager before joining HubSpot. She focused on Instagram and struggled to create a schedule.

She shared with me, “I found myself creating Instagram posts last minute because I didn’t know how to plan my strategy in advance.”

After some testing, she developed a strategy, but she said having a plan before posting would’ve lessened her time spent on trial and error.

That’s why a social media content calendar is so helpful. You can keep track of deadlines, better manage your individual duties or content creation team, and create transparency with stakeholders.

Creating a great content calendar is more than just adding a few Instagram or LinkedIn post ideas to your Google calendar. Let’s explore the benefits of having a social media calendar.

1. Better Organization

A content calendar keeps you and your team organized, which is essential when managing multiple social media channels.

Rather than coming up with content ideas on the fly, you can plan your content around your organization’s needs. It can also provide more time for creating content about trending topics and upcoming holidays and events.

For instance, if your company has a big event coming up (like HubSpot’s INBOUND), a content calendar will help you strategize how to promote it in advance.

A social media calendar keeps everyone on your team informed on when content will be published. When you’re transparent about what’s going live, it can help avoid miscommunications and confusion.

Pro tip: I know good content ideas can’t always come on command — even if you set time aside specifically for this task. But a topic generator might be just enough to kickstart your creative juices.

Even better, you can take it a step further and use these topics to generate blog posts, which can be repurposed into a series of social media posts.

2. More Mindful Scalability

Another benefit to having a social media calendar is that it can help you scale your content production without overwhelming your marketing team.

By planning content in advance, you can pace production around your team’s bandwidth and other duties your department is responsible for.

Pro tip: As you scale, I recommend tracking post analytics to see how your content performs. Keeping an eye on your metrics will help you and your teams determine what content engages your audience the most.

3. Higher Quality Content

Lastly, using a social media calendar ensures your team has plenty of time to do their best work. Planning your posts in advance allows you to check your work for typos or mistakes while ensuring everything is on-brand and optimized.

Perfecting your social media content calendar shouldn’t feel like a chore.

Below, I’ll walk you through the essential components of any social media content calendar that will give you the foundation to organize your social media strategy at a tactical level.

Key

A key or legend is a section of a graphic that gives meaning to its symbols or colors. An easy-to-read key helps your stakeholders understand the information in your social media calendar

As long as your key is clear, just about anyone in your organization can view your social media content calendar and understand what’s happening on all platforms.

URLs and UTM Parameters

URLs and UTM parameters are similar, but they’re not the same. URLs are the links you want to share from your website (or another website if you are curating content) on your social media platforms.

A UTM parameter is an extension of your URL that is needed for data purposes. It’s a string of tracking code appended to the end of a URL, and it helps social media marketers track how well their posts drive traffic to their websites.

By tracking and analyzing UTM parameters, you’ll see what content meets your conversion goals and what drives the most engagement on social media platforms. You can use a UTM generator to make this process easier.

Date and Time

Including dates and times in your social media calendar is helpful for planning and for stakeholders who rely on your social media content.

Your social team can easily see when they should schedule posts (and continue with their workflow) while those outside the team can know when ti expect them.

Message

Transparency and context are invaluable when it comes to social media content calendars.

Giving a brief synopsis of the message or even sharing the caption for a post can go a long way in helping others understand what the intent of the post will be.

Pro tip: If you‘re adding content to your social media content calendar that isn’t finished, consider adding a short Loom video to give an overview of what the design will look like.

Campaign

It’s too late to start tracking metrics once your campaign is over. Instead, start tracking your social media campaigns in your content calendar.

You can make this prescriptive by having a dropdown list of predetermined campaign names. Or if your campaigns are few and far between, simply copy and paste the names next to the corresponding content.

Pro tip: Align your campaign name with the campaign section of your UTM parameter for seamless tracking.

Your social media content calendar will become just another spreadsheet without some imagery. Since much of your social media content will probably be visual, add a thumbnail-sized version of the image you’ll include in the published post.

Coupled with the message, stakeholders who view the calendar images will have a pretty good idea of what will be shared and when.

To make editing your images for each platform easier, check out this cheat sheet for ideal image dimensions on each platform.

Regardless of which social media calendar template you go with, here are a few steps to follow when using one.

To expedite the process of creating a social media content calendar, download this free template that’s ready for you to fill out.

1. Complete a social media audit across all platforms.

Before creating a social media content calendar, I recommend a complete social media audit.

Ask yourself questions like:

• Which social media platforms are you on?
• Which platforms are you not on, but your competitors are?
• Which platforms get the most versus least engagement?
• Which content formats do you use most often and least often?
• Which types of posts get the most versus least engagement?

Auditing your social media presence will help you decide how to move forward as you create your social media content calendar.

For instance, you may be on TikTok, but maybe it’s also the platform where you get the least engagement and even fewer leads. That may mean it’s time to de-prioritize TikTok from your lineup and invest more time in a better-fitting platform.

Spend some time perusing your social media analytics to answer these questions. It’s essential to back your conclusions with data instead of a gut instinct.

Pro tip: Our social media report template is an excellent way to keep track of your findings. It contains a variety of charts that will make it easy to organize and, in turn, review and analyze the data.

Download Now

Recommended Reads:

• How to Conduct A Social Media Audit
• How to Conduct a Twitter Audit of Your Account
• The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Analytics

2. Pick the top 3-5 social media platforms you’ll use.

Believe it or not, you don’t need to be on all the social media platforms to get a high social media ROI (return on investment).

Instead, you should focus on where your target audience is and the platforms with the highest ROI. This will save your team effort and time, resulting in a much more manageable social media content calendar.

I mean, imagine having to post on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, Tumblr — that is… a lot.

Instead, choose the top three to five platforms that, based on your social media audit, yield the highest ROI for your business.

As you choose your platforms, you should also pay attention to trends and growing channels. Even if you’re a marketer at a small B2B business, it won’t hurt to test out a platform before all your competitors do.

If you’re a seasoned marketer or have a large team, you may find using all of the popular channels and even experimenting with a new one could benefit your goals.

However, if you‘re a team of one or your team is already stretched thin, it’s OK to start with a few social channels and work your way up to more.

Not sure where to start? Our Social Media Trends Report share insights and benchmarks you can start setting off.

Download Now

Recommended Reads:

• The 5 Types of Social Media and Pros & Cons of Each
• Which Social Media Channels See the Most ROI?
• Social Media Platforms Marketers Should Watch
• The Fastest Growing Social Media Platforms

Pro tip: Remember, every social channel is different. The content you post on each one should appeal to the platform’s layout and the users who use it. Cross-posting the same image and copy may be easy, but it’s not necessarily effective.

3. Choose your social media content formats and post types.

You’re now armed with your social media platforms to pursue, but what social media content types will you post?

Will you post mainly short-form videos, images, or text-based updates? Will you post informative, relatable, or funny content?

As always, we recommend using a mix of content types to maximize your ROI.

Plus, it will ensure that you’re serving content that serves different segments of your audience while increasing your reach.

For example, my mom is addicted to Instagram Reels.

I once took a peek at her screen time report and was astonished. But a majority of her generation spends the most time engaging with images, photos, and infographics.

Most businesses have outliers like my mom, so a diversified strategy helps you meet varied preferences.

Pro tip: Account for your team’s resources. If you have dedicated social media managers who can create content in-house, you have more leeway with your choices.

But if you only have a team of one, consider what is most realistic regarding content creation. Or try asking for a budget to hire a freelance content creator.

Recommended Reads:

• The Most Effective Types of Content on Social Media
• Social Media Content Ideas to Delight Customers

4. Create social media content templates, lazy hashtags, and lazy copy.

As you build out your content calendar (hopefully after downloading a free social media content calendar template!), remember that the purpose of your calendar is to make posting as easy and painless as possible.

In pursuit of that, take some time to create content templates, list the hashtags you’ll use most often, and even create “lazy” copy for you or your coworkers to use.

I find it helpful to store templates in an online bank, such as Google Drive or a tool like Canva, where I can quickly edit a template and adjust it to create a new post. Generally, you want to have various customizable image templates.

Featured Resource: 150+ Content Creation Templates

Download Now

Don’t forget to keep your most-used hashtags easily accessible for easy copying and pasting, along with lazy copy that only needs to be customized from post to post.

As you draft your templates, always keep your brand voice in mind. Whether you’re serious and corporate, or open and friendly, you want every post to embody your company’s branding.

Recommended Reads:

• 150+ Content Creation Templates
• Instagram Templates for Business
• YouTube Templates for Business
• Pinterest Templates for Business

Pro tip: Consider diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). Consumers care, more than ever, that brands support diversity and inclusion.

Ensure your content reflects and respects the values and experiences of your audience.

Moreover, the faces, voices, and stories you share on social networks should be representative of your audience and the larger community where your business operates.

This isn‘t something that can happen by accident, so you’ll want to plan for diversity and inclusion as you develop your content calendar.

If you’d like some guidance on creating diverse and inclusive content, check out our original research on the topic.

5. Fill in your social media holidays, events, and campaigns.

What is a social media content calendar that doesn’t show your forethought and planning?

Well, it’s still a content calendar — just not a very useful one. As you build out your social media content calendar, identify the holidays and events you’ll be participating in and note any future campaigns you may have planned.

If you’re attending an event or a conference, you should plan to broadcast that on your social media channels. If you’re doing a virtual event like a webinar, you should plan a series of posts around that, too.

Or if you’d like to create a holiday post or a paid social campaign — the possibilities are endless.

You should plan for each upcoming event with at least a month’s advance notice.

Pro tip: You don’t need to create a campaign for every single holiday. Most marketers in the U.S. plan for three main seasons: Winter/end-of-year holidays, Black Friday, and Halloween.

Recommended Reads:

• Social Media Holidays for Your Content Calendar
• Top Marketing Holidays of the Year, According to Marketer Data
• The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing Campaigns
• Social Media Campaign Ideas to Try

6. Determine a social media posting schedule.

It’s time to get into the most useful part of your content calendar: Determining your posting schedule. Your calendar should have a “Time” column that will allow you to proactively keep track of this information.

Different social media platforms require different posting times. You can easily fill in publish times by creating tabs for each platform or color-coding posts for different channels.

Consider also syncing publishing times to your calendar to get timely reminders.

We recently surveyed 1000+ social media marketers to get their take on the best times to post on social media.

Here’s a quick overview of the best times to post on each platform based on our findings:

• Instagram: 6 PM – 9 PM, 12 PM – 3 PM, and 3 PM – 6 PM
• Facebook: 6 PM – 9 PM and 12 PM – 3 PM
• X (formerly Twitter): 9 AM – 12 PM and 12 PM – 3 PM
• LinkedIn: 9 AM – 12 PM, 12 – 3 PM, or 3 – 6 PM
• YouTube: 6 PM – 9 PM
• TikTok: 6 PM – 9 PM, 3 PM – 6 PM, and 12 PM – 3 PM

But remember: there is no one-size-fits-all solution for posting times (sorry, wish I had better news).

For example, Sprout Social says the best time to post on Instagram is between 9 AM and 1 PM, and Hootsuite says 9 AM is the best time overall.

These differences don’t mean anyone is wrong; it just ties back to what I mentioned above about your audience: you should tailor the times you post content to your own business.

Pro tip: To determine your schedule, take a look at our research for each social media platform. This will give you a good sense of the best practices for posting. Then, compare that to the bandwidth on your team and the goals you want to achieve to come up with a schedule you can test.

The goal of a social media calendar is to create and publish a sustainable stream of content to your audience. It’s a marathon, not a race.

Recommended Reads:

• The Best Times to Post on Social Media
• How Often to Publish on Social Media for Business
• When Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?
• Best Times to Post on YouTube
• Best Time to Post on LinkedIn
• When to Post on TikTok

7. Set up UTM tracking.

One of the most important parts of a social media calendar is actually the part you don’t see — tracking. And the easiest way to track how your social media content is performing is to use UTM parameters.

Yes, this is the second time I’ve mentioned UTM parameters, but for good reason. Can you imagine the nightmare of manually sorting through your campaign traffic to determine where each viewer came from or who engaged with your content?

