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When you think of online shopping destinations, Twitter may not be the first place that comes to mind. However, with ecommerce sales continuing to rise due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, social platforms want in on the action.

On Instagram, business owners can add a “shop” feature to their profile, allowing users to make purchases directly from the profiles of their favorite brands. Similarly, TikTok teased an upcoming shop feature and integration with Shopify earlier this year. Now Twitter is testing new strategies to integrate online shopping experiences into the user experience.

The platform previously had a “Buy Now” button before retiring the feature in 2017 to focus on other avenues. Now Twitter appears to be circling back on this idea giving business account holders new tools for converting customers on the platform potentially turning Twitter into a space where buyers can discover new products while engaging in conversation with brands and communities.

Here’s what we know about Twitter’s commerce experiments so far.

Why Twitter Is Testing Ecommerce Features

In early 2021, Twitter executives announced their goal to double revenue to $7.5 billion and reach 315 million active users by the end of 2023.

Working towards such ambitious goals, Twitter is looking to introduce new revenue streams to help grow and monetize its user base – and one of those key streams is an ecommerce play designed to give businesses the tools they need to drive conversational sales.

During Twitter’s 2021 investor’s call Bruce Falck, Revenue Product Lead at Twitter said:

“We’re also starting to explore ways to better support commerce on Twitter. Our MAP (mobile application program) efforts help us understand how our users are transacting on the platform. Installing an app via an ad is in itself a form of commerce. We know people come to Twitter to interact with brands and discuss their favorite products.

In fact, you may have even noticed some businesses already developing creative ways to enable sales on our platform. This demand gives us confidence in the power of combining real-time conversation with an engaged and intentional audience.”

Essentially, the platform has aggressive business goals over the next two years and sees commerce as a viable way to increase engagement and revenue opportunities outside of traditional advertising.

Twitter’s Ecommerce Test

The Shop Module

In July 2021, Twitter rolled out a robust ecommerce test: The Shop Module.

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The Shop Module will allow brands to display products in a carousel format at the top of the profile. When a user visits a brand’s Twitter account, they will be able to scroll through a handful of products, have the ability to tap in to learn more about each product, and eventually purchase.

This initial test is designed to determine the shopability of Twitter profiles. Though consumers typically visit Twitter to connect directly with brands for questions and customer service inquiries, Twitter is looking to understand what in-app behavior can drive users to make a purchase. As more data is collected, it will be interesting to see if Twitter can see a clear link between conversation topics and sales of related products through the platform.

Twitter has rolled out this feature to a small number of brands across industries based in the United States, and Twitter users based in the U.S. who use the English app on iOS devices are currently able to see it live.

With the feature being deployed to business profiles offering vastly different products, Twitter is also testing which product verticals sell from the platform. See The Shop Module in action below.

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Shoppable Twitter Cards

In March 2021, Twitter also began testing commerce features for organic tweets. Essentially, tweets that feature a direct link to a shopping page or product can generate a new Twitter card with a “shop” button and auto-populated product details.

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When a user clicks the shop button, they would be taken directly to the product page of the account’s website. The shoppable Twitter card appears very similar to promoted tweets. With this feature, Twitter is testing the viability of commerce through organic shares.

At the time of publication, this feature is still an experiment and hasn’t been rolled out to all Twitter users. It has been reported the shoppable Twitter card has been seen by international users and on Android devices.

How Brands Could Leverage Social Commerce on Twitter

Even if your company profile hasn’t been granted access to these new features, now is the perfect time to put a strategy in place so you can be ready to use Twitter’s commerce tools to your advantage.

1. Create organic conversation around products and services.

Consumers engage with brands on Twitter to ask questions and surface customer service inquiries. Start organically aligning your content on Twitter with products and services you’d like to highlight in the space to prepare your audience for what’s ahead with these new commerce features.

For example, a skincare company could start a conversation with its audience on Twitter about creating the ideal skincare routine. The company’s profile could start a thread with educational tweets about each essential step of an effective skincare routine and why each step is beneficial.

The audience would likely join the conversation sharing steps of their skincare routine and asking for product recommendations, creating space for the brand to share more information about its products to an engaged audience.

By continuing to prime the audience with these types of interactions, once the skincare brand gains access to Twitter’s commerce features, they can begin featuring the products discussed and measuring the audience’s response (through clicks and purchases).

2. Select a variety of products to feature on The Shop Module.

If your company profile is granted access to The Shop Module, use it as an opportunity to conduct research on what products best resonate with your Twitter audience. Try incorporating a variety of products at different price points, and regularly assess which products are getting the most click-throughs and purchases.

3. Take an experimental approach.

In the initial stages, don’t rely too heavily on using these new features to drive more sales. Instead, take a more experimental approach to gauge performance with your audience then refine your strategy when you have a more robust set of data.

When rolling out these new features, Twitter has clearly stated it is testing things out to better understand user behavior. Marketers should take the same approach to learn what resonates with their unique audiences.

With social media platforms giving brands more opportunities to sell through their platforms, marketers can find innovative ways to organically connect consumers to products and services they’ll love.

“Your company is one viral moment away from a potential shutdown.”

Yes, you read that correctly.

Imagine your company is fortunate enough to appear for a few minutes on a national TV show with millions of viewers. You can hardly contain your excitement. All eyes are on you. There’s no turning back. 

Your excitement soon turns to horror, however, when you realize your company isn’t ready for this type of attention. Suddenly, a surge in traffic to your company’s website causes it to crash. Team members quit from the stress of performing under pressure. Vendors threaten to sue you for late payments. Customers are angry because their orders are either incorrect or weren’t provided on-time.

What took you years to build has effectively been destroyed overnight. 

How can a successful organization good enough to land a coveted spot on a TV show succumb so quickly? The answer lies in Marketing vs. Operations.

The Paradigm Shift from Not Enough Customers to Too Many 

When an organization officially opens its doors for business, marketing-related activities tend to be the primary focus. And it makes sense. After all, if no one knows about your product or service, you won’t be in business long. Those activities can include sales strategies, P.R. and social media campaigns, and digital ads that catalyze advancement from the startup to the growth stage of business. 

Eventually, if you have a great product or service that customers want, you’ll see a return on investment for those marketing activities. At this point, as an organization advances from the growth stage to the emerging and scaling stages of business, the need for Operations becomes paramount.

The reason is that this transition is usually accompanied by periods of unmanageable fast-growth – customer demand is greater than what your company can supply. It’s at this point that Operations-related activities like building the right teams, documenting and standardizing processes, and upgrading equipment and digital technologies becomes a higher priority.

If Operations is critical for scaling, why don’t more companies focus on it?

The answer depends. When it comes to Operations, leaders of small businesses fall in one of more of three categories:

• Unaware: They either don’t know about Operations or they’ve never been exposed to it.
• Uninterested: They believe that Operations isn’t “sexy.”
• Undiscovered: When they try to search for information to scale their organizations, they find the lion’s share is reserved for large enterprises or manufacturing companies.

Let’s unpack each of these.

1. Unaware

It’s no surprise that many founders and leaders (business savvy and technical acumen aside), are largely unaware of Operations – what it is and how it applies to their businesses.

With customers and cash being the lifeline of any organization, special attention is given to customer-facing activities that ensure their satisfaction. This is an anchor against which we can define Operations.

As the diagram below illustrates, Marketing represents highly visible activities that customers tend to interact with directly. It involves making some sort of promise or guarantee to customers who purchase your product or service. 

Conversely, Operations is like the stealthy cousin of Marketing. It represents those activities that ensure customer orders are fulfilled on time, within budget, and within specification.

As the heartbeat of an organization, day-to-day Operations are not necessarily seen by your customers, but they certainly experience the result of it.

Operations teams work behind the scenes to make sure a company can deliver on promises made.

A frustrated client in charge of Operations once told me, following a conversation with a Sales Manager, “They sell the dream while we deal with the nightmare!” It’s a humorous take on the historical divide between Marketing and Operations teams.

That’s why the Revenue Operations movement is so important — it breaks down these silos to encourage transparency while working toward the common goals of customer satisfaction and profitability.

2. Uninterested

Founders and CEOs are known for being big-picture, strategic visionaries. The thought of getting bogged down by details isn’t necessarily their strength or interest. It’s part of the reason why Operations can take a back seat to the more visible initiatives offered by the Marketing department.

But there’s another culprit — small business event planners. Attend any small business seminar, webinar, or conference, and your chances of seeing an Operations topic included is slim to none. This omission creates a knowledge gap for leaders of small businesses and causes disinterest.

Through personal conversations and informal surveys, I’ve learned that a shockingly high percentage of these event planners think, “Operations is boring.” I’ve also had many of them tell me that, “No one is interested.” And perhaps most egregiously that, gasp, “Operations just isn’t sexy.” This type of thinking is dangerous and does a disservice to those seeking resources to scale to the next level. 

Consider these stats from the U.S. Small Business Administration:

• 81% of businesses are sole-proprietorships
• 32% of small businesses fail within the first two years
• 51% of small businesses fail by year five
• 67% will fail by year 10

I’ve often argued that more businesses could graduate from sole-proprietorships if they had a better understanding of Operations. This means job creation which has a net positive effect on local communities and economies.

I also believe that more businesses can avoid failure if they had a solid Operations foundation. Yes, there are number of reasons why a business fails. But the reasons why they fail within the first five years versus years five through ten can vary significantly.

There are businesses that fail not from a lack of customers or poor cash flow, but because they have too many customers.

3. Undiscovered

When small business leaders proactively seek resources to scale, they often find that those resources are not written or formulated with them in mind. Plus, if they are lucky enough to find resources for small businesses, it’s usually for those selling tangible goods.

Where can service-based businesses go for guidance on scaling without failing? 

Learning about frameworks like Lean and Six Sigma can be intimidating and sometimes too “corporate” for a small business’ needs. Thankfully, there’s a growing faction within the Operations community who are actively working to make this information accessible to small businesses. 

Learn More about Operations for small businesses in HubSpot’s RevOps & Operations Community

 Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is one of them and he was careful to be more inclusive in the second edition of his critically acclaimed book, The Toyota Way.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Liker to learn more:

Ignore Operations at Your Own Risk: Cautionary Tales

Perhaps Kyle Jepson, Senior Inbound Sales Professor at HubSpot, said it best: “Operational failures are dramatic and visible. Operational success is invisible.” 

He’s right. There’s no shortage of examples of companies that, to their detriment, chose to ignore the due diligence and rigor required for sustainable Operations and continued to focus on the outward appearances that great Marketing afforded them.

One example is Ample Hills Creamery. Once known as “Brooklyn’s most beloved” establishment, this local New York ice cream shop caught the attention of Disney’s CEO. Soon, they landed a contract with Disney World only to lose it all a couple of years later as they hemorrhaged money despite enjoying a steady flow of customers.

One of their investors, Greg O’Connell noted, “It was a fairy tale. They were kind of living in a dream world because their marketing was so great.” Their failure resulted in bankruptcy, but other more severe failures land leaders in jail.

 Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos), Adam Neumann (WeWork), Billy McFarland (Fyre Festival), and Trevor Milton (Nikola) are highly visible examples of leaders who, despite receiving warnings, continued to mislead and defraud investors and customers only to find themselves either incarcerated or facing serious allegations.

Examine the back office of any wildly successful company and you will find ironclad Operations: solid teams backed by standardized, streamlined, and efficient processes and technologies. Operations pairs with innovation, and both are imbued into the fabric of the companies that are both profitable and sustainable.

Achieving this balance with Marketing is critical. This is what marketing expert Andrea D. Smith and I talked about on an episode of the Business Infrastructure podcast:

Business is complicated. It requires a constant balancing of not just Marketing and Operations, but all aspects of business. Don’t silo or sacrifice one group for the other. Attracting a steady flow of customers is fruitless unless you can also guarantee customer satisfaction.

Join the quest to change the narrative about back-office activities. Operations is savvy, sophisticated, and smart. And that’s very sexy!

If you’re working in digital marketing for a business with an online presence (which, let’s be real, is most businesses these days), there’s a good chance that you live in dread of the infamous “Google algorithm update.”

Many marketers see this periodic switch-up in Google’s algorithm as a lurking nemesis out to slash their metrics and banish traffic.

The typical response? Every time Google comes out with an algorithm update, SEO specialists and thought leaders try to decode and decipher the algorithm’s secrets to find out what makes it tick. The idea is that, if you can figure it out, you can reorganize your SEO and content strategy to regain (or surpass) your pre-algorithm rankings.

This might seem like the best plan of attack. However, I believe this metrics-hungry, beat-the-algorithm mentality just ends up hurting companies in the long run. It’s inefficient, it distracts from the true purpose of SEO, and it ultimately wastes your company’s time and money.

My take? While algorithm updates shouldn’t be minimized (because they can negatively effect businesses), they also shouldn’t be feared. I believe we should work with the algorithms, not against them, ultimately creating a win-win: a better experience for users and a more successful web presence for deserving businesses.

Let’s explore how to do that next.

Algorithm Updates Improve User Experience

Because the digital landscape is constantly changing, businesses have to accept that these algorithm updates aren’t going anywhere. They are happening, and will continue to happen, indefinitely. And that is okay … and what we, as search engine customers, should want too!

The first step in working with Google algorithm updates is to understand why they happen in the first place. These updates are designed to create a better internet experience for both businesses and consumers.

The idea is to make browsers “smarter” so that internet users are able to find what they’re looking for faster, and with less effort.

Sounds great in theory, right? Under this model, businesses find the right customers and vice versa. If it’s an improvement for the user, it should be an improvement for you.

The problems start when we begin to analyze and crunch numbers after a post-algorithm-update …  

Don’t Get Caught Up In The Metrics Game

For many SEO managers, numbers are everything — total organic clicks, bounce rates, keyword rankings, impressions, the list goes on. And for good reason! This data helps us to understand what’s going on on the other side of the screen.

However, when this data becomes the end goal, we get into trouble. A lot of times, from an SEO standpoint, there’s a tunnel-vision focus on metrics and traffic, which leads to tilted strategies purely bent on maximizing the wrong numbers.

But, here’s the thing — higher rankings on Google aren’t necessarily great for business. Yes, they look great on a quarterly report. Yes, they’re easy to track. But do impressions necessarily convert to leads? No. These numbers turn into a sort of meaningless trophy rather than a useful tool.

Let’s take a look at an example to highlight what I mean.

Lower Traffic Could Mean Higher Revenue

Over a period of time, I worked with a business that had two sides to their site: user-generated content, and professionally-generated content. The user-generated content was produced in higher volumes, but also tended to be lower quality.

Every time there was an algorithm update, the user-generated side of their business was impacted negatively. They lost significant chunks of their traffic, time and time again. However, the company’s overall revenue simultaneously increased.

Why? Because the other side of their business was benefiting. The high-quality, professionally-generated content was favored by the algorithm because it was closer to what internet users were actually looking for. Therefore, it benefitted when its lower-quality competitors were demoted.

To me, this is the perfect argument for why businesses should spend time creating a great product rather than putting a laser-focus on SEO hacks or metrics. If you create an effective website with relevant content, the clicks will come organically.  

Stay Focused on the User

Ultimately, the solution sounds too good to be true — stay focused on who the user is and what the user wants to find on your site.

Rather than asking yourself, “Do we deserve to be #1 because we have the most keywords or the best backlinks?”, ask yourself, “Are we the best solution for what the user would want? Do we deserve to be #3 from a user standpoint?”

The way Google algorithms are headed, I believe that focusing on the actual service or product over the minutiae of SEO is the secret to creating a successful business.

This is what I termed “Product-Led SEO” in my book with the same name. This approach upends the whole premise of marketing the product to promote adoption.

Instead, the shift focuses on getting a great product into the hands of users who get excited enough to become marketing agents on the product’s behalf. In this paradigm, there may also be innate triggers within the product that encourage sharing, thereby forcing the hand of the user.

Algorithm Updates Aren’t Your Enemy

In the end, Google Algorithm updates are a fact of life. The sooner everyone can accept this and learn to work with the updates, not against them, the sooner they will find successful strategies.

The key to “going with the flow” is to take a good, long look at which direction the water is going. And, from everything I’ve seen, the proverbial algorithmic river is flowing straight towards the direction of Product-Led SEO. In my opinion, every good SEO strategy will follow.

Start by talking to users. Get in touch with what your customers want. What are they looking for? What do they like? What makes them click on a CTA? What cues do they use to navigate a site? Once you have a good handle on the needs of the user, you can begin to create a site that naturally rises above the algorithmic chopping block.

When your site becomes more effective, and you are able to connect with the right customers, everyone wins. This is the whole point of algorithms, and finding the harmony between the two will help ease a lot of stress and boost business.

Have you been tasked with the job of creating a request for proposal, or an RFP?

Whether you have no idea what that is or haven’t written one in awhile, today’s guide can help.

We’re diving into the specifics of what an RFP actually is, why you might need one, and how to create your very first one today.

To start, you should understand what all these letters even mean.

 

When your company has a new (often large) project, or one that’s more complex and requires a bit of outsourcing, an RFP can help you get the job done right the first time.

The RFP doc becomes a way for you to quickly uncover the strengths and weaknesses of potential vendors in relation to your project without having to spend too much of your time hunting for them yourself.

RFPs can also give you a sneak peek into different strategies you may not have considered since each vendor will include their own unique action plan along with their bid.

And you’ll have this information before you ever have to commit to the vendor.

Keep in mind, this should not be confused with an RFQ.

RFP vs. RFQ

An RFQ, or request for quotation, is slightly different than an RFP since it’s just the quote itself. Here, companies solicit multiple price quotes from various vendors to compare services based on price alone. While an RFP includes a price quote (along with several other specifics), an RFQ does not detail anything other than price.

As opposed to an RFP, an RFQ is a request for quote or quotation.

Here’s how to understand the difference:

While you’re technically receiving a quote in an RFP, you’re also getting information like the action plan, timeline of completion, deliverable schedule, and the list of services provided as well.

But with an RFQ, you’re only receiving the quote itself for the service or products you’re interested in purchasing.

In most cases, simply comparing quotes is not enough to see if a potential vendor is the right fit for your company, which is why an RFP is more appropriate in these situations.

What is an RFP in marketing? 

In Marketing, an RFP is often used to outsource any marketing activities that could help your brand increase reach. These activities include anything related to marketing that you can’t do internally. 

For instance, if you work at a small startup, you might create an RFP to find a full-service communications and marketing firm to create an integrated marketing plan for your business. If this is the case, you’d outline in your RFP that you’re looking for a firm to help you “increase SEO presence” or “attract social media followers”, etc. 

On the flip side, if you work for a marketing agency, you’ll want to keep an eye out for RFPs in your area related to services you offer. For instance, if you work for a web design company, you’ll want to look for businesses that have created RFPs for web design services. 

What is an RFP in sales?

In sales, an RFP is often created when a business is looking to purchase a product or service to suit its needs. For instance, if an enterprise company is looking for a new CRM software, the business might release an RFP that outlines what it’s looking for, and what it’s hoping to achieve with new CRM software. 

For this reason, RFPs can play a critical role in the enterprise sales cycle. Enterprise companies that issue RFPs are often looking for businesses that can provide them with IT support, security, onboarding and training, and other additional services. To close these larger accounts, it’s vital your sales team is prepared with an RFP response process, and is able to efficiently respond to these large companies within the time allotted. 

The RFP Process Explained

Before potential bidders can submit their proposals, an RFP must be drafted by the company requesting the work. (P.S. We’ll show you how to do this later in this guide)

This gives potential contractors a better idea of what your company is looking for.

Once your RFP is sent out, contractors or vendors can review it and submit their best bids to compete for the job.

In these proposals, vendors generally include the following items:

• An action plan of how they’re going to solve the issue
• A timeline of what you can expect
• Any necessary background information
• How much they expect the entire project to cost

In certain cases, bidders may come back and say specific components of the RFP need to be adjusted based on their experience in the industry.

At this point, you can either review their feedback and create a new RFP to adjust for the changes, or you can leave the original as is and keep it in mind while considering the other submitted bids.

Once you receive all the proposals, it will be almost effortless to compare each one and determine which vendor is the best fit for your company.

Out of the stack of bidders, you’ll want to narrow this down to a handful of your top three, five, or 10 favorites to consider, depending on how many you receive or are interested in.

From here, you’ll want to spend time vetting potential vendors further to determine who’s really the ideal fit for the job.

Some companies may request one more best and final offer from their top vendors after they’ve started this negotiation process to ensure they’re not only getting the right person or company for the job, but at the right price, too.

While this may sound like an extra step, it’s one that may save you money, time, and headaches down the road.

But this also leads us to a big question: Is all of this really necessary?

Can’t you just spend time reviewing two or three vendors on your own?

As you’ll see next, that route is definitely not in your best interest.

Why Issue a Request for Proposal?

Let’s briefly compare these two scenarios:

• Option #1: Spend time finding the perfect vendor on your own.
• Option #2: Use an RFP to get potential vendors to come to you.

Choose the first route, and you’ll probably use your coworkers, friends, and networking groups to help solicit possible referrals for the job.

Or you might perform a Google search to check out the top vendors in your area.

After you review the website of a possible candidate for the job, you’ll craft the perfect message to reach out and learn if they can even help.

Then, you’ll have to explain the specifics of your project and you may or may not ask them to submit a proposal before deciding to choose them for your project.

It’s not a complicated process, but did we mention you have to repeat it for every promising referral or vendor you come across?

Imagine how long that’s going to take!

Now, what if these potential contractors already knew your project details and they came back with their best plan of action and a formal bid for you to review?

So instead of having to explain your needs each time, you would simply outline it once, and send it out to the masses.

And to save you even more time, it would be up to potential contractors — not you — to reach out.

The RFP route also gives you a sneak peek into each vendor’s real plan of action, not the one they talk you into over the phone or in person.

Since potential candidates have to submit a formal bid, they’ll need to spend time outlining the solution and really working through the problem at hand.

And if they don’t, you have an easy way to weed out vendors and cut through the stack of options fairly quickly.

But, to get to this point, you can’t make this next mistake.

Here’s What Not To Do With an RFP

If you want to find the right vendor, you need your RFP to be specific.

Only asking “yes” or “no” questions won’t get you anywhere.

That’s why you must create specific questions that require thoughtful answers.

Try to use sentences similar to these:

• Can you share an example of how you’ve solved this problem or a similar one for another company? Did you encounter any unforeseen roadblocks? What would you do the same or differently this time?

• With your proposed redesign, how long would it take a non-tech savvy person to complete the new registration form? How much time do you estimate this could save?

With these tips in mind, you’re ready to draft your first RFP.

How to Write an RFP

Here’s the basic structure of an RFP and what to include in yours:

1. Project Overview

Before you go into the specifics of your company, you should give a brief introduction to the project itself so vendors know right away if it’s something worth bidding on.

2. Your Company Background

This shouldn’t be a long history of your company. Rather, it should give contractors a better idea of what your company does and who you serve as a target market.

3. The Goals of Your Project

Clearly identify what you hope to accomplish with this project and what you see as a “win” so everyone is on the same page.

4. Project Scope

The details of the project are essential in an RFP. In the same way you don’t want to use vague questions, a vague project scope won’t help you find the right vendor either.

Spend time really detailing your project scope so there’s no surprises later on.

5. Target Deliverable Schedule

Even if your deadlines aren’t super tight, you should still have a target deliverable schedule in mind. This needs to be included in your RFP so potential vendors can properly gauge if they have the resources and bandwidth to complete the job on time.

6. Possible Roadblocks

Don’t hide your existing or potential issues under the proverbial rug if you want them to disappear. A successful RFP is explicitly clear about any technical issues or possible roadblocks, such as: Are you dealing with custom coding or an outdated platform? Does your team have limited resources?

By explaining these up front, potential vendors will know exactly what they’re getting into.

You’ll also naturally weed out contractors who can’t handle the task due to those constraints.

But you’ll also connect with companies that know how to work around these common issues with skill and finesse.

Remember, it’s far better to find this out now than after you’ve accepted the bid and started work.

7. Budget Constraints

It’s also important to be upfront with your budget too. The more you can eliminate surprises, the better for all parties involved.

8. What You’re Looking For in Potential Vendors

Another way to reduce or eliminate surprises is to explain exactly what you’re looking for in potential contractors.

All you have to do is outline what matters most to your project (i.e., time, solution, budget, etc.) and show how you’ll be evaluating their proposals based on that.

We’ll show you how this is done soon, but before we do, there’s one more thing to add here: an RFP cover letter.

Just like a cover letter for a resume, an RFP cover letter creates a professional image for your brand and sets the tone for prospective vendors. It signals that they should take the proposal and the project seriously.

The good news is there are a number of tools to make creating RFPs easier and less stressful than you’re imagining.

Sample Responses to RFPs

If you’ve issued an RFP and are collecting responses, you might be wondering what you should look for in effective RFP responses. Here, let’s look at a few examples of impressive RFP sample responses. 

Example One: General RFP Response for Web Design Services

Dear [author of RFP]:

Regarding your request for proposal (RFP), [our company] is thrilled about the opportunity to provide you web design services. Having worked with [brief list of past clients], we believe a partnership with [company you’re writing to] would have a tremendous impact on your customer satisfaction and bottom line.

As one of [client’s industry] leading providers of [client’s main service], you know just how critical this time of year can be for your customers. On average, the cost to deliver is $[xxxx.xx], and [client name] is committed to “[client’s mission statement].”

As these challenges become more common, it is increasingly important to provide customers with a powerful, SEO-optimized website to atttract new leads. With this in mind, [our company] intends to help [client’s name]:

• Create a sleek, impressive website that is clean, user-friendly and mobile responsive to work on all devices, so web viewers have a strong first impression of your brand regardless of the device they use to find you. 

• Help you strengthen brand identity through a new logo and a new, cohesive color palette. 

• Ensure each of your web pages are SEO-optimized to rank quickly, which will attract new customers to your website and demonstrate your leadership in the industry. 

As stated in the executive summary, [our company] intends to help [client’s name] [brief allusion to client benefits outlined in executive summary]. To do this, our team has outlined a proposed set of deliverables, an order of operations, division of labor, and expected dates of completion to ensure the partnership between [your company] and [client’s name] is successful.

[Your company] can’t wait to work with you to help [client’s name] in addressing [client’s challenges described in Executive Summary]. To recap, please see below a brief overview of the services included in this partnership.

This sample response clearly and succinctly explains how the vendor’s service will solve the buyer’s critical pain points when it comes to creating a strong website. By outlining the key benefits, you’re showing the client how you’ll put them first and focus on their needs to get the job done. 

Example Two: Video Production Company Offering Its Services

When responding to an RFP from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Paul Horton Visuals chose to create a full webpage dedicated to their RFP response. The webpage format enabled the team at Paul Horton to create a full sample video treatment and process to show Anthem what they’d be able to deliver if Anthem chose them. The page also includes an embedded video to highlight the strengths of Paul Horton: video production. 

Proposal Software Tools to Help You Manage RFPs

In this article, we outlined 10 tools to help you manage and create professional looking proposals in less time.

For today’s purposes, the following five tools are great places to get started:

1. RFPIO

RFPIO Solves the problem of responding to RFPs, from project management to collaboration, to integrating with other software.  Their solution includes reporting dashboards, auto-response features, and automated generation of proactive proposals from within your CRM. RFPIO also includes an intelligent answer library that turns previous RFP responses into on-demand intelligence that empowers revenue teams with enterprise content at their fingertips wherever the work. 

And what’s better? RFPIO has an integration with HubSpot that will automatically sync your RFP with your portal, making it easy to share information with your team. 

2. PandaDoc

To create customized RFPs with your own branding, consider using the proposal software PandaDoc.

Here you can set up your first RFP within minutes and even collaborate with team members using real-time updates within the document itself.

3. Nusii

Similar to other proposal software on the market, Nusii uses a drag and drop editor that makes building RFPs a breeze — especially for beginners.

Thanks to its clean, modern, simple design, it’s also really easy to figure out too.

One of the most helpful features of Nusii is using it for re-working existing RFPs to save you time. Just copy the content from an RFP you like and edit information to fit your new request.

4. Loopio

How do you plan on organizing all the responses to your RFPs?

One standout feature with Loopio is its RFP response library, which gives you instant access to all your answers from previous RFPs. This saves you the hassle of digging around to find what you need in a crowded inbox.

Their magic feature will even help you auto-populate a response if it appears similar to one you’ve already done.

Plus, you can manage your entire RFP process — including sending automated responses — and collaborate with your team all in one place with their intuitive dashboard.

And if proposal tools are out of the budget right now, or if you’d like to try your hand at creating your own first, use this template as a starting point.

5. RFP360

RFP360 streamlines your approach to RFP response management. Their intuitive knowledge management, workflow and collaboration features make it easy to create, review, update and approve compelling responses in a single library. Proposal automation and answer intelligence (AI) capabilities accelerate your ability to answer questions, suggesting the best possible responses and automatically completing them in bulk.

You can also import RFPs in various formats and generate polished final proposals, and integrated extensions allow anyone across your organization to use content from your knowledge library in Microsoft Office files, online questionnaires and forms — without leaving those applications.

Free and Editable RFP Template

Download a free, editable RFP template.

To use this template, simply download it here or fill out the form below. You can remove sections or pieces of information that don’t pertain to your project and add whatever else you need for your RFPs.

Today, most marketing teams are focused on driving traffic toward websites in hopes that this traffic then converts into qualified leads for sale reps to close. But that’s only half the battle.

Getting more out of existing traffic and leads (versus entirely new traffic) can propel companies toward long-term, sustainable growth. That’s where conversion rate optimization (CRO) comes in. In this guide, you’ll learn about the power of CRO, why your business should focus on improving your conversion rate, and how to get get started.

What is a conversion rate?

A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, like completing a web form, signing up for a service, or purchasing a product.

A high conversion rate means your website is well-designed, formatted effectively, and appealing to your target audience. A low conversion rate could be the result of a variety of factors related to either website performance or design. Slow load times, a broken form, or copy that doesn’t convey the value of the offer are common reasons for a poor conversion rate. 

What is a good conversion rate?

A “good” conversion rate depends on your industry, niche, goals, traffic channel, and audience demographics, among other factors. For example, the average conversion rate of ecommerce sites globally was 2.17% in the third quarter of 2020, which was down from 2.37% the previous year. The ecommerce conversion rate in the US was higher, however, at 2.57%.

The average not only differs by year and by country — it also differs by niche. For example, the average conversion rate of ecommerce sites in the food and beverage sector is 5.5% whereas the average in the haircare sector is 3.5%. 

If your conversion rate is lower than you’d like — maybe it’s below average in your industry, or lower than your top competitors, or simply underperforming against your own goals — then it’s time to optimize. 

What is CRO?

Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the process of enhancing your website and content to boost conversions. 

The process of optimizing for conversions allows you to boost your number of highly-qualified leads, increase revenue, lower acquisition costs, obtain greater value from your current leads and customers, and, simply, grow better.

Conversions can happen all over your website: on your homepage, pricing page, blog, landing pages, and more. To maximize the potential of converting website visitors into paying customers, you should optimize each location. 

Before we take a look at the benefits of CRO, let’s walk through how to calculate your site’s conversion rate. That way, you’ll have a better understanding of how much time and resources to invest in a CRO strategy. 

How to Calculate Conversion Rate 

Conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of visitors and multiplying that number by 100 to get a percentage.

As long as you know how you’re defining a conversion, then calculating your conversion rate is easy. You just plug in two values and multiply by 100. 

Let’s say you’re defining a conversion as a newsletter opt-in, and you have an opt-in form on every single page of your website. In that case, you’d divide the total number of newsletter form submissions by the total number of website visitors and multiply it by 100. So if you had 500 submissions and 20,000 visitors last quarter, then your conversion rate would be 2.5%. 

You can repeat this process for every conversion opportunity on your site. Just make sure to only count the number of visitors on the webpages where the offer is listed. For example, if you want to calculate the conversion rate of your ebook offer, then you’d divide the total number of downloads by the number of people who visited webpages where the ebook offer is listed. 

Alternatively, you can calculate your website’s overall conversion rate by dividing the total number of conversions for every conversion opportunity on your site by the total number of visitors on your site.

How Websites Benefit From CRO

Here are four areas of your website that have the potential to largely benefit from conversion rate optimization.

1. Homepage

Homepages are prime candidates for CRO. In addition to making a first impression on visitors, the homepage is also an opportunity to retain those visitors and guide them further into your website.

You can do this by emphasizing links to product information, offering a free signup button, or even incorporating a chatbot that solicits questions from visitors at any point during their browsing experience.

2. Pricing Page

A website’s pricing page can be the make-or-break point for many website visitors. CRO can help a pricing page convert visitors into customers by modifying the pricing intervals (e.g. price-per-year vs. price-per-month), describing the product features associated with each price, including a phone number for visitors to call for a price quote, or adding a simple pop-up form. 