$I don’t want to do that, and I’d imagine you don’t either.

UTM codes are simple to set up and use. Once you’ve implemented them for each link on your social media posts, you can review your social media content metrics.

Pro tip: Are you a professional or enterprise user of HubSpot Marketing Hub or Content Hub? Take advantage of the UTM builder natively available on the platform.

8. Schedule posts using a social media tool.

Publishing updates on multiple platforms, with different campaigns and holidays, at different times and days, can quickly get overwhelming.

I recommend integrating your social media calendar template with a social media management tool. (We’ll go through a few options shortly.)

This will help you schedule posts well before publication, limiting manual work.

Many tools allow you to cross-post across different social media channels. This can be useful, but, again, I recommend being cautious.

What might work on LinkedIn might not work on Facebook, and vice versa. Since each platform serves a specific audience segment, you want to ensure your posts are tailored to each one.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s social media management software allows you to schedule and publish posts to Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Instagram and it’s free for everyone. Try it out!

Recommended Reads:

• Best Social Media Management Tools
• Top Social Media Tools

9. Monitor your social media posts’ success metrics.

Once your social media posting schedule has matured and you have a backlog of posts to analyze, it’s time to delve deeply into your social media metrics. Learn what worked, what didn’t work, and what you should change moving forward.

Hopping from platform to platform and looking at their individual analytics dashboards can be a good place to start.

But as you continue scaling your marketing efforts, you should consider investing in social media analytics software to compile all of your engagement data for you.

Try HubSpot’s social media analytics software for free.

As you analyze your success, link it to your company’s bottom line.

How many leads did you earn? How many of those leads turned into sales? How much money did you spend on paid social media versus how much revenue did you generate?

Here’s a guide on measuring social media marketing ROI to help you answer these questions.

The bottom line: Know and align on your goals.

The first step to building your social media content calendar is identifying your goals, which will determine how often you post, who will be involved in the content creation process, and which channels you’ll want to use. Align your team on them.

If you’re not sure where to start with setting up your social media goals, we cover that here.

Pro tip: Create an analysis tracker in your calendar for stakeholders who want to stay abreast of how well your social media content is performing.

Add a tab that shows clicks, views, engagements, and other metrics you plan to track to deem your content a success. Tracking analytics can be as simple or detailed as your team prefers.

For a full list of metrics to track and tools to do it, take a look at this year’s Ultimate Guide to Social Media Analytics.

Recommended Reads:

• The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Analytics
• Best Social Media Analytics Tools for Marketers
• How to Create a Social Media Report

Now that you know how to use a social media calendar template, here are 10 of the best options for marketers.

Social Media Calendar Templates

1. HubSpot’s Free Social Media Content Calendar Template

If you don‘t have time to create your social media content calendar from scratch, start with HubSpot’s free social media content calendar template.

This calendar has everything you need to plan your social media content, coordinate campaigns, grow reach and engagement, scale posting schedule, and boost productivity.

Our template includes everything you need to scale your social media marketing efforts. You’ll gain access to:

• Social Media Content Schedule: See each of your individual posts and draft individual messages and images for each one.
• Monthly Planning Calendar: See your upcoming social posts for the month in a user-friendly, big-picture format.
• Content Repository: List out all of the content you’ll be sharing with your followers, from blog posts to offers to website pages.
• Platform-Specific Tabs: Plan out your updates for each specific platform, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.

HubSpot Social Media Content Calendar Template Tutorial

In the following subsections, I’ll show you how to fill out each of the tabs in this template — Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Step 1: Review the “Monthly Planning Calendar” tab.

The “Monthly Planning Calendar” tab is a snapshot of your monthly social media campaigns. It‘ll help you coordinate with other stakeholders and keep all the moving parts in order. Here’s what it looks like:

There are three sections to note when you edit this template.

First, the color-coding key. Each color represents a type of content or campaign you might coordinate, like ebooks, webinars, blog posts, or product launches.

Though only some of these might be relevant to you, they’re just the beginning of what you may want to include here — so be sure to add and remove categories that align with your own types of content.

The other two sections to edit are the “Month” and “Year” at the top of the calendar and the cells below each day of the week.

In those cells, you should enter the type of content you‘ll be promoting that day and color-code it to align with the campaign it’s supporting.

Instead of deleting all the content in this spreadsheet each month, I recommend copying this worksheet twelve times over to have a separate sheet for each month.

(If that gets too overwhelming, you can always save those tabs as a separate workbook.)

Step 2: Populate your first social channel in the calendar.

Now, let‘s get to the social media content part of the calendar.

For the sake of this blog post, we’ll use X as an example, but these steps will work for each social channel tab in the template.

Let‘s say you want to add some tweets to your scheduling template.

Scroll over to the Twitter (X) Updates tab in the content calendar spreadsheet, where you’ll see this:

Day, Date, & Time

The first three columns, Day, Date, and Time, are there for your convenience.

If you choose to use a third-party app for pre-scheduling your tweets (like HubSpot’s Social Media Management Software), then these columns will be useful.

Message

Now, let‘s move over to the “Message” column. Here, input the copy you’d like to appear in your tweet. Bear in mind you should cap it at 217 characters to allow enough room for a link. (Read this blog post for a full character count guide.)

This spreadsheet will auto-calculate the number of characters you’ve entered to keep you on point, turning yellow and eventually red as you approach 240 characters.

I find this to be one of the most useful parts of the template because it helps you make edits in real-time. Plus,this ensures you’re being as clear and concise as possible in your captions (to the benefit of your audience).

Link

After you‘ve composed your tweet, paste the URL you’d like to include in your tweet in the Link column. Be sure to include UTM parameters so you’ll know whether these tweets are driving traffic and leads.

This is an important step to remember if you’d like to demonstrate ROI from social media. You can also use the Campaign column to add an associated campaign which helps with more detailed tracking and reporting.

Image

Finally, in the Image column, attach the tweet’s image (if you have one). For Twitter, we recommend images that are 1200 x 670 pixels.

(Click here for a full cheat sheet of social media image sizes.)

If you’re having trouble attaching your image to the spreadsheet, follow these steps:

Step 1: Click on the cell where you’d like to place your image.

Step 2: Click Insert in the top row, then click the Image button, and finally, click Image in cell to choose your image.

Step 3: In the Insert image window, choose the option your photo will come from. In this example, we uploaded an image from our computer.

Step 4: You’ll now see the image appear in the cell.

Pro tip: This process is just for organizational purposes. If you decide to upload the spreadsheet to your social media publishing software, it will not attach — you’ll have to do that manually.

If you’re a HubSpot customer, you can find details on how to bulk upload your Twitter content to the HubSpot Social Publishing Tool in the downloaded template.

2. HootSuite’s Social Media Posting Schedule Template

Another option is the social media posting schedule template from HootSuite.

This free template incorporates five popular platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• X (still referred to as Twitter in the document)
• LinkedIn
• TikTok

However, it can be easily edited to add or remove items as needed as a Google Doc.

What I like: Besides helping you plan your social media publishing, this template includes a helpful “strategy” tab. This makes your goals and content plan easy to refer to as you work through the rest of the document.

It also has a tab dedicated to “evergreen content,” where you can house timeless pieces you can plug into your calendar at any time.

3. Sprout Social’s Social Media Calendar Template

Sprout Social’s social media calendar template is broken down into four weekly tabs and designed to be used per month.

Each tab has columns for key information, including:

• Copy
• Media
• Publish Date
• Network (has a dropdown with Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, TikTik, YouTube, and Pinterest)
• KPIs

What I like: Sprout Social’s platform gets granular about details that others ignore, such as collaborators and KPIs. This goes the extra mile to ensure all social media content is well-planned and working toward a goal. As a Google Doc, the template is also fully customizable.

4. ClickUp’s Social Media Posts Template

If you use ClickUp for your project management, this template may be the one for you.

ClickUp’s social post template lets you plan and organize your content and track its status throughout the creation process.

It includes fields for the assignee, due date, channel, and URL and can be viewed as a list, board, calendar, doc, or “embed.”

Image Source

What I like: From idea to publishing, the “card” style of ClickUp makes it easy to host and see everything related to your social media posts.

You can make comments, attach files, and tag different users so each card serves as a single source of truth for any questions related to that post.

5. SocialBee’s Social Media Content Calendar

SocialBee’s Social Media Content Calendar is another fully editable Google Doc on our list, but one of few that covers a full year.

Image Source

The calendar has a tab for every month and includes dozens of fun and unique post ideas.

What I like: SocialBee really goes above and beyond with making its social media calendar value. In addition to the post ideas in the monthly tabs, it also has a number of extra tabs full of post examples to help get marketers’ creative juices flowing.

The bonus post example tabs include: fun, educational, inspirational, promotional, and interactive — just to name a view.

6. Iconosquare’s Social Media Content Calendar

Social media analytics tool, Iconosquare, has created a social media content that helps teams plan for an entire quarter.

Unlike the other simple spreadsheets on our list, Iconosquare’s social media content calendar template comes as an actual calendar view. While handy, it can only be used in Notion or Google Calendar, limiting its audience.

What I like: Iconosquare’s calendar has many global celebrations and “fun” holidays (i.e. World Chocolate Day) pre-populated. This is a unique and effective way to spark and inspire ideas in users as they are planning their content.

7. Semrush’s Social Media Calendar

Semrush’s social media calendar is another built as an easy-to-edit spreadsheet.

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It provides all the information needed to schedule or publish a post:

• Channel
• Day, Date, and Time
• Post Topic/Type
• Copy
• Visual Type
• Visuals
• Link to Assets
• Status

It also includes color-coding that allows users to get an idea of what content is coming up at a glance.

What I like: I love that this covers a full calendar year, allowing marketers to jot down ideas or important dates as they come up. And that the first tab shows an example of a great social media content calendar which gives newer marketers something to aim for.

8. Later Free Social Media Content Calendar Template

Later’s free social media content calendar template is an editable spreadsheet that can be used to plan for a week.

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It includes a tab with instructions and resources to teach new users how to use the template successfully and also shares an example of a well-planned day.

What I like: While every brand on our list has education on social media marketing available on its website, Later makes its users’ lives easy by linking to those someone would need right in its template.

This is a small but smart move that dramatically improves the user experience.

9. Monday Social Media Content Template

Is Monday your digital planning tool of choice? If so, they’ve got a social media calendar template to add to your workflow.

Image Source

This template is built specifically for use in the Monday software and houses essential information like post copy, date and time of publish, and visual assets.

It also uses color coding to differentiate content categories making it easier to see and audit your content mix.

What I like: I’m a big fan of any tool that lets you see all the conversation surrounding a project in one place. With comments, user tags, and file uploads, Monday makes that possible.

10. Canva Social Media Calendar Template

Last but not least, if you don’t like any of the templates we shared, Canva makes it free and easy to create your own.

How do you get started? Try these weekly or monthly templates created by the team at Buffer, or navigate to Canva’s Calendar templates gallery and play around with making your own.

What I like: Canva is a Godsend when it comes to design and data presentation. I like this option because you get to customize the information included in your social media calendar as you like and give the design a little extra flair.

Don’t forget to interact with your followers.

Whether you use this spreadsheet to plan your content or upload it to a third-party app, you’ll still need to supplement these updates with on-the-fly content.

Breaking news hits? Whip up a quick update to share it with your network. Did someone in your network tweet something interesting? Give it a retweet with some commentary.

Got a fascinating comment on one of your updates? Respond with a “thank you” for their interaction.

Coming up with and scheduling your social media content in advance is a huge time-saver. But it should go without saying that you still need to monitor and add to your social presence throughout the day.

I encourage you to experiment with your social media publishing. This template provides publishing dates and times for each social network, but perhaps you need more or less.

If this is the case, you should adjust your social media publishing frequency as needed.

Now that you’ve got the ins and outs of a social media content calendar, download the one below for free and start planning your content.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

Back in 2015, I worked for a medium-sized British software company. My job was to increase the number of leads we generated from our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.