Hotjar, for example, added a simple email opt-in popup form on its pricing page and got over 400 new leads in just three weeks.

3. Blog

A blog is a massive conversion opportunity for a website. In addition to publishing thoughtful and helpful content about your industry, a blog can use CRO to convert readers into leads.

This process often includes adding calls-to-action (CTA) throughout an article or inviting readers to learn more about a topic by submitting their email address in exchange for an ebook or industry report.

4. Landing Pages

Since landing pages are inherently designed for people to take an action, it makes sense that they have the highest average conversion rate of all signup forms at 24%. An event landing page, for example, can be optimized with a video of last year’s event to encourage visitors to register this year. A landing page that’s offering a free resource can be optimized with preview content from that resource to encourage visitors to download it.

Now that you know where you can optimize for conversions, you may be wondering how you know when your business is ready to start the process.

When is CRO right for your business?

The short answer: CRO is important for any business online. That’s because, no matter how established or large your company is, you want to convert your website visitors into qualified leads, customers, and brand advocates — and you want to do so in the most effective, impactful, and reliable way.

With conversion rate optimization, you’ll get more out of your existing website traffic while ensuring you’re targeting qualified leads.

Although this is a straightforward concept, setting a conversion goal isn’t as easy as saying, “This page converted 50 people this month, so we want to convert 100 people next month.”

You don’t just want 50 more conversions from a webpage. Instead, you want 50 more conversions for every X amount of people who visit it. (This is your conversion rate — the percentage of people who convert on your website based on how many people have touched it).

To provide a better understanding of where you stand at any point in time in regards to conversion rate, here are three commonly-used formulas your business can use to understand, analyze, and improve.

CRO Calculation 1: Conversion Rate

As we mentioned earlier, to calculate conversion rate, you must divide your number of conversions (or leads generated) by your number of visitors (or web traffic), and then multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.

Leads Generated ÷ Website Traffic x 100 = Conversion Rate %

CRO Calculation 2: Number of Net New Customers

To calculate your number of net new customers, you’ll want to divide your net revenue goal by your average sales price.

New Revenue Goal ÷ Average Sales Price = Number of New Customers

CRO Calculation 3: Lead Goal

And lastly, to calculate your lead goal, take your number of new customers and divide it by your lead-to-customer close rate (which is your total number of leads divided by total number of customers) percentage.

Number of New Customers ÷ Lead-to-Customer Close Rate % = Lead Goal

Here’s an example of these formulas in action:

If your website has 10,000 visitors per month that generate 100 leads — and subsequently, 10 customers each month — the website visitor-to-lead conversion rate would be 1%.

What if you wanted to generate 20 customers each month?

You could try to get 20,000 visitors to your website and hope that the quality of your traffic doesn’t decrease — although, that’s a risk you’ll likely want to avoid. Rather, you could obtain more leads from your existing traffic by optimizing your conversion rate. This is less risky and is more likely to produce better results for your bottom line.

For instance, if you increase your conversion rate from 1% to 2%, you’d double your leads and your customers. The following table is proof of this — you can see the positive impact that results from increasing your website’s conversion rate:

Company	a	B	c
Monthly Site Traffic	10,000	10,000	10,000
Conversion Rate	1%	2%	3%
Leads Generated	100	200	300
New Customers	10	20	30

Notice the drastic increases in number of leads generated and net new customers when you boost your conversion rate.

Not only that, but it’s clear that generating more website traffic isn’t necessarily the right approach when trying to improve your conversion rate — in fact, this chart shows you that you can grow your business substantially without increasing traffic at all.

Hard to believe? Think about this way: Pretend you were trying to fill up a leaky bucket. If you pour more water into the bucket, you won’t fix the root cause of the issue — instead, you’ll end up with a lot of water that’s wasted (not to mention, a bucket that will never fill up all the way).

Are you ready to take the first steps toward CRO at your company? Review the strategies below and start experimenting.

CRO Marketing Strategies to Try

Here are some applicable conversion rate optimization marketing strategies to test and implement at your company.

1. Create text-based CTAs within blog posts.

While it’s considered a best practice to include CTAs in a blog post, they sometimes fail to entice visitors to take your desired course of action. Why?

Banner blindness is a real phenomenon related to people becoming accustomed to ignoring banner-like information on websites. This lack of attention coupled with the fact site visitors don’t always read all the way to the bottom of a blog post (rather, they “snack” on content), means a different approach is required.

That’s where the text-based CTA comes in handy. Here at HubSpot, we ran a test with text-based CTAs — a standalone line of text linked to a landing page and styled as an H3 or an H4 — to see if they would convert more traffic into leads than regular CTAs located at the bottom of a web page.

In HubSpot’s limited test of 10 blog posts, regular end-of-post banner CTAs contributed an average of just 6% of leads that the blog posts generated, whereas up to 93% of a post’s leads came from the anchor-text CTA alone.

2. Add lead flows on your blog.

A lead flow is another conversion rate optimization element you can include on your site. Lead flows are high-converting pop-ups designed to attract attention and offer value.

You can select from a slide-in box, drop-down banner, or pop-up box, depending on your offer. We experimented with the slide-in box on the HubSpot Blog back in 2016 and it achieved a 192% higher clickthrough rate and 27% more submissions than a regular CTA at the bottom of a blog post.

3. Run tests on your landing pages.

Landing pages are an important part of the modern marketer’s toolkit and, as mentioned earlier, integral to conversion rate optimization.

That’s because a landing page is where a website visitor becomes a lead or an existing lead engages more deeply with your brand. To optimize a landing page, run A/B tests to identify your best design and content features for audience members.

For instance, with A/B testing you can quickly and easily test different versions of your website copy, content offers, images, form questions, and web pages to determine what your target audience and leads respond to best.

Thanks to A/B testing, China Expat Health was able to increase their lead conversion rate by 79%. One of the most impactful changes was swapping out the headline “Health Insurance in China” for “Save Up to 32% on Your Health Insurance in China,” which immediately conveyed a value proposition to visitors. This proposition was then supported by customer testimonials.

Get everything you need to start effectively A/B Testing your website today.

4. Help leads to immediately become a marketing-qualified lead.

Sometimes visitors want to get right down to business, skip parts of the typical buyer’s journey, and immediately speak with a sales rep (rather than be nurtured).

There are specific actions you should encourage these high-intent visitors to complete so they can easily become marketing qualified leads (MQLs) — and they can take action through a combination of thoughtfully designed web pages, compelling and clear copy, and smart CTAs.

For instance, at HubSpot, we discovered that visitors who sign up for product demos convert at higher rates than visitors who sign up for free product trials. So, we optimized our website and conversion paths for people booking demos or meetings with a sales rep.

Admittedly, this depends on your product and sales process, but our best advice is to run a series of tests to find out what generates the most customers. Then, optimize for that process. The key here is to look for ways to remove friction from your sales process.

5. Build workflows to enable your team.

There are a number of automated workflows you can create to enable your team with the help of marketing automation software.

For example, with marketing automation, it’s possible to send automatic emails with workflows. Then, leads can book meetings with reps in one click. Meanwhile, reps receive notifications when leads take high-intent actions such as view the pricing page on your website.

Or, if you work in ecommerce, you can send an email to people who abandon their shopping cart as a reminder.  According to research from Moosend, abandoned cart emails can be very effective. They have a high open rate of 45%. Of the emails that are opened, 21% are clicked. Half of the people who clicked make a purchase.

Here’s an example of an abandoned cart email by the Dollar Shave Club. 

Image Source

6. Add messages to high-converting web pages.

Use live chat software to chat with your website visitors in real-time and offer support and guidance as needed. To increase conversions, add these messaging features to your high-performing web pages — such as your pricing and product pages — so leads get the information they want in real-time.

You can also make your messaging and chat bots action-based. For example, if someone has spent more than a minute on the page, you may want to automatically offer to help and answer any questions they may have (again, a live chat tool, like HubSpot, makes this easy).

7. Optimize high-performing blog posts.

Again, publishing blog articles opens the door to a big opportunity for conversions. Even more so if you already have existing blog content on your site — in fact, at HubSpot, the majority of our monthly blog views and leads come from posts published over a month ago.

To get started optimizing your blog content, identify your posts with the highest levels of web traffic but low conversion rates. (Possible causes of this issue may be related to SEO, the content offer you are promoting, or your CTA.)

In one instance, we at HubSpot added an inbound press release template offer to a blog post about press releases — as a result, we saw conversions for that post increase by 240%.

Additionally, look at your blog posts with high conversion rates. You want to drive more qualified website traffic to those posts and you can do so by optimizing the content for the search engine results page (SERP) or updating it as needed to ensure it’s fresh and relevant.

8. Leverage retargeting to re-engage website visitors.

It doesn’t matter what your key conversion metric is: The cold, hard truth is that most people on your website don’t take the action you want them to. By leveraging retargeting on Facebook and other platforms, you can re-engage people who left your website.

Retargeting works by tracking visitors to your website and serving them online ads as they visit other sites around the web. This is particularly impactful when you retarget people who visited your highest-converting web pages.

The normal inbound rules still apply here — you need well-crafted copy, engaging visuals, and a compelling offer for retargeting to work.

Take United’s retargeting campaign for example. Using insights from previous ad campaigns, United focused on reaching people who had viewed their ads and were already considering booking a vacation. To this select audience, they promoted a 15-second video ending in a call-to-action.

If viewers felt inspired enough to book their vacation, all they had to do was click on the CTA to be taken straight to the United website. This proved to be a huge success. In just one month, 52% of conversions attributed to YouTube were click-through conversions directly from the ad.

(If you’re a HubSpot customer, take a look at how the AdRoll integration can improve your conversion efforts.)

Now, let’s talk about how you can get started with CRO at your company.

How to Get Started with Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Maybe you’re wondering, “Where do I start with CRO?”

Enter: PIE framework. Before starting a CRO project, prioritize your efforts by ranking each element on Potential, Importance, and Ease.

Use the PIE framework to answer the following questions for every strategy outlined in the previous section. Then, assign a score between one and 10 (one being the lowest and 10 being the highest) to each strategy.

• How much total improvement can this project offer?
• How valuable will this improvement be?
• How complicated or difficult will it be to implement this improvement?

Once you’ve assigned a score for each strategy, add up the numbers and divide the total by three — this gives a score that shows what project will have the greatest impact. Then, work on the projects with the highest scores first.

The PIE framework isn’t perfect, but it’s easy to understand, systematic, and offers a starting point for CRO collaboration and communication among colleagues.

Frequently Asked Questions About CRO 

We’ve covered a lot about conversion rate optimization, but not everything. If you still have questions, then check out the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions below. 

What is the purpose of a conversion rate optimization?

The purpose of conversion rate optimization (CRO) is to improve the likelihood of visitors taking a desired action on a webpage.

What is a CRO strategy?

A CRO strategy is designed to convert more of your visitors into paying customers. While each CRO strategy will vary company by company, the general steps will not. You have to identify key metrics and your target audience. Then you have to collect user feedback and other data to decide what you’re going to test. Finally, you’ll run A/B tests to improve different pages and parts of your site for conversion.