To help, I was handed around £5,000 and asked to create a few click-worthy Facebook ads.

Feeling a little short on inspiration, I Googled “best ads of all time.”

Here’s what I saw.

The “Think small.” ad is considered the best ad of the 20th century (Ad Age). It’s tremendous. It broke the norms for newspaper advertising with an overwhelming amount of white space that caught attention and challenged the industry norms, showcasing the car’s unusually small design as a benefit, not a drawback.

But it didn’t help me come up with a lead magnet Facebook ad. My ideas were lousy.

Turns out, staring at great ads didn’t help me create great ads.

Instead, I should have learned the psychology behind great ads, which can provide simple tips anyone can use to make an ad more effective.

In the eight years since, I’ve interviewed dozens of ad experts on Nudge and now have three scientifically proven tactics I use whenever I’m creating an ad.

So, time to stop staring at the Volkswagen, and instead try following this simple advice.

Scientifically Proven Tactics for Creating an Ad (With Examples)

1. Create scarcity.

Back in 2019, KFC Australia ran a promotion. Chips for $1 across Australia.

To promote the offer, KFC devised a giant Facebook experiment. They created 90 different promotional messages, including creative copy like:

The Colonel has never been so generous, chips for a dollar.

Loved from Perth to Brisbane. They’re just $1.

Australia’s favorite chips for just $1.

All 90 different variations were published on Facebook ads in one mammoth experiment to see which was most effective.

Each of the ads was shown to thousands of Aussies, and the KFC team measured how many clicks each individual ad received.

The ad that won was deceivingly simple. It read:

“Chips for $1. Limited to four per customer.”

Out of all 90 variations, this got the most clicks and drove the most sales. But why? KFC was limiting the promotion. KFC restricted the amount customers could buy.

So, why did it drive sales?

It’s due to scarcity.

By limiting the amount available, KFC made the chips seem like a scarce resource. We’re wired to prefer scarce resources over abundant resources.

When we read that the chips are limited to four per customer, we quickly assume the deal must be good — why else would KFC limit it?

This experiment shows that scarcity will often beat the most creative ad slogans.

So, with the ad you’re creating, try to add a bit of scarcity. Perhaps limit the amount a customer can buy. Maybe you should display low stock levels or a limited-time offer.

Do it ethically and truthfully and you’ll probably create a better ad.

2. Leave a letter out.

In a 2020 study by Leo Burnett, Mike Treharne, and Richard Shotton (cited in Richard’s book), participants were shown ads with brand names containing missing letters, for example, “HS_C.”

It was obvious to readers that the bank was HSBC, but by removing one letter, the ad became more engaging. And thus more effective.

Shotton, Treharne, and Burnett found that brand names with missing letters were 14% more memorable.

This is due to the generation effect.

By removing one of the letters from the brand name, the viewer is forced to think to find the answer.

It’s not hard. Everyone in the study knew that the bank was HSBC, but that extra bit of engagement made the ad more effective.

The charity Cancer Research UK has applied this exact principle in some of their ads.

They ran this major billboard campaign.

It takes viewers just a second to discover the answer is OBESITY. But that extra bit of engagement made the ad more memorable.

The American Red Cross has found a smart way to apply this same bias.

They removed the letters A, B, and O from their ad to highlight the need for those blood types and create a memorable ad.

The jumbled slogan forces the viewer to pay attention and makes the ad more effective.

In the lab, it’s shown to boost memorability.

And I reckon, it’s worth testing out yourself in your ads.

Try using incomplete brand names in your marketing materials, introduce quizzes or puzzles in your ad design, or test an interactive ad format that requires some form of user input.

It’s proven to make your ad more memorable.

Read more:

• What Makes an Ad Memorable?

3. Ask a question.

Rohini Ahluwalia and Robert Burnkrant in their 2004 study showed several hundred participants dozens of different ads.

Ahluwalia and Burnkrant wanted to see if certain types of language made for more effective advertising copy.

They found that ads with questions in the copy were rated 14% more favorably than ads without a question.

Simply adding a question mark made the ad more engaging.

The two researchers hypothesized that audiences feel more connected to an ad when it poses a question.

The questions engage the audience, making the ad more effective.

A few years back I tested this exact Nudge ad.

I ran two Reddit ads.

The first ad (the control) had no question attached.

It said, “Ditch boring business podcasts. Try Nudge.” Next to that copy, I put a few of my 5-star reviews.

The second ad was identical to the first, except, I added a question.

“Bored of boring business podcasts? Try Nudge.”

I found that Ahluwalia and Burnkrant’s finding was real.

The ad with the question was 17% more effective than the control ad.

It drove far more people to my podcast and resulted in many more listeners.

A 17% improvement from changing just two words and adding a question mark is impressive. It shows that questions engage viewers — and they make an ad more effective.

These three tips won’t help you create an award-winning ad. They won’t spark the same creativity behind Volkswagen’s “Think small.” campaign.

But they will improve your ads. And, they’re simple, actionable steps you can use on any ad to nudge it that bit closer to perfection.

This blog is part of Phill Agnew’s Marketing Cheat Sheet series where he reveals scientifically proven tips to help you improve your marketing. To learn more, listen to his podcast Nudge, a proud member of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Graza. Fishwife. Brightland.

If you’ve never heard of them, just walk into a local specialty store — you’re guaranteed to spot some of these brands, with packaging so aesthetically pleasing they make you feel like walking inside an Instagram feed.

Gander helped build the Graza brand from scratch, an olive oil that comes in a squeeze bottle. Source: GoPuff

Marked by bright colors, bold fonts, and creative illustrations, this style of packaging is now moving beyond specialty stores and into big retail aisles.

“If you walk into almost every major retail chain grocery store in the US, there would be at least one product that we designed, if not two.”

That was Mike McVicar, co-founder of Gander, a Brooklyn-based design studio behind Graza, Magic Spoon, and a dozen of other “viral” brands.

I tracked him down after obsessing over Gander’s visual style, and asked him about the latest trends in packaging design.

Except he’s not a fan of following trends or virality — not surprising for a die-hard creative.

“We get all the time that our work is trendy and that we’ve set a certain visual tone with our work, but we don’t intentionally do that,” Mike confessed. “It can feel limiting and annoying sometimes.”

But he still shared his take on why we’re seeing this phenomenon.

The Design Pendulum

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, good design wasn’t a priority for consumer packaged goods (CPG).

Packages with call-outs and stickers that scream “33% less fat” were the mainstream, a style that Mike endearingly described as “over the top, ugly, and kind of extra.”

When the 2010s rolled around, branding design went to the other extreme — the blanding trend.

Packages became minimalistic and generic, often featuring sans serif fonts and pastel colors.

And now with the rise of social shopping, many brands are catering to the dopamine-charged, color-forward Instagram aesthetic.

It’s also a renaissance of the Y2K style, with bold colors and playful textures.

“The pendulum has swung toward ‘it can be fun again!’” Mike said.

Big brands love this trend, too.

From Jell-O to 7UP, they’re redesigning to dial up the dopamine, and creating a visual identity that spreads fun and joy.

The Downside to A Trending Style

The problem with this trend? 

It has led some companies to prioritize “doing it for the ‘gram” when they come to Gander. 

“You find brands that just have very decorative design, or only feel interesting aesthetically. It won’t pay off for them in the long run, or even in the short run,” Mike said.

It’s problematic for brands to emulate what everyone else is doing, or recreating a trend, because:

• You’re assuming that someone else’s solution is your solution
• You’ll be easily replaceable
• You’re not focusing on communicating your own brand values and differentiation to customers

He also doesn’t believe the current dopamine packaging trend will stay for that much longer.

It’s a pendulum, after all. 

Differentiate Brands Through Design

Back in 2015, Gander worked on the rebranding for Banza, a pasta made from chickpeas.

Contrary to the popular style on the pasta aisle back then (think Barilla’s simplistic blue packaging), Gander went for a bright and expressive style. 

Source: Gander

Banza was one of the early brands to make a bold statement with packaging, which impacted the food industry as a whole. 

“Our ethos was to take an alternative food, and turn it into a brand that has subverted what was expected for gluten-free pasta,” Mike said.

And it worked.

Banza went from anonymity to one of the top pasta brands in the US. It’s now in 25k retail locations nationally, including Target, Walmart and Costco.

Since then, Gander’s helped many other CPG brands get on big retail shelves. Graza, whose design they helped build from scratch, hit $48m+ in revenue and can be found in 13k+ locations.

Looking back at their big wins, Mike gave three simple tips for any brand who want to stand out through design:

• Start with your story and history as a brand, instead of following trends blindly;
• Understand who your customer is, what kind of world they live in aesthetically, and what’s pleasing to them;
• Look at your competition, and see what opportunities align with your product and company that others aren’t doing yet.

What Else Is Trending in CPG Design?

As anti-trend as he is, Mike did get excited about one particular trend — the inclusion of “next-level delicious food photography” on packages.

The “bleh” to “yum” transformation. Source: AdWeek

You’d think it’s a no-brainer, but a decade ago, it wasn’t mainstream to put high-quality food photography on the packages.

“It never prints right, it doesn’t look that great, and the investment of creating something really good can be difficult for small brands,” Mike said.

But the tide has shifted.

Influenced by social media, younger consumers prefer packaging that actually stir up their appetite, and major food brands are trying to make their products look extra tasty.

Now that’s a trend we can all get behind. 

When considering who to learn from in the marketing space, one brand stands out: Liquid Death.

They’ve mastered the art of turning healthy beverages into a sought-after brand, making them ideal marketing mentors.

But they’ve done more than reinvent water — in many ways, they’ve reinvented marketing, as well.

I spoke with Greg Fass, Liquid Death’s VP of Marketing, to learn how he’s cultivated an anti-marketing approach, why some of his favorite campaigns involve Tony Hawk and Martha Stewart, and his belief that Liquid Death’s success comes down to understanding people aren’t “brainless consumers of products”.

How Liquid Death Wins at Anti-Marketing — And What You Can Learn from Them

1. Don’t overcomplicate your target audience.

Most target personas are awfully specific: “Marketing Melvin likes long walks on the beach, reading true-crime thrillers, watching videos on TikTok, and is interested in budget-friendly ways to grow his e-commerce startup.”

And there’s power in identifying a few key characteristics of your buyer – but it’s also inherently limiting.

Fass believes there are plenty of reasons why someone might connect with your brand.

For instance, Fass believes his target audience could be any of the following:

• Someone who likes entertainment and humor
• Someone who appreciates the sustainability angle (i.e. “bringing death to plastic”)
• Someone who acknowledges that Liquid Death is the reason their child is finally excited to drink water
• A sober-curious individual who wants to have a fun-looking drink while at a party
• People who like skulls

I’ll add one just for fun: Thirsty people.

Granted, water arguably has the biggest demographic of any product out there. But his point still holds true: Get too hyper-focused on building up your ‘target persona’ and you could be missing out on all the different reasons someone might connect with your brand first – and your product second.

2. People aren’t brainless consumers.

Here’s a fun fact: At Liquid Death, they don’t use the word consumer. Ever.

Instead, they have a team called “human insights”.

Fass is proud to work against the mindset that people are just “brainless consumers” whose sole purpose on Earth is to consume products. (Yep – that’s a direct quote.)

Instead, he says, “At Liquid Death, I’m proud that we think of our audiences as people. And when you think of them as humans, you understand they’ll get a piece of copy that isn’t straightforward, or jokes other brands are afraid to make. They’re intelligent, and have a sense of humor.”

It’s a philosophy that has served them well. Just consider the commercial where Martha Stewart is a serial killer chopping off hands to make candles — not exactly something that would go over well in a standard marketing pitch.

Liquid Death has done more than reinvent the better-for-you beverage category — they’ve reinvented marketing, as well.

Embracing their anti-marketing approach can help you discover fresh and novel ways of connecting better with, well, other humans.

3. People will buy your product if you can make them laugh.

A Liquid Death marketing meeting sounds like the beginning of a very odd joke: The lead singer of a punk band, an ex-Onion writer, a co-creator of adult cartoon Mr. Pickles, and a former competitive snowboarder all walk into a conference room. 