What are CRO tools?

CRO tools are designed to simplify or automate the process of optimizing your conversion rate. They might help with lead capture, research, analytics, mouse tracking and heat maps, feedback, or running experiments.

What is a CRO test?

A CRO test involves adding, re-arranging, and redesigning elements on your website in order to maximize your conversions. Different CRO tests might focus on optimizing the copy, design, or placement of your CTAs, or the length of your headlines, among other elements. 

Begin Using CRO

There are many “best practices” out there when it comes to CRO but, ultimately, you need to find out what your customers respond to, and what drives results for your business.

Keep these three follow-up actions in mind when getting started with CRO today:

• Use the three formulas to start the CRO conversation.
• Experiment with CRO strategies to discover what works for your business.
• Leverage the PIE framework to help prioritize your strategy.

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

If you want to curate others’ content from social media or just make your own visual social media content work harder for your overall content strategy, you need to know how to embed HTML code onto your blog or website.

But wait a second … before we get into the nitty-gritty of this tip, what the heck does “embed” mean? And what is HTML? If you don’t know how to code at all, no worries — embedding external content is extremely easy. Let’s take a second to break down the basics.

What does embed mean?

Embed means to integrate external content into another website or page. You embed something when you place a block of code — called an embed code — into the HTML editor of another website. When you hit ‘Save’ or ‘Publish,’ the media then renders on the published page.

Embedded content is referenced with HTML. HTML is one of the most basic languages used on the web to design and lay out web pages.

You often see this code when you’re in the “back end” of your blog post. There’s where you’ll add your embed code.

Most social and multimedia websites have an option to generate an embed code right in each individual post. Here’s an example of an embed code for a HubSpot YouTube video:

And here’s the embedded result.

Want to do the same thing on your blog posts and pages? Let’s go over how you can generate an embed code for the top social sites.

Below, we cover these steps in more detail for each platform. In general, you’ll want to:

1. Generate the embed code.
2. Access your content management system and paste the embed code in your HTML viewer.
3. Finished! You have embedded content into your website or blog.

Let’s dive into each step.

1. Generate the embed code.

Before embedding external content, you must first generate an embed code for the post or page you want to embed on your website.

We’ll go over how you can do that on most of the major social and content networks.

Embed a Facebook Post

To embed a Facebook post, do the following:

• Navigate to Facebook on your desktop browser and go to the post that you’d like to embed.
• Click on the three dots on the upper right-hand corner of the post.
• On the drop-down menu, click Embed.

• A pop-up will appear, where you have the option to include the full post and access advanced settings. For beginners, we recommend leaving the options as they are and simply clicking Copy Code.

• Finished! You’ve got your embed code.

Embed an Instagram Post

Want to embed an Instagram post? The process is similar to Facebook’s. Note that you can only embed posts from the desktop version and not the mobile app.

• Click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the post.
• A popup will come up with several options. Click Embed, the second-to-last option.

• A pop-up will come up with your embed code. You have the option of including or excluding the caption.
• After you’ve finished customizing your options, click Copy Embed Code.

• Complete! You’ve got your Instagram embed code.

Embed a YouTube Video

YouTube videos can take your blog posts to the next level, and the best part is that you can embed its wealth of content on your blog posts for free.

To do so, take the following steps:

• Navigate to the video that you’d like to embed on your website.
• Under the video, next to where the likes are located, click Share.

• A pop-up will come up with several options, including sharing the post to other social networks. Click Embed.

• YouTube will create an embed code, which you can customize. You can start the video at a certain point or hide the player controls.
• After choosing your options, click Copy on the lower right-hand corner of the pop-up.

• Complete! Your YouTube video is ready to get embedded.

Embed a Tweet

If you embed a Tweet on your website pages or blog, you can generate engagement for your Twitter profile without relying on your Twitter followers. Website visitors can engage with your Twitter content, too.

To embed a Twitter post, do the following:

• On a desktop browser, navigate to the post that you’d like to embed.
• Click on the three dots on the upper right-hand corner of the post.
• A drop-down menu will appear. Click Embed Tweet.

• Twitter will take you to an external page on publish.twitter.com, where you can then further customize the look of the Tweet before embedding it on your site. For instance, you can set it to dark mode and change the display language of the Tweet.

• Once you’ve customized it, click Update.
• Click Copy Code.
• Finished! The Tweet is ready to embed on your site.

There’s another way to generate an embed code for Twitter. Go to publish.twitter.com and insert the URL of the post that you’d like to embed. Twitter will then generate the embed code, and you can customize it using the same process as the last method.

Embed a Pinterest Post

Embedding a Pinterest post can lead website users back to your Pinterest profile and help you grow your Pinterest following. To get started, do the following:

• Navigate to the Pinterest post you’d like to embed.
• Click on the three dots right next to the image (or under the image, if you’re using the mobile website).
• On the drop-down menu, click Get Pin embed code.

• A pop-up will appear with the embed code. You have the option of creating a small, medium, large, or extra-large embedded pin.

• Once you customize the size, highlight the code and click Command + C or CTRL + C.
• Finished! Your Pin is ready to get embedded.

Embed a SlideShare Presentation

While SlideShare presentations are not as popular these days, they can still be a handy multimedia tool for spicing up blog posts and pages. Here’s how to embed a SlideShare presentation:

• Go to the SlideShare presentation you’d like to embed.
• Click Share under the presentation.
• In the same window where the presentation appears, you’ll see the option to share it via social channels. The embed code will be underneath that.

• Choose the size of the embed window and which slide you’d like the presentation to start on.
• Highlight the embed code and click Command + C or CTRL + C.
• Ready! You can now embed the SlideShare presentation in a web page or post.

Embed an External Webpage

Don’t want to embed a social post but rather a web page? You can embed an external web page using the iframe HTML tag.

All embed codes, including the ones for social sites, use iframe tags. This is what they look like:

You can use these same tags to embed an external webpage. Here’s how:

• Navigate to the webpage you’d like to embed into your site.
• Open up the notepad app on your computer. Paste the following code into it:

• Return to the webpage and copy the URL.
• Paste the entire URL where it says url in your iframe code. Don’t forget to include https:// at the beginning of your URL and to place the link inside the quote marks. Here’s what your code should look like:

• Change the width and height of the frame if desired.

• Copy the entire line of code. After, the webpage is ready to get embedded on your website.

2. Access your content management system and paste the embed code in your HTML viewer.

Although every CMS is different, you can probably find the HTML viewer with similar steps. We’ll go over how you can do it in CMS Hub and WordPress.

CMS Hub

In CMS Hub, you actually don’t need to add your embed content using the HTML editor (although you have the option to). Here’s how:

• In your HubSpot dashboard, navigate to Marketing > Website > Blog. If you’re planning to add the code to a website page, navigate to Marketing > Website > Website Pages.

• Find the post or page that you’d like to add the embed code to. Hover over it, then click Edit.

• Click into the module where you’d like to add the embed code. An options bar will appear near the top of the screen. In the right-hand side, click Insert.
• Choose Embed from the drop-down menu.

• A pop-up will appear. Paste the iframe code into the text bar.

• Click Insert.
• Finished! You can edit the width and height of the embed content to customize it further.

To access the HTML editor, complete steps 1-3 above. On the top options bar, click Advanced > Source Code. You can then paste your embed code manually. Note that the end result is the same.

WordPress

To paste an embed code into your WordPress website, use the following steps:

• Access your admin area and go to either Pages or Posts.
• Click the title of the post that you want to add the embed code to. This action will take you to the post editor.
• Click the Text tab on the upper right-hand corner of the text editor.

• Paste your embed code where you want the module to appear.

3. Finished! You have embedded content onto your website or blog.

Once you reload the page, your embedded social post will appear.

Add Embedded Content to Increase User Engagement

By embedding external content on your pages and posts, you can increase engagement on your website and get your site visitors to interact with the content you post on social media. The best part is that it’s easy to do — simply generate the embed code, paste it into your HTML editor, and watch your user engagement grow.

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

The best billboards demand your attention with bold fonts, in-your-face messages, and bright, eye-catching graphics. The best Facebook ads take the exact opposite approach.

If you want to reach and engage with potential customers on Facebook, you need to create ads that blend as seamlessly as possible into the rest of the content on their newsfeeds. This means focusing on simple, high-quality images, straightforward messages, and most importantly: minimal text.

Facebook has found that the best performing ads include images with little to no text. Formerly, they had a “20% rule,” which stated that in order to run an image-based ad on Facebook, your image must contain less than 20% text. It even created a text overlay tool to help advertisers determine whether their images had too many words.

The 20% rule is no longer a requirement, and the Facebook overlay tool is inactive. However, it’s still smart to follow the 20% rule and keep text to a minimum in your image-based ads.

It’s important to note that you should use the 20% rule only for the text contained within images in your ad. It does not include text on your ad outside of images, like the description copy or call-to-action button.

There are a few exceptions to the 20% rule, including images of book covers, album covers, event posters, video games, and some product images that contain text (e.g., a cereal box).

Text-based logos are not an exception to the 20% rule. You should count your logo when deciding how much text to include in your image.

So, why exactly did the Facebook 20% rule exist, and why is it still relevant today? It all comes down to what users want to see and engage with in their newsfeeds. Ads with less overlay text perform significantly better than images crowded with text, so sticking to the rule creates a better experience for both users and advertisers.

Facebook Text Overlay Tool

The Facebook text overlay tool is no longer active, but it’s still wise to carefully choose the text you’ll include in your images.

While you’re creating an ad, it can be tricky to evaluate the exact percentage of text covering your image. The following examples will show you some of the ways you can add text in a way that will naturally generate engagement.

Before designing your ad, be sure to review specs and sizes for your images and Facebook’s guidelines for image-based ads.

1. Ad With Acceptable Text Overlay

Your best approach when creating a Facebook ad is to use little to no text.

In this example of an ad image, there’s only a small text-based logo and no other copy. This image contains 4% text.

An ad with a simple image like this will blend more easily into users’ news feeds and is much more likely to gain exposure and engagement among your target audience.

The best part is that it might strike curiosity because it doesn’t share much; instead, viewers will have to read the description to find out what the ad is about.

2. Ad With Minimal Text Overlay

In this next example, there are two lines of text, bringing the text percentage to 12%. The logo has been removed from the corner.

It still works because the text doesn’t cover 20% of the image. The text also helps the viewer understand what the ad is about.

Nevertheless, consider adding the copy into the body of your ad instead of your image. Since the image and the description are visible at the same time, you can use the body only to describe your offering.

3. Ad With Excessive Text Overlay

This final example is exactly what Facebook does not want to see. It contains a whopping 44% text-to-image ratio.

While the copy is well-written and the offering is clear, this ad contains too much text over the image. The information displayed here could easily be incorporated into the body copy of your ad, creating a much cleaner look in users’ news feeds.

It might be tempting to throw important information onto your images like this, but you risk alienating users who are turned off by busy copy.

Now that you have an idea of what a good ad looks like, how can you put it into practice in your own ad? Let’s take a look.