Fass says it resembles an SNL writers room more than a marketing department.

“We’re not just a brand that’s a funny brand,” Fass tells me. “We put out true comedy. That’s the bar for us. I’m proud to work on projects that compete with real entertainment that exists on the internet, because that’s why most people are on the internet in the first place. Not to buy a product.”

You’ve got to hand it to them: It’s not easy to create a hilarious ad for water or iced tea. But it works because Liquid Death’s content isn’t really about the product. The product is an aside to grandiosity and playfulness. That’s what they’re selling.

Like their recent campaign where a fan could win a $400K fighter jet along with six months of free hangar space (pilot not included); or Ozzy Ozbourne reminding youths not to snort Liquid Death’s new hydration powder.

For Fass, it’s simple: “When you can make someone laugh, they’re more likely to give your product a try.”

4. Don’t post if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say.

Fass hates the conventional wisdom that you should “always be posting.” For Fass, an obsession with quantity can very quickly diminish good content. 

At Liquid Death, they won’t post for two weeks if they don’t feel they have anything worthwhile to say.

“There’s celebrities and hilarious meme accounts on social media — that’s why people are on there,” he says, “The bar on social is very high. So you need to be competing at that highest level with everything you do.”

He also tells me he can’t believe when big brands push aside social as a “nice-to-have” or something for the interns to lead. 

“You should be putting your top brains in creative on social,” he fervently believes. “There’s a feeling like, ‘Well, it’s just social.’ At Liquid Death, social is a major priority for our entire brand and creative team.”

5. Humor comes down to tension.

Fass believes there’s a certain comedic science behind Liquid Death’s success, and it’s relatively simple: Tension.

In other words — two things that shouldn’t go together, but do.

Case-in-point: A healthy beverage with a skull on it; e.l.f. Cosmetics and black metal corpse paint; plush sea creature stuffed animals that have been heavily mutilated by single-use plastic.

You get my drift.

“What it comes down to is we have these ideas that other people would never try,” Fass says. “They’d think, ‘no way a client would ever approve of this’, or ‘our CEO will shut it down’. Those ideas never get to see the light of day — but at Liquid Death, we’ve created a culture where we celebrate those ideas and go forward with them.”

And you know,“ he adds with a grin, ”Sometimes we end up winning the internet that day.”

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

I’ve been an inclusive marketing strategist and consultant for seven years. My entry into this space was heavily influenced by my lifelong experiences as a frustrated consumer.

Several components of my identity make me different from what is often considered to be “mainstream.” And as a result, brands didn’t often serve me well because of the things that make me different.

Some Consumers Consistently Have Less Than Ideal Customer Experiences

I conducted a research study for a client in 2022 to understand how consumers of hotels and bed and breakfasts think about belonging.

Here’s what a few consumers who are part of underrepresented and underserved communities had to say about their subpar customer experiences:

• “People with food allergies and restrictions should have an opportunity to get everything that they paid for.”
• “I wish they realized that larger people want to travel and feel as though our money is as important as straight-sized individuals. Oftentimes, larger guests will find themselves with tiny towels, hard-to-reach items, not much space between furniture.”
• “I’ve stayed at numerous places where there was nothing to eat on the menu for me (vegan) and staff was not open to making adjustments.”
• “I need grab bars in the shower.”
• “People are allergic to feathers.”

This frustration doesn’t just exist for some hospitality industry consumers. It often impacts people across the board who are part of underrepresented communities. Historically, brands have done a poor job of serving these communities well.

A comprehensive study commissioned by beauty retailer Sephora showed that 2 out of 5, or 40%, of retail shoppers, have personally experienced unfair treatment based on their race or skin color.

Numerous studies show that women are subjected to the “pink tax,” where they are charged (and sometimes taxed, in the case of feminine care products) more for similar products such as razors, toys, and dry cleaning than men are.

One study showed women are charged 48% more for shampoo, even though the ingredients are similar. Another study showed that the pink tax costs women an extra $1,351 annually and more than $100,000 throughout a lifetime.

These less-than-ideal experiences for consumers from underrepresented and underserved communities lead to frustration and much lower conversions with the brands they have these substandard experiences with.

When people are frustrated or feel like they are treated like an afterthought, they don’t convert, don’t make repeat purchases, and don’t achieve success at the same rate as others.

In this episode of the Inclusion & Marketing podcast, I do a deep dive into factors that influence your customers’ success and conversions that you should be aware of so you can fix them.

There’s a simple solution to increase conversions throughout the customer experience you deliver for all the people you want to serve.

Eliminate identity-based friction.

Here’s how to do it.

How to Deliver Conversion-Boosting Customer Experiences

1. Acknowledge the many ways consumers can be different.

Differences are common.

From the standpoint of consumers who have the problem your brand solves, there are a myriad of identities and ways in which they can be different that will have an impact on the customer experience your brand delivers.

Take the time to go through an exercise evaluating all the different ways your ideal customer could be different.

Here’s a list of common dimensions of diversity that impact the way a consumer experiences your brand, and ultimately whether or not they convert.

Once you find the different identities of the consumers you want to serve, the next step is to understand how their needs differ.

This free customer journey map template from HubSpot can help you identify how the journeys of various consumers could differ based on their identities.

Simply acknowledging that not all the customers you serve have the same need helps you expand your way of operating.

For instance, say you own a hotel and did this exercise. If the results highlighted that some of your ideal customers will be allergic to feathers, you might make different choices about the type of bedding you offer. As a result, you could deliver a high-quality and safe experience for all your guests.

Taylor Loren is a marketer who recently launched a content marketing strategy playbook. I loved seeing a callout on her sales page highlighting that the course was built with neurodivergent brains in mind.

The product offering was made to deliver a more inclusive experience because Loren first identified that neurodivergent people are a part of her ideal customer base.

2. Don’t “other” people.

No one likes to feel othered, or like they aren’t part of a group because of their differences. I often remind clients that not everyone has a great relationship with what makes them different, so they often don’t want to be reminded of this when they’re trying to engage with a brand.

Remember, belonging is the goal. The more people feel like they belong with you, the higher your conversion rates will be.

When people feel cast aside or like they aren’t “normal” they are less likely to take action to continue engaging with a brand that makes them feel that way. People who feel othered are less likely to convert.

Instead of labeling things that may make some consumers feel frustrated or upset, enable customers to find what they need without making them feel like something is wrong with them.

Some retail brands have stopped ‘othering’ shoppers who need a larger size by eliminating the “plus-sized” label from the shopping experience.

Here’s an example of a brand using the plus-sized label in a way that ‘others’ people and delivers a substandard customer experience.

Here’s an example of a brand that allows shoppers to find what they need without ‘othering’ them, thus delivering a more positive customer experience that makes more people feel like they belong.

In this episode of the Inclusion & Marketing podcast, I explored the concept of “normal” and how marketers should use it to deliver remarkable customer experiences for all the people they serve.

3. Don’t force people to ‘raise their hands’ to acknowledge their differences.

I spoke at a conference earlier this year, and my session was just before lunchtime. After it was over, I went to the buffet lunch that was set up for the attendees and noticed there weren’t any labels on the food from a food allergy standpoint.

So, I went and asked one of the servers if they could let me know which items were safe, and a few minutes later, someone brought out a prepared plate from the chef full of gluten-free items, including dishes that weren’t included at the buffet.

When I sat down to eat it, the woman next to me heard me talking about my experience of having to wait to get gluten-free food. She told me she was also gluten-free for health reasons. However, she added that she opted to guess which foods in the buffet were gluten-free because she didn’t want to say anything.

It is important to recognize that not everyone who has an identity that makes them different wants to raise their hand and tell the world about the specific needs they have.

Here’s a clip in which famed producer Shonda Rhimes shares about a time when she decided against “raising her hand” to express her need for a special accommodation, even though it could negatively impact her safety.

When working to improve your conversions by eliminating identity-based friction in the customer experience you deliver, take the time to ensure that consumers don’t have to raise their hands to acknowledge their differences and get what they need from you.

Make it so that you’ve included a way for people to easily get their questions answered, get the accommodations they need, or self-identify what will work best for them in their experience without having to detail their personal information to a stranger.

During a research study I conducted for a client, one consumer explained that brands make her feel like she belongs “When I don’t have to ask for accommodation because they are already available.”

In this episode of the Inclusion & Marketing podcast, I walk you through my Inclusive Customer Experience Spectrum to help you identify how to deliver experiences that convert a higher number of customers.

Better Customer Experiences Lead to Higher Conversions

You can increase conversions for your brand. It results from delivering better customer experiences for all the people you serve, including those from underrepresented and underserved communities.

Start by identifying how the people you serve are different. Then, design experiences that make all of your ideal customers feel like they belong with your brand, no matter their identity.

As a new marketing assistant, I once created an email campaign for our biggest product launch. Despite spending hours crafting the seemingly “perfect” message, the next day’s analytics showed dismal open and click-through rates.

The problem? I had neglected the design, resulting in a cluttered mess with no clear call-to-action. This harsh wake-up call taught me that in email marketing, design is as crucial as content.

This experience set me on a path to mastering email design. I learned that effective emails require a balance of engaging copy and visually appealing design that guides readers to action.

In this blog post, I’ve explored email design best practices, covering everything from attention-grabbing subject lines to responsive design.

Why Email Design Matters

With email users expected to reach 4.7 billion by 2026, mastering email design is crucial for reaching and converting your target audience.

Email recipients often scan information and abandon emails that don‘t offer them value or simply appear to be too dense.

That’s why having great email design is so important — it’ll help you capture the attention of, and engage, your email recipients.

Your email design should be attention-grabbing, aesthetically-pleasing, and on-brand, among other things — let’s dive into those things next with these 13 best practices for email design.

1. Craft a strong subject line.

Your email subject line is the first thing anyone sees when you send them an email. It’s the brief statement that’s supposed to pique the interest of your recipients. It should capture their attention so they want to open your email and continue reading.

Here’s what a subject line looks like in your email inbox:

Here’s what a subject line looks like in your mobile device’s email inbox:

A great subject line will have these characteristics:

• Grab the attention of your readers in as few words as possible (remember: less is more).
• Provide value for the recipient that makes them want to open the email.
• Summarize what recipients are going to read and/ or see once they open the email.

2. Write an attention-grabbing pre-header.

Your email pre-header is a preview of what the email is about, similar to the meta description of a web page. It’s the second thing recipients see.

Rather than rewriting the first sentence of your email, you can customize the pre-header to provide an inside look into what your recipients are about to read in your message.

Here’s what a pre-header looks like in your email inbox:

Here’s what a pre-header looks like in your mobile device’s email inbox:

3. Be concise.

How many times throughout the day do you find yourself opening an email thinking, I can’t wait to sit down and take the next 5-10 minutes to really dive into this email from Business X!

If you’re anything like me, your answer is likely rarely or never.

Give email recipients the information they want and need from you without getting into the weeds. This will show them you value their time which has the potential to help you improve email subscriber retainment.

4. Keep your email on-brand.

When your email recipients open your message, they should know the email was sent from your company. Meaning your email should be branded.

To keep your email on-brand, consider using the following tactics:

• Use a tone in your emails that complements your other content and marketing materials (like your website and social media).
• Incorporate the same colors and fonts that you use in your other branding and marketing materials.
• Include your logo, a link to your website, links to your social media accounts, and calls-to-action (CTAs) that are relevant to your products or services. This is a great way to increase brand awareness while also boost conversions.

5. Use the layout to enhance your email’s user experience.

Nobody wants to read a cluttered and unorganized email — this makes recipients feel overwhelmed and can lead to increased abandonment.

Instead, organize your layout with user experience (UX) in mind — meaning, leave empty/white space and strategically place your written and visual content so it’s organized and easy to consume and navigate.

6. Personalize every email.

When you customize an email and tailor it to your recipient, it’ll feel more thoughtful, professional, and personal.

Email personalization also helps you humanize your brand. This touch helps you foster a relationship between your business and email recipients and boost retention rates.

Beyond just using a recipient’s name, personalization is a crucial aspect of email marketing. I asked Nura Busleiman, the head of email marketing operations for the lifecycle team at MarketerHire, how to go beyond using a recipient’s name:

“The most important thing is to understand where in the customer journey your lead is. If they are just getting to know you, they might need different information than someone who already bought your product or service.”

Busleiman’s advice highlights the importance of tailoring your email content to each recipient’s specific stage in the customer journey:

“Understanding their journey will lead you to better emails and results, of course. Your contact needs to understand why they are receiving that email at that moment and what they are expected to do.”

This level of personalization ensures that your emails are not only relevant but also provide clear value to the reader, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

7. Incorporate unique visual content.

If recipients open an email and only see paragraphs of information, it’s likely going to be difficult to hold their attention and keep them interested in your message.

Rather, incorporate on-brand and engaging images, videos, GIFs, animations, etc. to break up the written content and create a memorable experience.

And speaking of incorporating creative and unique visual content in your emails, let’s talk emojis.

8. Don’t be afraid to use emojis. 🧡

At first, emojis may seem like an unnecessary or unprofessional addition to an email. While this may be a fair assumption, it’s actually untrue in a number of scenarios.

In fact, when you add emojis to your email subject line and/ or email copy, you can increase your open and click-through rates.

But remember: When using emojis for marketing purposes, make sure you know the meaning and connotation of the specific one(s) you incorporate. 😃

9. Use a responsive design.

A responsive design means your email changes format to fit the screen it’s being viewed on, whether it’s on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. Recipients will be able to read your emails with ease no matter where or how they’re viewing them.

By incorporating a responsive design, you’ll be able to enhance UX and improve email retention across all devices.

10. Optimize your email with CTAs.

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are used to convert your email recipients. For instance, you can use a CTA to get recipients to follow you on social media, visit your website, chat with a sales rep, or become paying customers.

CTAs should be visible, enticing, and clearly show why they’re valuable to click. Additionally, you might choose to personalize your CTAs to tailor them towards specific recipients — this tactic has been proven to increase conversions.

11. Add an “unsubscribe” button.

Email marketing is highly effective as long as you’re providing relevant content to your recipients.

The unfortunate but true reality of email marketing is that your recipients and customers change over time — especially as your business grows and evolves. Therefore, your content may not always be relevant to certain audience members.

For this reason, allow your recipients to leave (or unsubscribe from your emails) on a good note so they can remember your business in a positive light — who knows, they may need your email content, products, or services again in the future.

To do this, simplify their lives with an easy-to-use and visible “unsubscribe” button.

In addition to offering a better experience for users, you’re actually required by law to add that unsubscribe button.

According to the Federal Trade Commission and CAN-SPAM Act, you’re legally required to include a “clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt-out of getting emails from you in the future.”

Meaning, that unsubscribe button isn’t an option.

(If you need some inspiration, check out these effective unsubscribe pages.)

12. A/B test your design.

Similar to most marketing efforts, email design is an iterative process. You might determine you need to make changes and updates to get the most out of your email design.

But what elements should you focus on when A/B testing? Here Busleiman shares her insights once more:

“Usually, CTAs placed above the fold (visible without scrolling) generally see higher click-through rates. What I do recommend anyway is to always try to talk as your audience talks, understand their customer journey, and show them images that they can find familiar. You can also A/B test attributes such as voice and tone. Don’t make assumptions, just experiments!”

Busleiman’s advice highlights several key areas for A/B testing:

1. CTA placement. Testing the position of your call-to-action, especially above the fold, can significantly improve click-through rates.
2. Language and tone. Experimenting with different ways of speaking to your audience can help you find the most effective communication style.
3. Imagery. Testing various images that resonate with your audience’s experiences can improve engagement.
4. Voice and tone. Even subtle changes in how you express your message can make a big difference.

Pro tip: Remember, the goal of A/B testing is to let data guide your decisions rather than relying on assumptions. By consistently testing these elements, you can continually refine your email design for maximum impact.

13. Design an email signature.

Great email signature design is another way you can establish a professional and personal feel over email.

Email signatures shouldn’t just include your name — they should contain other defining and memorable characteristics about you, your role, contact information, and company.

Here are some specifics you can include in your email signature:

• First and last name
• Contact information (and secondary contact information)
• Job Title / Role
• Company Name
• Link to your meeting calendar
• Social media links (e.g. LinkedIn profile)
• Pronouns
• Photo
• Industry disclaimer or legal requirements

Creating a professional email signature doesn’t have to be complicated. You can easily design one using HubSpot’s free email signature generator, which helps you incorporate all these elements seamlessly.

A great way to streamline the process of working on and incorporate all 13 of the above best practices is to use email design tools and software.

In fact, many of the best practices we reviewed will come up naturally while you’re designing, writing, and planning your messages with email design software.

While these best practices provide a solid foundation, sometimes seeing real-world examples can offer additional insights.

Take a look at our collection of innovative email newsletter designs for more ideas on how to apply these principles creatively.

Email Design Tools

There are a number of email design tools with a wide range of capabilities (some completely unrelated to email design!). Here are some popular examples.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot’s Email Marketing software allows you to create, design, personalize, and optimize all of your emails.

You don’t need any IT or coding knowledge, and you can easily customize mobile-friendly emails. The software allows you to A/B test emails to determine which designs work best.

Additionally, it includes an AI-generated email feature that can significantly enhance your productivity.

2. BEEPro

As a BEEPro user, you can design responsive emails in just minutes.

Smart design tools provide you with a quick way to format your emails and ensure your layout complements your content.

You can also customize and save various email design templates so your messaging and branding is consistent.

3. MailChimp

With over 100 templates offered, MailChimp allows you to customize your email design for your target audience.

If you’re someone who does have coding experience, and you want to take your design a step further, MailChimp offers you the ability to code your template too.

4. Stripo

Stripo requires no HTML knowledge to create and design professional email templates. All of their pre-made templates are responsive so readers can easily view them via any device.

You can also sync your current email service provider (ESP) with the software to access all of your email and contact information from a central location.

5. Chamaileon

As a collaborative email builder, Chamaileon gives you the ability to invite members of your team to collaborate on your designs.

The software ensures your emails will have a responsive design and automatically comes with over 100 pre-made templates to customize for specific recipients.

While these tools can help you create visually appealing emails, it’s also valuable to see how other successful companies are designing their emails. For inspiration and ideas, check out our curated list of effective email marketing examples.

These real-world examples can help you understand how to apply design principles and best practices to your own email campaigns.

Email Design Examples

Let’s take a look at some successful email designs to inspire your work.

HubSpot Marketing Blog

HubSpot used to send emails to Marketing Blog subscribers every day. These included a few blog marketing-related articles to read and learn from. If recipients chose, they could also subscribe to HubSpot’s Sales Blog and Service Blog emails.

The emails were branded so readers immediately know who the email is from and what it will include. To make the daily emails engaging and unique, they included previews of the articles and an occasional quiz.

Starbucks Rewards

Starbucks customers and members may have seen this email, or something similar, in their inbox before:

The email complements Starbucks’ marketing and branding, and there’s plenty of white space separating the written information from the engaging imagery. And the CTA that recipients can click on to activate the offer is clearly placed.

Vital Proteins Email Design

Although Vital Proteins’ email design contains many images and a lot of information, it’s neatly organized so it doesn’t feel overwhelming to recipients. The email’s colors, font, and visuals are on-brand and feature the company’s products.

There’s an obvious CTA that redirects recipients to their Instagram page — in turn, this type of CTA helps the company increase their follower count and brand awareness on the social platform.

Grow Better With Really Good Email Design

Email design is an art form that masterfully blends visual appeal, strategic planning, and psychological principles. It’s a crucial skill that deserves continuous refinement to achieve better results from your email marketing campaigns.

I’m particularly excited about the impact of personalization, which pushed me to explore creative ways to tailor emails beyond just using names.

For example, the potential of emojis to boost open rates challenged my preconceptions, and is something I’ll start experimenting with in subject lines.

Armed with these insights, you can now craft emails that not only reach your audience but also resonate deeply with them.

Remember, great email design is an ongoing process. As email continues to evolve, so too will design best practices. Stay curious, keep experimenting, and most importantly, always prioritize your audience’s experience.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Which AI tactics will keep your site relevant and engaging as website strategies shift from broad audience capture to hyper-personalization?

The days of designing websites solely for broad audience capture and search engine optimization are well behind us. The future now lies in hyper-personalization, where websites cater to the specific needs and preferences of each visitor.

AI is at the forefront of this transformation, providing advanced tools and insights to create more relevant and engaging websites based on individual user data.

While the sheer volume of AI technologies — and the speed at which they’re evolving — might feel overwhelming, it’s critical for marketing leaders to stay current with these advancements.

In our recent Marketing Against the Grain episode, Kieran and I discuss three high-impact AI strategies for optimizing your website, along with emerging tools and examples, to get you started today. Let’s dive in.

High-Impact AI Strategies for Optimizing Your Website

1. Integrate AI chat ASAP.

One essential (and obvious) strategy that many marketers still overlook is integrating AI chat. AI chatbots are key for curating a seamless user journey by giving users exactly what they need.

These bots don’t get annoyed, nor do they get offended. They guide impatient visitors around your site, answer questions, and personalize interactions, making it easy for users to find what they want, without the hassle of endless clicking.

During the episode, we explored the AI voice chatbot on Hume AI’s website. What stood out to us was how the chatbot effortlessly navigated us through the site based on our verbal requests — completely eliminating the need for typing or clicking.

“Why would I ever click through the pages when I can just start this anonymous conversation with a bot and have it do all the work for me?” says Kieran. “It’s like going into a high-end store and having someone immediately assist you.”

AI chat tools like Hume act as virtual concierges, streamlining the overall user journey by providing a direct pathway to the information they seek. This is crucial for optimizing your website, making it more intuitive, efficient, and ultimately, more satisfying for your users.

2. Lean into AI video experimentation.

AI video tools are game-changers for making your website more hyper-personalized and globally accessible.

Imagine greeting each visitor with a video in their native language or with a custom message tailored to their specific interests based on user data. This creates a better experience for everyone, whether they’re local — or halfway across the world.

Tools HeyGen and InfinityAI offer cutting-edge creative potential that you don’t want to miss out on. And while there’s still room for improvement, as a marketing leader, you should be experimenting and exploring these tools now.

As Sam Altman from OpenAI said during his interview with 20VC, there are two types of companies: those who are building for what AI can do today, and those building for what it will be able to do in the future.

Our advice: position your company in the latter category and start testing new video advancements now to stay ahead in the long term.

3. Improve multimodality with AI-generated audio.

Think about the best salesperson in your company — it’s often the founder. But founders lack the time to continuously create content for marketing campaigns, product releases, and sales initiatives.

This is where AI-generated audio comes in, providing a new level of authenticity and personalization for your website.

For example, AI audio tools like Character.AI or Delphi AI can replicate the voices of key figures like founders, celebrities, or influencers (with proper consent and licensing), delivering personalized messages or testimonials to your audience.

Additionally, AI-generated audio tools can streamline the creation of high-volume content like product demos, explainer videos, and personalized sales pitches, saving your creative team valuable time and resources.

“Websites are going to be much more multimodal in the future than they are now,” Kieran emphasizes. Integrating AI-generated audio is essential for future-proofing your website, making it more dynamic and aligning with shifting user expectations for a more immersive and interactive online experience.

To watch our entire discussion about website optimization in an era of AI, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain below:

This blog series is in partnership with Marketing Against the Grain, the video podcast. It digs deeper into ideas shared by marketing leaders Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (SVP, Marketing at HubSpot) as they unpack growth strategies and learn from standout founders and peers.

Business budgets are a source of truth for your income and expenses. That includes all the money you spend — from A/B testing your marketing campaigns to your monthly office rent.

In my roles, I’ve needed to create budgets for whole projects and smaller writing projects.

While organizing the numbers may sound difficult, I’ve found that using a business budget template makes the process simple. Plus, there are thousands of business budget templates for you to choose from.