Facebook Text Overlay Best Practices

The best way to capture users’ attention on Facebook is to use an eye-catching image with no text.

The 20% rule isn’t just an arbitrary recommendation — it helps advertisers reach their target audiences more effectively, and prevents users’ news feeds from becoming overwhelmed with disruptive advertisements.

If you do want to add text to your image, you should use the following best practices for overlaying text over your Facebook ads.

1. Choose the right font size.

Believe it or not, font size is even more important than the amount of text you overlay over your image.

Smaller font sizes naturally won’t take up as much space, reducing your text-to-image ratio. Bigger font sizes will make you exceed the 20% rule straight away, even if you’re only including two or three words. That said, you don’t want to make the text too small; otherwise, viewers will have to squint to read what it says.

The font size you choose will depend on the size of your image and whether you’re adding a heading or a whole sentence. For headings, try to stay under 42 pixels; for sentences, try to stay around 24 pixels. Play around with font sizes to find what best works for the image.

2. Include only a heading or one line of text.

There’s no reason to include more than one line of text in your Facebook ad. You have the body of the ad to include enough context and information for the viewer to click your link.

If you add text, consider only adding a heading — such as an offer, a call-to-action, or a discount. That’ll maximize the impact of the text and ensure viewers see something that will compel them to click.

For instance, “Buy 1 Get 1 Free,” “Apply Now,” and “30% Off” are all eye-catching phrases that will warrant a second look and don’t take up too much space. That brings us to the next point: Choose only the best and most eye-catching text to add to your image.

3. Choose eye-catching, impactful text.

When adding overlay text to your Facebook ad, be sure to choose a line of text that will 1) Catch your target audience’s attention and 2) Hint at the value they’ll extract if they click through to your offer.

In the body of the ad, you can go into greater detail about your product or offer. But in your image, include only the text that will help someone decide whether they want to read more.

4. Use an alternative text overlay tool to see your text-to-image ratio.

While Facebook’s text overlay tool is no longer available, you can use an alternative that mimics Facebook’s original tool. We recommend trying these:

• No Limit Creatives Text Overlay Tool
• Social Contests Text Overlay Tool

They’re virtually identical in functionality, so simply choose the one that’s most convenient for you and your browser.

To use them, upload your image and select the squares that have text. On the right-hand column, the tool will tell you whether you’re above or under the 20% text-to-image ratio. That way, you know for sure whether you’ve added too much text to the image.

5. Take advantage of a grid to align the text.

In a free tool such as Canva, you can typically overlay a grid over your design as you’re creating it. Simply go to Elements > Grid and scroll until you find a grid that best works for your design. (Be sure to lower the transparency of the grid so you can see your ad beyond it.)

Use the grid as a guiding tool for aligning your text and ensuring it doesn’t take up too many boxes. If your grid has nine boxes and one line of text takes three boxes horizontally, then you know that the text is too big. If it only takes up one box, it might be too small.

Without a grid, you might lean on gut feeling only — and while your gut feeling can be of great help, it’s best to approach text overlays with as much exactitude as possible.

The 20% Rule Will Help You Create Better Facebook Ads

While Facebook no longer requires advertisers to adhere to the 20% rule, it’s still a valuable guideline for adding text to your Facebook ads. Keep text to a minimum and you’ll ensure your Facebook ad packs as much impact as possible, significantly boosting your ROI and encouraging viewers to engage with your brand.

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

In marketing these days, you can’t swing an enthusiastic micro-influencer without hitting someone who’s talking about video content. And it’s not without merit.

A recent Wyzowl study revealed that 69% of consumers prefer to watch a short video to learn more about a brand’s products or services.

With 84% of people saying they’ve been convinced to make a purchase based on a brand’s video, it’s clear video marketing is the future and product demo videos are a lucrative path forward.

There are many different types of product demo videos, so I’m sharing a few of my favorites below, along with tips on how to get started on your own product demo video.

Want to skip straight to the videos? Click here.

1. Identify the goal.

Purchases? Subscriptions? Education? Brand awareness? Decide what your video is trying to achieve and what you want the viewer to walk away with.

What action do you hope the viewer takes after watching your video, and what business need does it fulfill? For example, “After watching our product demo video, we hope the viewer submits a demo request form.”

2. Determine your audience.

Has the audience for this video purchased with you before? Are you introducing a new product or feature to them? Or, is this video reaching people who have never heard of you? What will this audience be concerned with? How long will they want to watch? What buyer persona will you be gearing this video for?

All of these are important questions to answer.

For example, let’s say you’re introducing software that regulates the temperature of various areas in your office.

The audience for your video might be harried office managers who are constantly fielding requests to turn the temperature up or down.

They’re concerned with keeping their colleagues comfortable without breaking the bank on electricity costs.

3. Set a budget and a timeline.

Do you have $7,000 or $80,000 to make this product demo video?

Identify your budget so you know how to proceed. This is also the time to set expectations. If you have a $500 budget, you’re not going to come out with a video on par with Apple’s latest release – and that’s alright.

Oh, and don’t forget to outline when you need this video to be completed. Even the biggest budgets can run up against roadblocks if the timeline is too limited.

4. Decide between in-house or agency.

This decision will likely be dependent on your budget. If you have a lot to work with, interview agencies that can give you quotes and creative pitches for your project.

If you have a small budget, you can still create a great video with a smartphone that has a high-quality camera. You can also screen record your computer to use as B-roll as you navigate through your platform.

Work with what you have and be proud of whatever you create.

5. Structure your video.

Will you tell a story? Highlight pain points? Use text or visuals only? Decide how you want to communicate your goal and how you’ll bring it to life.

If you’re working with a creative agency or freelance videographer, they may help you define the structure. If you’re going it alone, use videos like the ones we’ve listed below to inspire you and define which format will work best for your product and goals.

Another factor to consider is length. How long should a product demo video be, you ask? Two minutes is the sweet spot. However, you can go up to five minutes, if your demo goes into detail about use cases and features.

6. Choose between animation and live-action.

Animation can sometimes be a little cheaper than a live-action video.

Work within your budget and skill level. In addition, narrow down which option best highlights your product and the scope your project requires.

7. Write a script.

The script is a crucial part of your video. It defines the tone, pace, and message.

Start with a project brief, move on to an outline, and navigate your script, section by section, making sure it speaks to the goals you’ve previously outlined.

Call out opportunities for B-roll throughout, and always conduct a verbal run-through before getting behind the camera. This will help you see if anything sounds unnatural and should be reworked.

For more tips and a video script template, check out this blog post and accompanying video on how to write a video script.

8. Create a marketing plan.

Once you’ve shot, edited, and finalized your video, it’s time to decide how you’ll share it with your audience. YouTube, your website or campaign landing pages, and special email campaigns are all great channels for distribution.

But don’t overlook less obvious opportunities, like including your video in your email signature, sharing it in partner blog posts, and incorporating it into your sales team’s pitches.

Product Demo Video Examples

1. The Lip Bar

In this demo, a model shows makeup users how to use one of the brand’s products: the “Caffeine Concealer.”

At just under five minutes, the model incorporates the product into their makeup routine and explains the application method as they go.

Here’s why this works: While the demo allows viewers to see what the product will look like in real life, it also helps show consumers just how easy it is to add it to their daily beauty routine.

2. Airtable

This classic product demo video uses animation to show how users can benefit from it.

What this video does well is demonstrate several different use cases, taking a broad, top-of-the-funnel approach that will attract the masses.

Airtable also do something else that’s incredibly smart. As the seconds tick by and viewers hypothetically click out of the video, the information shared gets more specific, with specific tactics and features.

Airtable knows if someone has stuck around over one minute into their demo video, this is likely a qualified lead who wants to learn more.

3. Zendesk Sunshine

Zendesk leads with pain points in their product demo video.

“Customer relationships are complicated … made up of fragmented pieces of what you know about your customers … it’s kind of all over the place,” a narrator explains. But Zendesk gets it: “What seems like chaos is actually everything you want.”

The viewer immediately feels like Zendesk understands them. It’s a full 50 seconds into the video before Zendesk even introduces a solution.

We never actually see the platform at work, but that’s not really the goal of this video. That’s what makes it an effective demo. 

4. SurveyMonkey

At nearly two minutes long, this product demo packs a powerful punch with visuals of SurveyMonkey’s benefits and features as well as a walk-through of the product interface.

Why it works: Viewers see just how easy it is to send a survey using SurveyMonkey. They even see how it integrates with other platforms like Slack.

This is a workhorse of a demo video, but the viewer witnesses how SurveyMonkey can integrate into their daily workflow – and how easy the product is to use, from sign-in to send.

5. Headspace

Is there anything harder to sell on the internet than meditation? Headspace makes it seem easy with their modern, relatable animated product demo video.

They offer a “healthier, happier life” and show you how the app works for a variety of users with differing goals and times.

This demo works well because it’s an inclusive video that communicates a lot without overwhelming the viewer.

6. Esusu

Esusu, an app created by Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneurs Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel, aims to help people in marginalized locations with financial planning. The demo created by the company gives viewers a look inside Esusu’s platform and the tools it has to offer.

Specifically, this demo walks through how families can use the platform together to build each member’s credit, save funds together, or send funds to each other.

One great thing about the intro above is that it establishes a pain point by asking the audience if they’ve ever dealt with bad credit or poor savings. Then, it highlights exactly how Esusu can help them.

This demo is also a great example of how a quick and simple tour of an app can show potential users exactly what they need to know about navigating and using this type of financial planning app.

7. Apple

This glossy product video introduces the new iPhone 12 by showing what it can do. Simple text alerts the viewer to the features and capabilities through vivid visuals.

The goal of this product demo is to wow rather than educate, and that’s exactly what it does.

8. Slack

Slack uses this brightly hued video to break down a common misconception about their platform: that it’s only for sending private messages. They walk viewers through how teams can communicate using their interface.

“It’s way more than just a place to talk,” explains the actor, “we keep all of our files here too.”

The video is feature-heavy, but the actor chimes in with how those features translate into benefits as he walks viewers through a demonstration of Slack.

A simple “Get started with Slack, today” closes out this informative video with a clear call-to-action.

9. The Origins of Nike Free

This product demo tells the origin story of the Nike Free running shoes.

What works well here is the context the brand provides for the idea and vision behind the product.

The shoe creators share a bit about how the shoe was designed and call out benefits like, “more natural movement” and “nice, modern evolution.”

A simple tagline at the end reads, “Engineered for modern motion.”

10. Duolingo

Duolingo kicks things off with social proof from The Wall Street Journal: “Far and away the best free language-learning app.”

What follows is a description of how the platform works, backed with more data on how effective it really is.

If you want to prove that your product works, sometimes facts are more alluring than a demo of the product itself.

11. IKEA Place

There’s nothing wrong with stating your purpose upfront.

“Hey, IKEA would like everyone to know about Place, our new augmented reality app,” explains this demo video.

What follows is a demonstration of the app and a video montage of people struggling to design and furnish new spaces.

“We want to make it easier for people everywhere to imagine a better place,” the narrator explains.