In this article, I’ll share seven budget templates that can help organize your finances. But first, you’ll learn about different types of business budgets and how to create one.

Table of Contents

• What is a business budget?
• Types of Budgets for a Business
• How to Create a Business Budget
• How to Manage a Business Budget
• Why is a Budget Important for a Business?
• Best Free Business Budget Templates

The business budget follows a set template, which you can fill in with estimated revenues, plus any recurring or expected business expenses.

For example, say your business is planning a website redesign. You’d need to break down the costs by category: software, content and design, testing, and more.

Having a clear breakdown will help you estimate how much each category will cost and compare it with the actual costs.

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Business budgets aren’t one size fits all. In fact, there are many different types of budgets that serve various purposes.

Let’s dive into some commonly used budgets:

Master Budget

Think of a master budget as the superhero of budgets.

It brings together all the individual budgets from different parts of your company into one big, consolidated plan. It covers everything from sales and production to marketing and finances.

It includes details like projected revenues, expenses, and profitability for each department or business unit. It also considers important financial aspects like cash flow and capital expenditures. The budget even creates a balance sheet to show the organization’s financial position.

The master budget acts as a guide for decision-making, helps with strategic planning, and gives a clear picture of the overall financial health and performance of your company. It’s like the master plan that ties everything together and helps the organization move in the right direction.

Operating Budget

Your operating budget helps your company figure out how much money it expects to make and spend during a specific period, usually a year. It not only predicts the revenue your business will bring in but also outlines expenses it will need to cover, like salaries, rent, bills, and other operational costs.

By comparing your actual expenses and revenue to the budgeted amounts, your company can see how it’s performing and make adjustments if needed. It helps keep things in check, allowing your business to make wise financial decisions and stay on track with its goals.

Cash Budget

A cash budget estimates the cash inflows and outflows of your business over a specific period, typically a month, quarter, or year. It provides a detailed projection of cash sources and uses, including revenue, expenses, and financing activities.

The cash budget helps you effectively manage your cash flow, plan for cash shortages or surpluses, evaluate the need for external financing and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

By utilizing a cash budget, your business can ensure it has enough cash on hand to meet its financial obligations, navigate fluctuations, and seize growth opportunities.

Static Budget

A static budget is a financial plan that remains unchanged, regardless of actual sales or production volumes.

It’s typically created at the beginning of a budget period and doesn’t account for any fluctuations or changes in business conditions. It also assumes that all variables, such as sales, expenses, and production levels, will remain the same throughout the budget period.

While a static budget provides a baseline for comparison, it may not be realistic for businesses with fluctuating sales volumes or variable expenses.

Departmental Budget

A departmental budget focuses on the financial aspects of a specific department within your company, such as sales, marketing, or human resources.

When creating a departmental budget, you may look at revenue sources like departmental sales, grants, and other sources of income. On the expense side, you consider costs such as salaries, supplies, equipment, and any other expenses unique to that department.

The goal of a departmental budget is to help the department manage its finances wisely. It acts as a guide for making decisions and allocating resources effectively. By comparing the actual numbers to the budgeted amounts, department heads can see if they’re on track or if adjustments need to be made.

Capital Budget

A capital budget is all about planning for big investments in the long term. It focuses on deciding where to spend money on things like upgrading equipment, maintaining facilities, developing new products, and hiring new employees.

The budget looks at the costs of buying new stuff, upgrading existing things, and even considers depreciation, which is when something loses value over time. It also considers the return on investment, like how much money these investments might bring in or how they could save costs in the future.

The budget also looks at different ways to finance these investments, whether it‘s through loans, leases, or other options. It’s all about making smart decisions for the future, evaluating cash flow, and choosing investments that will help the company grow and succeed.

Labor Budget

A labor budget helps you plan and manage the costs related to your employees. It involves figuring out how much your business will spend on wages, salaries, benefits, and other labor-related expenses.

To create a labor budget, you‘ll need to consider factors like how much work needs to be done, how many folks you’ll need to get it done, and how much it’ll all cost. This can help your business forecast and control labor-related expenses and ensure adequate staffing levels.

By having a labor budget in place, your business can monitor and analyze your labor costs to make informed decisions and optimize your resources effectively.

Project Budget

A project budget is a financial plan for a specific project.

Let‘s say you have an exciting new project you want to tackle. A project budget helps you figure out how much money you’ll need and how it will be allocated. It covers everything from personnel to equipment and materials — basically, anything you’ll need to make the project happen.

By creating a project budget, you can make sure the project is doable from a financial standpoint. It helps you keep track of how much you planned to spend versus how much you actually spend as you go along.

That way, you have a clear idea of whether you’re staying on track or if there are any financial challenges that need attention.

How to Create a Business Budget

While creating a business budget can be straightforward, the process may be more complex for larger companies with multiple revenue streams and expenses.

No matter the size of your business, here are the basic steps to creating a business budget.

1. Gather financial data.

Before you create a business budget, it’s important to gather insights from your past financial data. By looking at income statements, expense reports, and sales data, you can spot trends, learn from past experiences, and see where you can make improvements.

Going through your financial history helps you paint an accurate picture of your income and expenses. So, when you start creating your budget, you can set achievable targets and make sure your estimates match what’s actually been happening in your business.

Besides past financials, consider new expenses. For instance, if your business is looking to try a new marketing channel, you’d need to document your goals for that channel. Afterward, walk backward to figure out how much you need to achieve those goals and include it in your budget.

2. Find a template or make a spreadsheet.

There are many free or paid budget templates online. You can start with an existing budget template. We list a few helpful templates below.

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You may also opt to make a spreadsheet with custom rows and columns based on your business.

3. Fill in revenues.

Once you have your template, start by listing all the sources of your business’ income. With a budget, you’re planning for the future, so you’ll also need to forecast revenue streams based on previous months or years.

For a new small business budget, you’ll rely on your market research to estimate early revenue for your company. If you’re trying out new channels, consider using industry benchmarks to gauge the revenue to expect.

When you estimate your revenue, you’re essentially figuring out how much money you have to work with. This helps you decide where to allocate your resources and which expenses you can fund.

4. Subtract fixed costs for the time period.

Fixed costs are the recurring costs you have during each month, quarter, or year. Examples include insurance, rent for office space, website hosting, and internet.

The key thing to remember about fixed costs is that they stay relatively stable, regardless of changes in business activity. Even if your sales decrease or production slows down, these costs remain the same.

However, it’s important to note that fixed costs can still change over the long term, such as when renegotiating lease agreements or adjusting employee salaries.

5. Consider variable costs.

Variable costs will change from time to time. Unlike fixed costs, variable costs increase or decrease as the level of production or sales changes.

Examples include raw materials needed to manufacture your products, packaging and shipping costs, utility bills, advertising costs, office supplies, and new software or technology.

You may always need to pay some variable costs, like utility bills. However, you can shift how much you spend toward other expenses, like advertising costs, when you have a lower-than-average estimated income.

6. Set aside time for business budget planning.

Unexpected expenses might come up, or you might want to save to expand your business. Either way, review your budget after including all expenses, fixed costs, and variable costs.

Once completed, you can determine how much money you can save. It’s wise to create multiple savings accounts. One should be used for emergencies. The other holds money that can be spent on the business to drive growth.

7. Conduct budget reviews.

Every budget requires periodic reviews. Regular reviews let you know what’s working and respond to changes in your financial outlook.

When doing a budget review, compare your estimated budget to your actual spend. This lets you know how to make better revenue and expense projections.

There is no rule stating when you should conduct your budget review. However, I’d recommend you do it monthly, quarterly, and yearly.

• Monthly reviews: Check your estimated versus actual spend. Look for items whose actual spend surpasses the estimated cost. Consider cost-cutting measures for such items when forecasting your expenses for the next month.
• Quarterly reviews: Use this review to identify month-over-month budget estimates and actual spend for three months. Use the insights to determine what you should spend less or more on and forecast better for the next quarter.
• Yearly reviews: This review lets you assess your projections for the year. If they were accurate, double down on it. If otherwise, reflect on what didn’t work and use what you’ve learned to make better long-term financial projections for the next year.

How to Manage a Business Budget

There are a few key components to managing a healthy business budget.

Budget Preparation

The process all starts with properly preparing and planning the budget at the beginning of each month, quarter, or year.

You can also create multiple budgets, some short-term and some long-term. During this stage, you will also set spending limits and create a system to regularly monitor the budget.

Budget Monitoring

In larger businesses, you might delegate budget tracking to multiple supervisors.

But even if you’re a one-person show, keep a close eye on your budget.

That means setting a time in your schedule each day or week to review the budget and track actual income and expenses. Be sure to compare the actual numbers to the estimates.

Budget Forecasting

With regular budget tracking, you always know how your business is doing.

Check in regularly to determine how you are doing in terms of revenue and where you have losses. Find where you can minimize expenses and how you can move more money into savings.

Why is a Budget Important for a Business?

A budget is crucial for businesses. Without one, you could easily be drowning in expenses or unexpected costs.

The business budget helps with several operations. You can use a business budget to keep track of your finances, save money to help you grow the business or pay bonuses in the future, and prepare for unexpected expenses or emergencies.

You can also review your budget to determine when to take the next leap for your business. For example, you might be dreaming of a larger office building or the latest software, but you want to make sure you have a healthy net revenue before you make the purchase.

Best Free Business Budget Templates

1. Marketing Budget Template

Best for: Companies executing multiple initiatives across several marketing channels

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Knowing how to manage a marketing budget can be a challenge, but with helpful free templates like this marketing budget template bundle, you can track everything from advertising expenses to events and more.

I like this bundle because it is comprehensive and has eight free business budget templates. There are templates for:

• Branding and creative budget.
• Product marketing budget.
• Paid advertising budget.
• Public relations budget.
• Web design budget.
• Content budget.
• Event budget.

The master budget template brings everything together and serves as your single source of truth. It consolidates the different budgets into a massive, company-wide budget sheet. Having a specific template for each initiative can help teams keep track of spending and plan for growth.

2. Project Budget Template

Best for: In-house teams seeking buy-in for complex projects

Every new project comes with expenses.

This free business budget template will help your team calculate the total cost once you enter your labor, material, and fixed costs. You can easily spot if you’re going over budget midway through a project so you can adjust.

This template is especially useful for small companies that are reporting budgets to clients and for in-house teams getting buy-in for complex projects.

3. Free Business Budget Template

Best for: Businesses of all types executing a minimal number of initiatives

Sometimes, you may need to document a simple budget for a few initiatives. In such cases, this free business budget template, which works in Google Sheets and Excel, may be ideal. I like the idea of Google Sheets because it lets others collaborate and comment on the budget.

These business budget templates feature cells for entering your expenses, category, and budget. Afterward, the spreadsheet uses the data to create your total estimated budget.

4. Small Business Budget Template

Best for: Small businesses and new startups

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For small businesses, it can be hard to find the time to draw up a budget, but it’s crucial to help keep the business in good health. This is why I like the budget template that Capterra created specifically for small businesses.

This business budget template works with Excel. I like this template because it helps you take inventory of your income and track your monthly expenses. The small business budget template from Capterra includes:

• Operating income.
• Non-operating income.
• Fixed cost.
• Variable cost.

The business expense section of the template is excellent for tracking employee expenses.

The business budget section of the template helps you track your estimated versus actual income. Over time, this information helps you predict the income to expect so you can plan your expenses and have the funds to execute.

To use the business budget template, start by inputting your estimated projections. Once you get the actual figures, input them, and the sheet will calculate the rest automatically.

For the business expense template, you simply input the description and associated cost to get the total cost.

5. Startup Budget Template

Best for: New business owners and startups

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Sometimes, you may not have previous numbers to rely on to create profit and expense estimates. Trust me, I have been there, and that’s where Gusto’s budget template helps.

If you are a startup, this budget template will help you draw up a budget before your business is officially on the market. You can track all the expenses you need to get your business up and running, estimate your first revenues, and determine where to pinch pennies.

Gusto’s business budget template has sections for entering:

• Expense.
• Expense category.
• Budget.
• Padding.
• Estimated budget.

6. Company Budget Template

Best for: Companies and small businesses with multiple departments

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If you want to keep track of every penny, use this template from TemplateLab to draw up a detailed budget. I like this template because it’s comprehensive, lists expenses like fixed costs, employee costs, and variable costs.

The expense analysis section of the template also includes pie and bar charts to show your expenditure visually. This business template is useful for small businesses that want to keep track of expenses in one document.

7. Administrative Budget Template

Best for: Companies and small businesses with multiple departments and vast tech stack

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If you operate your business in-office or work remotely with lots of tools, it may be helpful to keep track of your administrative budget separately.

I like this business budget template from Zapier because it lets you account for administrative expenses like:

• Rent.
• Depreciation.
• Insurance.
• Training and development.
• Communication.
• Marketing tools.
• Sales tools.
• Accounting fees.

Tracking these expenses separately helps you know if you’re overspending on certain elements of your business. It also lets you cut down on what you can do without and save some of your revenue.

Testing It Out

To show you how easy it is to use these templates, I’ll test out the marketing budget template.

Once you download the template, you’ll see the first sheet, showing you how to use it.

What I like about this template: Once I scroll through the sheet, there are populated figures, which I can easily replace. For instance, to enter my content budget, I just need to follow the instructions of filling in my projected expenses.

After each month, I can revisit the template to enter my actual expenses. This lets me know if my projections are right.

A nice inclusion in this template is the year-to-date summary, which continuously updates as I input or delete figures. The graph is also a brilliant touch, as it gives me a virtual overview of where I am spending more.

Following the same process, I can create a product marketing budget, paid advertising budget, public relations budget, etc.

When I finish these individual budgets, I can then populate my master marketing budget with insights from all initiatives. Easy peasy!

Create a business budget to help your company grow.

Making your first business budget can be daunting, especially if you have several revenue streams and expenses. Using a budget template can make getting started easy. And, once you get it set up, these templates are simple to replicate.

With little planning and regular monitoring, you can plan for the future of your business.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Everyone knows that ChatGPT can generate content on nearly any topic you can imagine (some information might be made up, but that’s a story for a different article).

So, while I’m not a fan of using it to create articles, I must say that I’m impressed with how helpful it can be for SEO.

In this post, I put together different ways you can use ChatGPT to improve your search rankings – whether it’s through keyword improvements, proper linking, or other tactics. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• How to Use ChatGPT for SEO
• Benefits of ChatGPT for SEO
• Limitations of Using ChatGPT for SEO
• Tips for Improving SEO With ChatGPT

How to Use ChatGPT for SEO

What exactly is this AI tool capable of? Here are some of the most impactful ways you can use ChatGPT for SEO.

1. Classify keywords by intent.

Correctly understanding your readers’ intent is key to ranking high in Google. After all, if they land on a page and see that the content doesn’t relate to them, they’ll leave your site, negatively affecting your SEO efforts.

So, how can you make sure you apply each keyword to the right landing page or blog post? ChatGPT can give you a hand.

To give you an example, a while back, I worked with a company that wanted to verify how much of their existing content targeted readers at the top and bottom of the funnel. I downloaded the keywords from the brand’s Google Search Console and asked ChatGPT the following prompt:

“Classify the SEO keywords in the Excel spreadsheet by intent. Categorize them into informational, navigational, transactional, general, and commercial categories. Next, generate a pie chart showing the percentages of each intent type.”

Here’s what I got.

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As you can see, ChatGPT can give you a quick, high-level understanding of what types of phrases are bringing in organic traffic.

Now, as AI isn’t an oracle, I did go back to the Excel file and verified the automatic intent categories for phrases that were in the top 10 in SERP. While ChatGPT didn’t get 100% of them right, it did a decent job overall.

2. Come up with a potential topic for each keyword.

What I like about ChatGPT is that it’s a good idea generator. If you have a list of keywords that fit your offer, you can ask it to suggest topic ideas for blog posts.

Let’s take the keyword “data management consultant” to see what ChatGPT will suggest. To make it easier, I’m going to give it a bit of context on what the topic idea is for:

“I run a software agency and would like to rank for the term “data management consultant.” Data consultancy is one of my company’s services. Please suggest three topic ideas for a blog post we could write.”.

Here’s the output:

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Notice how I’ve asked just for three topics, and ChatGPT gave me that and some more? When you use ChatGPT for content generation ideas, you should always treat it as a starting point.

If you like any of the suggested topics, you can review what other brands that rank in the top 10 search results are writing on – and how you can do better.

3. Suggest content clusters.

If you’ve been reading the HubSpot Blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed how strongly we advocate for content clusters as an SEO-boosting strategy.

Yet, it’s not always easy to choose clusters, let alone decide what articles to create for each of them.

While this is a strategic decision that shouldn’t be left to ChatGPT without any oversight, the AI engine could help point you in the right direction.

Here’s an example of a prompt I used and the results I received:

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These results and suggestions can be a good starting point as far as cluster topic and structure are concerned.

However, remember to verify the cluster’s SEO potential in a dedicated tool – ChatGPT doesn’t have access to search or keyword difficulty data.

4. Write meta descriptions.

To many, meta descriptions often seem like an unimportant detail, especially since they’re not officially a ranking factor. Still, as they provide a summary of what’s on your website, they’re a great opportunity to persuade a prospect to visit your site.

Ensuring that at least your key landing pages have a meta will positively impact SEO as they tend to improve CTRs and reduce bounce rates.

I often turn to ChatGPT for creating meta descriptions. I asked ChatGPT to write one for a HubSpot article I wrote.

Here’s the prompt that I used:

“Create an SEO meta description of no more than 120 characters for the following article https://blog.hubspot.com/service/chat-gpt-customer-service. Include the primary keyword ‘ChatGPT customer service,’ along with a call to action.”

Here is the result:

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You can follow this approach with all your landing pages and articles. It will save you an awful lot of time.

5. Optimize keywords.

I write a lot of SEO content. While my main focus is on creating high-quality pieces packed with unique insights that help prospects tackle their problems, I never ignore SEO.

But, the more keywords you want to rank for, the more time-consuming it is to optimize your article for them.

Unless you ask ChatGPT for help.

That’s what copywriter and digital marketer John Paul Hernandez, does.

“I do a few things with ChatGPT to improve SEO optimization. One of them is asking the AI to insert keywords within my human-written article. It’s not perfect, but it gives me an idea of keyword placements to save me time during my final edit.”

Let’s see it in action. I asked ChatGPT to optimize a few paragraphs of the same article I used previously. Here is the prompt:

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As requested, it came up with a list of LSI and NLP keywords. Here it is:

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Then, it incorporated them into the draft:

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I think it did a pretty good job. While it might not be perfect, it gives you a good idea of where you could place the keywords.

6. Create catchy headings.

Sometimes when you write content, you get stuck. The heading or title that you wrote isn’t as appealing as you’d like it to be. Sometimes, changing one word can make a big difference.

Instead of spending hours trying to come up with a more catchy title or heading, you can turn to ChatGPT. Here’s an example:

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Here is the result:

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You don’t have to use the ChatGPT title as is — you can simply borrow that one word or phrase you like and edit it into your original title. For instance, I quite like the phrase “supercharge productivity,” so I would work that into my title.

7. Suggest a content structure to cover a topic in detail.

I never start writing an article without creating an outline. It helps structure my research and ensure I cover a topic in detail.

While I like having a quick look at what the competition wrote to get a good idea of the expected standard, I never simply copy their structure. I come up with my own outline. Or I ask ChatGPT for assistance.

Let’s see what it can do.

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This is the output:

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I must say – this is a really comprehensive outline. It’s a good starting point that can guide my research, and it took ChatGPT 30 seconds to create it. Good job!

Benefits of ChatGPT for SEO

Why should you consider using ChatGPT for search engine optimization? Here are a few reasons.

Saves Time

If I were to pick one benefit of using ChatGPT for SEO, it would undoubtedly be saving time. The AI tool can come up with an answer in just seconds. And the better your prompt (i.e., the more detailed), the better the result.

At first, when ChatGPT launched, I was a bit skeptical and treated it like competition. But the more I use it, the more I appreciate how much time it could save me – you just have to know how to use it.

I recently read an article by Eric Holtzclaw, who talks about how using ChatGPT has helped him save 40 hours of work and $7,500 in costs. He uses it for research and SEO optimization.

To make the most of generative AI like ChatGPT (genAI), you need to decide which tasks you will do, and which can be automated.

Boosts Productivity

Saving time also means that you can dedicate your attention to other parts of your SEO work that need a human touch.

For example, ChatGPT could suggest an article outline and then check your human-written piece for correct SEO keyword use.

Similarly, you could have it check your URL structure in bulk, and decide on an action plan based on its findings.

As someone who began working in SEO before the start of the AI era, I truly recognize it as a productivity game-changer.

Helps Analyze Data and Draw Conclusions

Many SEOs don’t have a technical background, meaning they might not be the biggest experts when it comes to writing regular expressions (RegEx) or using complex Excel formulas.

At the same time, sourcing and analyzing information from different sources lies at the heart of their work.

ChatGPT can help out with both. You can ask it to create RegEx formulas for your website analytics tools, or Excel formulas, by giving it a prompt that specifies the end goal.

For example, you could upload an Excel file and ask it to match keywords that have a search volume of 500 or higher with URLs where you use these keywords but have a CTR lower than 5%. This would show you pages that are currently underperforming and require some work.

Limitations of Using ChatGPT for SEO

There are two types of ChatGPT SEO limitations – those that stem from AI shortcomings as a whole, and those that depend on whether you’re using a free or paid version. Let’s take a deeper dive into this.

It can’t generate truly creative, unique content.

When ChatGPT was launched, brands went crazy for it. Many writers got laid off as companies began using it to create content at scale. I lost a couple of clients because they decided to switch to ChatGPT – a decision I believe was wrong.

While GPT is a great assistant, at least for now, its capability is limited to producing copycat content. This is no longer acceptable; people want to read helpful, unique content written by experts, not AI.

You can use AI to edit your content and make it sound more polished, but relying on it to write an entire article from scratch is not recommended.

Here is proof that readers prefer content written by humans. You can see that from the first month, human content generated more views than its AI counterpart.

Image Source

You can’t remove the human from the loop.

ChatGPT shouldn’t be a replacement for human competencies anywhere – not just in content. Some areas like search engine data analysis will let you automate the majority of the work, while others will call for more human supervision.

The bottom line, though, is that you can’t fully entrust anything to AI without regularly verifying the output.

For example, let me refer back to content cluster topic suggestions. Some of the AI-generated ideas might seem promising, but once you pop them into an SEO tool to check search potential, you’ll see that the main term only gets 10 or 20 visits a month.

So, while helpful, remember that “it still takes time to use AI.”

There’s a risk of AI hallucinations.

A few months ago, I wrote an article about different ways to use ChatGPT. To test its abilities, I asked it to create an article on perfume-making, featuring tips from beauty experts.

It generated one and even included citations from experts. However, when I asked about their source, it provided a list of links that weren’t working.

In short, it appears that ChatGPT fabricated quotations and sources. This is a striking example of AI hallucinations – you can’t fully trust it; you always have to verify the results yourself.

There are differences in capabilities between paid and free ChatGPT.

Finally, let’s discuss the limitations that relate to the version you’re using. There are some differences in the Plus (paid) and Free plan, and I decided to ask about them straight from the source. Here’s what I got:

You can probably get even more out of the paid plan if you use custom GPTs available through the ChatGPT marketplace.

Tips for Improving SEO With ChatGPT

1. Write formulas and build custom functions in Google Sheets.

You can use ChatGPT to write formulas and build custom functions for SEO in Google Sheets – it will help you automate workflows and enhance efficiency.

This tip comes from Vishal Dave, senior digital marketer at Meetanshi.