Why this works: It addresses a pain point and explains why this product is here to solve it. Not every demo has to use this formula, but it is a great place to start. 

12. NoseFrida

Your baby is cute until she’s not.

The narrator in this demo explains what happens to a baby’s nose when they’re sick – and why your baby gets fussy.

Immediately, he’s identified the viewer’s pain points and explained the problem with NoseFrida’s competitors.

The narrator begins to explain how to use the NoseFrida, a device that allows parents to physically suck snot out of their baby’s nose and effectively ruins your days of carefree milkshake sipping forever (take it from me).

It’s here that the company does something brilliant. They know their customer’s biggest purchasing block is the gross-out factor this product elicits, so they confront it head-on.

“Breathe easy, we know what you’re thinking,” the narrator says. They then explain how NoseFrida is designed to be hygienic and safe.

Know your product has a big red flag for customers? Try addressing it bravely, like NoseFrida does, instead of tip-toeing around the elephant in the room.

13. Craftsy

How do you get people to part with their most valuable asset: their free time? Online learning platform Craftsy, formerly known as Bluprint, has the right formula.

They first engage users by letting them know they have something for everyone. The narrator says, “Whether you’re just getting started with a craft or looking to advance your skills, our world-class instruction is here to help.”

The video then outlines the various lessons consumers can take, from baking to knitting, emphasizing the value of having seasoned instructors to guide them.

14. Sphero

Are you known for one product but want to introduce another? Sphero knows a little about that.

A few years ago, the brand created a robot called BB-8 for a little-known movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Lucky for them, I hear that panned out.

In a Kickstarter video for their newest robot, they begin by featuring the iconic BB-8 robot that skyrocketed their success. Once the viewer knows who they are, they present their new robot: The Sphero RVR.

The rest of the video features the robot’s engineers speaking about what their new creation does and why it’s special. We believe them because they’ve tethered this new creation to their past authority.

What works well here is that Sphero establishes its credibility straight on by referencing past success then introduces their new product and its features. 

15. Ring Door View Cam

This is another great example of showing viewers instead of telling them what your product can do.

The video shows everyday people using Ring’s Door View Cam in a variety of ways.

We see them use the mobile interface, benefit from the speaker, and avoid danger using the camera.

Many times, demos outline the benefits but what’s better than seeing it in action? That’s why use cases are great for demos.

16. Peloton

This product video begins with an origin story of the Peloton bicycle and quickly moves to the benefits (i.e., you can ride it in your bedroom without waking your partner).

Before you know it, the video is speaking to viewer pain points, “One of the challenges with boutique fitness is that it can be inconvenient.”

Their solution? Peloton.

Thousands of classes, experienced instructors, community, and ease of use.

Close-ups of the machine in use highlights certain features, but what this video demonstrates most is the experience you’ll have using Peloton.

“This is what I’ve been missing,” says one video participant.

I can’t help but think that’s the primary goal the makers of this video had for their viewers.

17. Zoom

This is a classic example of a product demo video. A solid, feature-heavy script that immediately jumps into how professionals can use and benefit from Zoom.

What works well here: The viewer sees the product being used as they listen to how it works, and they’re left with a clear picture of what Zoom can offer them.

18. Gusto

I’ve saved the most comprehensive product demo video for last. This example, from HR software provider Gusto, clocks in at an impressive five minutes and fifty-six seconds.

What follows is a careful walk-through of the product, its benefits, and how to pick the perfect plan.

Viewers who make it to the end likely signal to Gusto that they’re ready to speak with a salesperson. This video probably works best for buyers further along in the buyer’s journey.

Key takeaway: If your goal is to introduce your product/service to new audiences, stick with a shorter option that’s quick and easy to consume.

Using Product Demo Videos in Your Marketing Strategy

Product demo videos might take a bit of time and planning to create, but once they’re live, they can be an effective piece of your brand’s overall video marketing strategy.

As consumers seek out more video content while researching products, marketers are also finding that videos are their most effective asset. Like them, you’ll want to leverage video marketing and product demos to guide your prospect to the customer stage.

Want to create your own video? Check out our ultimate guide to video marketing.

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in June 2019, but has been updated for comprehensiveness.

I’d venture to guess you get tons of emails in your inbox every day.

From coupons to daily deal sites, from newsletters to your mother wanting to know when you plan to visit — it’s a lot to sift through, never mind actually open.

So what makes you want to take that extra step to actually open an email? Often, it’s the subject line. After all, it’s your very first impression of the email. From that first impression, you’ll do your best to judge the content inside.

If you’re an email marketer, or just someone who happens to send emails on behalf of your company, you don’t want to be one of those ignored (or deleted) emails in your subscribers’ inboxes. You’ve got to make sure your email subject lines are top-notch — and what better way to learn how to do that than by examining some great examples of subject lines?

Let’s take a look at a few examples that, old or new, we’re crazy about — plus what makes them so great.

(While you’re at it, check out our Out-of-Office Email Generator to make your email address even more delightful to your contacts.)

1. “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring”

Sender: Warby Parker

Not too long ago, a HubSpot alum received this email two weeks before he needed to renew his prescription — talk about great timing. And when your eye prescription is expiring, it happens to be an excellent time to upgrade your glasses. By sending an email at the right time, Warby Parker increased its chances of this email getting opened.

But timing isn’t the sole reason we included this example. This subject line is brilliant because it appeared at the right time and with the right tone. Using conversational words like “uh-oh,” keeping the subject line sentence case, and leaving out the period at the end, the subject line comes across as helpful and friendly — not as a company trying to upsell you.

2. “Best of Groupon: The Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)”

Sender: Groupon

It’s hard to be funny in your marketing, but Groupon’s one of those brands that seems to nail it again and again. After all, who can forget this classic unsubscribe video?

This subject line is no exception. The quip, “(Unlike Our Nephew Steve),” actually had us

laughing out loud. Why? It’s completely unexpected. The first part of the subject line looks like a typical subject line you’d get from Groupon, highlighting a new deal. The parenthetical content? Not so much — making this one a delightful gem to find in your inbox.

3. “👗 Free (Cool!) Clothes Alert 👖”

Sender: Clover

First of all, we have a not-so-secret love for emojis in email subject lines. Personally, I’m partial to turquoise — so when I see an email implying that I might somehow be able to obtain free turquoise clothes, chances are, I’m clicking.

That’s part of what makes this subject line work. It draws the recipients’ eye by using visual content (emojis), and it hints at an offer of something free. That hints at an incentive to open the email: There’s something to gain inside.

4. “The timer’s going off on your cart!”

Sender: King Arthur Flour

Similar to Warby Parker, this subject line makes use of urgency. If I don’t take action on my King Arthur Flour shopping cart — like actually buying the items — it will be cleared, and I’ll have to start all over again.

Okay, so maybe this is a low-risk scenario. But when it comes to my baking goods, I personally don’t like to take any chances, or risk forgetting what I was going to buy. That’s where the personalization aspect of this subject line comes in: King Arthur Flour — especially its online shop — tends to attract both professional and home bakers who take all things culinary a bit more seriously than, say, someone who only buys flour on occasion from the supermarket. And wouldn’t you know? Those are the same bakers who probably don’t want to spend time building their shopping carts from scratch.

The moral of the story: Know your audience when you’re writing email subject lines. Is there something that they take seriously more than others? If so, incorporate that into your copy.

5. “What Did You Think? Write a Review.”

Sender: REI

I received an email with this subject line about a week after buying a portable stove at REI for a camping trip I was going on. I had just gotten back from that trip, too. It was perfect timing for them to ask me what I thought of it.

Companies ask satisfied customers to write reviews of their business all the time. But when you specifically send these requests to the people who just purchased something from you, you’re being smart with your mailing list and reaching recipients whose interest is still warm.

Another reason this subject line works? It’s not expecting a good review. REI is genuinely asking me what I thought of the stove I bought. Maybe I hated it (though I didn’t). The company just wanted me to speak up.

6. “Important Weather Advisory”

Sender: RCN

Any time we see a weather-related alert, our ears perk up. In RCN’s case, it isn’t just a way to lure recipients into opening an email. The subject line above is RCN’s way of updating its customers to potential power outages and driving attention to the brand that provides them with cable and Wi-Fi — even during inclement weather.

If you can hitch your email marketing campaign to an event you know people pay attention to, and have something helpful to offer in response, you’ll see your email open rate soar.

7. “1,750 points for you. Valentine’s flowers & more for them.”

Sender: JetBlue

It’s such a specific number … 1,750 … of course you’re going to open this.

Coming from an airline, an offering of “points” might as well be gold to someone who likes to travel. And if that recipient also has a significant other, sending this email leading up to Valentine’s Day is a home run.

The best part about the subject line above is how particular JetBlue was about the number of points available. Instead of, say, “20% your next return flight of 1,000 miles or more,” this subject line gives it to you straight: 1,750 points, and all you have to do is buy flowers for your loved one. You’re already wondering how far you can fly with 1,750 points, I can tell.

8. “Rock the color of the year”

Sender: Etsy

In six words, Etsy was able to promote a product solely by its color, and inform you that there is apparently a “color of the year.” The email is truly too intriguing not to open.

Etsy is an ecommerce website for user-created marketplaces, and the reason we were impressed by its subject line above was because of the way it uses mystery to drive value into a suite of products. This email isn’t an invitation to buy clothing or jewelry; it’s an invitation to find out what the color of the year is.

9. “*Don’t Open This Email*”

Sender: Manicube

Ever been told to not do something? Being asked to refrain from something can actually have the opposite effect — you now want to do that thing even more.

That’s the strategy behind Manicube’s subject line. It’s a simple but effective way to make people curious enough to open your email. (Just be sure that the contents of your email actually have something worthy of that subject line.)

10. “How to live at home 24/7”

Sender: Feather

If you’re anything like me, the COVID-19 pandemic had you wearing PJs from day to night, only changing when you had Zoom meetings at work. As a social distancing precaution, you likely used delivery services instead of going out and getting food on your own — which means that you were effectively living at home 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

This email from Feather, a furniture rental store, perfectly encapsulates a frustration many of us faced: How do you live at home 24/7 without feeling like you’re going crazy? With this subject line, Feather promises to help you find a solution by using furniture that makes it easier to stay at home for extended periods of time.

Try it: Use a “How To” subject line to tell recipients what they can achieve with your products. Then, in your email, include links to the products that will help them achieve those goals.

11. “What Can You Afford?”

Sender: Zillow

Imagine getting this subject line in your inbox from a website showing apartments for rent. It’s both exciting and encouraging (“Here are a bunch of apartments right in your budget. Yay!”), but also kind of competitive — pitting your cash against what the market offers. Would you click it? I certainly would.

Personalizing emails to cater to your audience’s emotions — for which there’s a broad spectrum, when it comes to real estate — is key to getting people to open your emails. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know how to take advantage of them, either. In addition to principles like urgency, crafting an email subject line that implies scarcity is another great way to increase your conversion rates.