“You can ask ChatGPT to ‘Create a Google Sheets function to get PageSpeed Insights score of a URL.’ It will provide an app script code. Go to Google Sheets > Extensions > App Scripts and create a new script. Paste the app script code into the editor and replace the API key placeholder with your PageSpeed Insights API key. Then save the function.”

Now, you’ll be able to use the custom ‘=pagespeedinsights(URL)’ function to get PageSpeed insights score directly in your Google Sheets. You can use it to build a visual page speed report using conditional formatting.

Dave adds that marketers can also use ChatGPT to fetch HTML tags, build custom integrations, check HTTP response codes, etc. It seems like it can be of great help when it comes to technical SEO.

2. Improve content structuring and formatting.

Content structure has a significant impact on SEO. It’s important to balance making content engaging to the reader while not ignoring Google recommendations.

You can use ChatGPT to outline and format blog posts to increase their readability and make them SEO-friendly.

Here is how Casey Meraz, CEO at Juris Digital, approaches this task:

“We started by feeding the AI a detailed brief, which included the key topics, target keywords, and user intent behind the search terms. This step ensured that the AI understood the context and purpose of the content.”

They instantly noticed a consistent use of headings and subheadings. Structuring content with clear, keyword-rich headings improved their on-page SEO and readability.

“In one campaign, we restructured 50 existing articles using ChatGPT for headline generation and internal linking suggestions. The result was a 35% increase in organic traffic within three months. We also saw a 20% improvement in time on page, which indicates that better-structured content kept users engaged longer,” says Meraz.

Juris Digital also used ChatGPT to create content that met Google’s featured snippet criteria.

They applied formatting techniques suggested by ChatGPT, including the use of bullet points, numbered lists, and concise summaries at the beginning of articles.

This strategy led to several of their clients’ pages earning featured snippets. One of their clients experienced a 15% spike in CTR after implementing these changes, which they directly attributed to enhanced content structuring and formatting.

3. Generate ideas for internal linking.

Since ChatGPT does a good job of analyzing semantic relationships between phrases and can put them into categories, it can also suggest ideas for internal links.

That’s what Derrick Askew, founder of Savvy Gents, Inc., did for an ecommerce client he worked with.

“By using AI to generate related keyword phrases and content topics, we built a comprehensive internal linking strategy that connected relevant pages more organically.”

By boosting the site’s topical relevance and interconnectedness between different URLs, Askew wanted to make it easier for search engines to crawl and understand the site’s content.

He told me that after implementing this strategy, the ecommerce company saw a 37% increase in organic traffic within four months. This approach gave Askew proof that ChatGPT can help drive traffic and user engagement.

4. Analyze your competitors’ content.

Not everyone realizes this, but ChatGPT can help you run a thorough content gap analysis. You can ask it to review the content on your identified competitors’ sites and tell you which keywords and topics yours doesn’t rank for yet.

Kevin Watts, founder and president at Raincross, told me how they used this capability to understand why their competitors frequently had their content appear in featured snippets, and why they didn’t.

“Using ChatGPT, we generated a list of potential questions and longer-tail keywords our audience was searching for. We then created new content focused on these queries, formatted specifically for featured snippets (e.g., concise answers in bullet points or tables).”

Within three months, this approach has helped Raincross boost its featured snippet appearances by 35%.

Watts also says that the optimized pages received an average organic traffic boost of 28%. This clearly illustrates how ChatGPT ideas can be used to get tangible SEO results.

Some brands, like The Annuity Expert, also use AI to run a granular, semantic content analysis. Shawn Plummer, the company’s CEO, decided to ask ChatGPT for some ideas as to why their website’s content wasn’t ranking highly in Google.

“I provided ChatGPT with a competitor’s content and used the prompt: ‘Create a semantic analysis of this content: [copy-paste content URL of competitor].’” As a result, Plummer received an extract of key entities and concepts, which highlighted some areas that made their competitor’s content rank higher in search.

Plummer then decided to cross-reference the findings from this analysis with their own content.

“I gave it the prompt: ‘Compare your semantic analysis to the competitor’s article to my article [my URL]. Are they semantically close?’ This comparison revealed the semantic gaps in our content”, he says.

To dive even deeper, Plummer suggests using a follow-up prompt: “Create a table listing common semantic concepts/entities and those missing from our article.”

He says that, ever since they’ve started using this method, the company saves a lot of time and gets more intricate insights than by using traditional analytics tools.

As for the SEO results from ChatGPT-inspired changes, Plummer said that they “saw a 25% improvement in our content’s ranking for target keywords.”

Pro tip: Not sure who to shortlist as your competitors for your content gap analysis? Use ChatSpot to get a list of the top ten competitors in under ten seconds. All you need to do is add your domain.

5. Optimize content for voice search.

This might be one of ChatGPT’s lesser-known SEO capabilities, but it’s an extremely powerful one.

Optimizing content for voice search can not only help meet legal accessibility requirements but also secure interest from those who don’t engage in text-based browsing.

“Given the rise of virtual assistants like Siri and Google Now, focusing on voice search has become essential for enhancing local SEO,” says Rex Liu, chief revenue officer at GoSite.

Liu adds that while working with local businesses, the company used ChatGPT to generate conversational content that aligns with how customers speak.

They prompted ChatGPT with questions that indicated high intent, such as “Where can I find a reliable plumber near me?” They then built content around these conversational queries, improving the chances of appearing in voice search results.

“This particular strategy was applied to a local home services business. Over three months, the implementation led to a 20% increase in click-through rates from voice search and a 17% rise in local customer inquiries.”

Liu says these results underline the importance of matching questions with conversational search habits.

6. Boost your website accessibility.

Some of you might not know it, but accessibility matters for SEO. While Google doesn’t have a specific ranking factor for it, it values user experience. The more accessible your website is, the better the experience for the user.

This is something that Guy Leon, founder and CEO of betterweb.ai, recognizes, so they use ChatGPT to enhance inclusiveness.

“Working with a client’s e-commerce site, we used ChatGPT to rewrite image alt texts and implement semantic HTML. This ensured that screen readers could properly interpret the content. Additionally, ChatGPT helped us identify and adjust areas of poor color contrast to meet accessibility standards.

The outcome was striking: within four months, the client saw a 35% increase in organic traffic, a 40% boost in visitor engagement, and a notable uptick in mobile traffic by 53%”.

Not only did this help their client meet legal accessibility criteria, but it also enhanced their page‘s load speed and search rankings.

By integrating web accessibility with SEO using ChatGPT, bettwerweb.ai transformed their client’s user experience and significantly improved the site’s performance metrics.

ChatGPT Has a Great Analytical Skill for SEO

If we look at all the ways ChatGPT can help with SEO, we can safely assume that it will become a long-term companion for marketing teams.

That said, you need to be smart about how you use it — the quality of the insights depends on your prompt and its informational value.

Also, remember that ChatGPT can’t make decisions or craft entire SEO strategies. It’s a tool, and, as such, it will always be prone to error.

That’s why, while I encourage you to use ChatGPT for SEO, I also strongly recommend verifying all of its output before you use it for decision-making.

So, you want to hire a community manager to help raise brand awareness for your company and better connect with your consumers. There‘s just one problem: You’re not sure how to hire a community manager.

What qualities should you look for when hiring? Where can you find a community manager? Why do you even need one? Well, you‘ve come to the right blog because I’m about to explain all of that and more.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about how to hire a community manager.

Why hire a community manager?

81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider buying. The primary function of a community manager is to build rapport, trust, and community with a brand’s audience.

Naturally, a community manager will help your brand forge trust with your consumers, leading them to purchase your products and services.

“Consumers make decisions based on opinions from people they know, like, and trust,” says Erica Finley, HubSpot‘s Principal Marketing Manager of Community.

She says, “Word of mouth has never been more powerful, and seeing real-life use cases, being able to ask questions, and hearing earnest reactions to products and services are no longer just ’nice-to-haves.'”

According to Finley, community managers “carve out dedicated spaces that folks can lean into for inspiration, advice, entertainment, and more.” And all this occurs while raising brand awareness.

So, now that you know the perks of hiring a community manager, you just need to find one. But where?

Where to find a community manager

The good news is there are multiple places to find great community manager candidates. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Community Club. This nonprofit offers an excellent resource for connecting with experienced community managers.

• CMX Hub. This website includes a job board where you can post and search for community management positions. It’s especially valuable for finding candidates who are specifically looking to grow in these roles.

• LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows you to explore potential community managers’ profiles, experiences, and endorsements. You can also post your own job openings and join numerous groups dedicated to community management where professionals discuss industry trends, share advice, and exchange job opportunities.

• Facebook Groups. Facebook is home to community management groups, some location-based while others are industry-specific. These groups are excellent for posting job openings, asking for recommendations, and connecting directly with potential hires.

• Upwork. Upwork is great if you are looking to hire a community manager on a contract or freelance basis. You can create a job post that outlines the project you’re hiring for and the qualifications you need.

Qualities to Look for in a Community Manager

“Community managers are often mediators for community conflicts and may be required to draft crisis communications,” Finley says. “They have to be curious and adept at conducting research, both online and via people-centric methods like focus groups.”

Community managers also sometimes act as content creators and may be called to create entire calendars based on a specific persona or theme concerning the brand.

“They are public speakers who often serve as emcees and facilitators for community events,” she says. “The list goes on/”

In short, community managers must have the following qualities:

• Public speaking skills
• Conflict and crisis management skills
• Curiosity and thorough research skills
• A knack for creativity and content creation

How to Write a Community Manager Job Description

All right, the two Ericas (Finley and I) explained why you should hire a community manager, where to find one, and what qualities they should possess. Now, we must dive into writing a community manager job description.

Essentially, your job description should include the following:

• Who/what your company is
• What your goals are
• How a community manager will help achieve said goals
• What qualities and experience does the manager need to be successful in the organization

Let’s look at this community manager job posting from Scale AI.

Scale AI starts by explaining the company’s goal and how the community manager fits into their vision:

“Scale’s Generative AI business unit is nascent and is currently seeing historic levels of growth. As a Community Manager, you will spearhead initiatives that will connect with the thousands of Contributors on our platform.”

In other words, Scale Ai is seeing unprecedented growth and needs a community manager to nurture its growing audience.

Then, the company explains what the community manager will do, such as:

• “Collaborate with the Operations, Support, Communications, and Marketing teams to create and execute community engagement campaigns and content.

• Develop and execute community engagement strategies to increase participation and satisfaction, including overseeing community platforms like Reddit and Linkedin and managing our internal Slack community.

• Be responsible for community support to answer questions, complaints, or comments on our platforms and social media channels.

• Organize virtual events to foster a sense of community, monitor community feedback and sentiment to proactively address concerns, and manage and grow our online presence across various platforms.

Finally, the job posting lists the skills and background experience needed to succeed, including:

• “Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Finance, or related field and 2+ years Communications, Marketing Operations, Field Operations, Program Management, Project Management, or related experience

• Managed the social media presence of a technology product.

• Strong and clear communication skills, both verbal and written – able to synthesize complex details into accessible and digestible content.

• Ability to analyze quantitative metrics and adapt strategies accordingly.

• A strong orientation towards outcomes and a willingness to roll up your sleeves to get the job done.

• Passion for creating a positive and engaging community experience.”

10 Interview Questions to Ask Community Manager Applicant

Whether you‘re interviewing for community manager positions or you’re looking for a community manager for your organization, here are some interview questions to know:

1. What skills and qualifications do you have to prepare you for this job?

2. How do you measure your success as a community manager?

3. What strategies do you or would you use to strengthen our brand’s tie to our community?

4. How would you build our community from the ground up? What strategies would you use?

5. How do you stay up-to-date on the latest best practices in community management?

6. What has been your proudest accomplishment as a community manager?

7. What does community mean to you?

8. Do you have experience using social media to build or maintain a community? Explain.

9. How can you guide members of our community to our website to purchase a product or service?

10. How would you describe your management style?

Whew! We covered a lot in this post about community management, the skills it takes, where to find community managers, and how to create job postings for the role.

Now, you‘re ready to either level up your craft as a community manager or you’re prepared to hire one for your organization.

Either way, good luck!