12. “As You Wish”

Sender: UncommonGoods

When writing emails, you should also think about the recognizable names and references that make people tick. For example, take this subject line from UncommonGoods forwarded to us from HubSpot’s Content Director, Corey Wainwright, who happens to be a die-hard fan of The Princess Bride. Apparently, “As You Wish” is a pretty big reference to that movie, so when she saw this subject line in her inbox, she just HAD to click.

Even though she knew logically that the email was part of a larger-scale send, it almost seemed like it was tailored to be sent personally to her — after all, why else would it include a reference to Princess Bride in the title?

UncommonGoods knows its buyer persona like the back of its metaphorical hand. While it may not send emails to individual subscribers with references to their favorite movies in the title, it does have a general understanding of its subscribers and their interests.

13. “Where to Drink Beer Right Now”

Sender: Eater Boston

Okay, you caught me: I’m a beer lover. But that’s not what hooked me here. The subject line arrived in my inbox just at the time I needed it: at 6:45 on a Wednesday evening. Absolutely. Genius.

Think about it: You’re just over hump day and want to decompress with a few coworkers after work. Right as you’re about to head out, you get a notification on your phone that says, “Where to Drink Beer Right Now.” Perfect timing makes this subject line something you can’t help but click on.

For your own emails, think about how timing will affect how people perceive your emails. Even if you send an email in an off-peak hour, you could get higher engagement on your email — if you have the right subject line.

14. “Not Cool, Guys”

Sender: BuzzFeed

We love BuzzFeed. If nothing else, its staff knows how to write great copy — and that sentiment includes an exceptional email marketing team. Many of my colleagues have signed up for BuzzFeed’s daily emails, and pretty much any day of the week, they win for best subject line in their inboxes.

While there are a few of BuzzFeed’s subject lines here and there that aren’t anything to write home about, it’s the combination of subject lines and the preview text that is golden. They’re friendly, conversational, and, above all, snarky.

Here’s the text that followed the subject line above: “Okay, WHO left the passive-aggressive sticky note on my fridge. Honestly, who acts like this?” That conversational tone and snark pull us in over and over again — and it’s the preview text that completes the experience for me.

We’re not all equipped to be snarky writers, but most email platforms have the preview text easily available to edit. How can you use that little extra space to delight your customers (oh, and probably improve your email metrics)? Maybe you could use the subject line as a question, and the preview text area as the answer. Or maybe it’s a dialogue: The subject line is one person, and the preview text is another.

You get the idea. By using that space, you have more opportunities to attract new subscribers.

15. “DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities”

Sender: Thrillist

No matter how humble people are, most don’t like to do things wrong … so why not play on that natural human tendency in an email subject line, especially if you’re in the business of helping clients (or prospective clients) succeed? Thrillist certainly does in the subject line above, and it makes the language even more vibrant by using do not — a great takeaway for B2B marketers.

Instead of using the typical contraction “don’t,” Thrillist spells it out and adds the all-caps for effect. That way, you’ll notice the subject line in your inbox, and then find it harder to resist clicking on it.

Think about how going negative in your marketing might be a good thing. For example, many of us have anxiety about looking silly and stupid, so figure out how you can play to those emotions in subject lines. Of course, it’s important to back up that subject line with encouraging, helpful content, so that you’re not just ranting at people all day.

Getting negative can get your subscribers’ attention — this subject line certainly caught mine.

16. “Everything you wanted to know about email copy but were too afraid to ask”

Sender: Copy Hackers

Here’s another great example of leveraging your audience’s full plate to your email marketing advantage. Who hasn’t refrained from asking a question out of fear of looking silly or out of the loop? Excuse me while I sheepishly raise my hand.

” … but were too afraid to ask” is one of those phrases that, to us, probably won’t go out of style for a long time. People seek insights from Copy Hackers — an organization dedicated to helping marketers and other professionals write better copy, as the name suggests — because, well, they have questions. They want to improve. And when that audience is too afraid to ask those questions, here’s Copy Hackers, ready to come to the rescue with answers.

What does your audience want to know, but might be too embarrassed to ask? Use that information to craft your content — including your email subject lines.

17. “🐶 Want a Custom Emoji of Tullamore & 6 Months FREE Walks? Book a Walk Today for Your Chance to Win!”

Sender: Wag!

For reference, Tullamore is the name of my colleague Amanda Zantal-Wiener‘s dog. And the subject line she received, written above, is another winning example of perfect emoji placement — especially when it’s a cute dog.

Here’s a great example of how personalization goes beyond the email recipient’s name. Wag!, an on-demand dog-walking app, includes the names of its customers’ pets in a portion of its email subject lines. But this type of personalization is more than just a first-name basis. If there’s anything my colleague Amanda loves more than free stuff and baking goods, it’s her pup. Wag! knows that, and by mentioning Tullamore by name in the subject line — in tandem with an offer, no less — it caught her attention and piqued her interest.

18. “Abra-cord-abra! Yeah, we said it.”

Sender: Quircky

This punny email subject line from Quirky is plain fun. We’re suckers for puns in the right situation.

What we like most about it is the second part: “Yeah, we said it.” The pun in the beginning is great and all — it refers to a new invention featured on Quirky’s site to help everyday consumers detangle their numerous plugs and cords — but the second sentence is conversational and self-referential. That’s exactly what many of us would say after making a really cheesy joke in real life.

Many brands could stand to be more conversational and goofy in their emails. While it may not be appropriate to go as far as Quirky’s subject line, being goofy might just be the way to delight your email recipients.

19. “🔥 Hot freebie alert! 15 free gifts, you pick 5.”

Sender: Shutterfly

Shutterfly, a company that allows you to print your photos on interesting products or other frames, gets visual with its subject lines by occasionally using an emoji. Due to the company’s nature and creative audience, the fire emoji in this subject line draws the eye without feeling desperate.

The email subject line also pops because it has a lot of buzzwords, including “hot,” “freebie,” “gifts,” and “alert.” In just one line, it is able to give the potential reader a good reason to open it, especially if they love using Shutterfly.

The content inside the email aligns perfectly with the subject line by announcing a freebie promotion. This strong alignment between the subject line and message keeps people from skimming the email.

20. “From chaos to calm ✨🏡”

Sender: Open Spaces

If you’ve ever had a cluttered home, you know how chaotic it can feel. Open Spaces takes advantage of that by suggesting how you’ll feel after you use the company’s products.

Its emoji choices also indicate how your home will look and feel: Sparkling clean. I’m not a huge fan of cleaning, but Open Spaces promises to make it easy in the simplicity of their subject line. The brand also proves that it knows its target customer exceedingly well — if you want to create “open spaces,” you likely won’t tolerate chaos in your home.

In the same way, try to allude to the feelings that your target customers want to feel, as well as their goals and inner desires. You can also let emojis speak for you. For instance, if Open Spaces had used the subject line “From chaos to calm: Get a sparkling clean home,” the focus would be off of the “from chaos to calm” piece, which is what readers most care about.

Now that we’ve covered the best subject lines in general, let’s dive into the best newsletter subject lines.

Newsletter Subject Lines

Newsletter subject lines must work harder to get the recipient’s attention, because they allude to information only. In contrast, a subject line offering a discount will automatically make the recipient want to click.

Newsletter subject lines must hook the reader and get them to click. The examples below do an excellent job at it.

1. “China Falls, Sleepy Unicorns, And The Deals Aren’t Bigger In Texas”

Sender: Crunchbase

The Crunchbase Insights email has an interesting way of wrapping details about all the stories it will present you in one subject line. This is eye-catching because it seems like an odd mashup of words, but gets to the point about three complicated stories at the same time.

When it comes to email, Crunchbase is known for their longer, text based emails. They all read like a more conversational letter to the email recipient and casually discuss and hyperlink Crunchbase’s top stories. While the subject lines feel interesting and eye-catching, the emails often report deeper business news that cut right to the chase.

This subject line shows how you can be punchy, but also fun and creative when trying to pull in your audience.

2. “Watch Out for This Amazon Phishing Scam.”

Sender: WIRED

In this subject line, WIRED includes Amazon, a large company name. Including the name of a big brand can be a great way to boost open rates because people who enjoy or use products from big brands might click into a subject line that discusses them.

Additionally, when a brand name is combined with negative words like “phishing” or “scam,” people might open the email much more urgently so they can learn how to avoid running into the issue being discussed.

WIRED also lists the story last in its newsletter. This is an interesting way to get your readers to scroll through the entire email and see the other stories before they get to the story that led them to click into it.

3. “Buffer has been hacked — here is what’s going on”

Sender: Buffer

Next is a subject line from Buffer. A few years ago, Buffer got hacked — every tech company’s worst nightmare. But Buffer handled it exceptionally well, especially on the email front.

What we admire about the subject line is that it’s concise and direct. In a crisis, it’s better to steer clear of puns, snarky comments, and emojis. People want to see that you’re taking the situation seriously and be reassured that the world isn’t ending.

Because of the way the subject line is worded and formatted, you feel like Buffer is calm and collected about the issue, and is taking your personal safety into consideration. That’s pretty hard to do in just a few words.

4. “Google sees smartphone heroics in Oreo. It’s The Daily Crunch.”

Sender: TechCrunch

If you’re subscribed to a newsletter from a publication like TechCrunch, chances are, you signed up because you’re either interested in or want to learn more about technology. To reflect that, the media outlet crafts its daily email roundups (“The Daily Crunch”) with a subject line that reflects one of the latest, most compelling news items in the industry.

Here’s the thing: Staying on the cutting edge is hard, especially with something that evolves as quickly as technology. So by writing email subject lines that reflect something that’s recent and relevant, TechCrunch is signaling to email recipients that opening the message will help them stay informed and up-to-date on the latest industry news.

Think about the things that your audience struggles to keep up with — then, craft an email roundup and matching subject line that reflects the latest news in that category.

5. “Black Friday shoppers are the worst customers”

Sender: LinkedIn

This subject line is likely the boldest of the Black Friday emails you’d see in your inbox in the days before Thanksgiving. Yes, it’s a bit judgmental, but it actually came in a LinkedIn Pulse newsletter, promoting an article one of its users wrote on the topic of holiday marketing.

And there’s no doubt the title resonates with how some people feel during the most hectic holiday shopping day of the year.

LinkedIn has nothing to sell on Black Friday, so the subject line above does little harm to its business. Nonetheless, commenting on a popular cultural observation can show your confidence and help you relate to your community.

6. “Tips to increase remote collaboration”

Sender: Asana

This simple subject line from Asana, a project management platform, gets straight to the point: If you open the email, you’ll find remote work tips beyond. The subject line also effectively capitalizes on an increasingly common trend that rose during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Its simplicity and trendiness ensures that you’ll want to open the email.

And chances are that if you’re using Asana, you’re likely using it to collaborate with colleagues whom you might not see every day, even if you’re not fully remote. Asana effectively appeals to a wide range of potential users and buyers with this subject line.

7. “I got Botox — & THIS is what it looked like”

Sender: Refinery29

Okay, so maybe your business doesn’t involve Botox. But still — are you intrigued? I am, and despite my better judgment, I clicked.

That’s the power of leading your emails with a story: It sparks curiosity, which works in two ways. There are times when our natural curiosity can pique our interest without context, such as in the example above. But in this case, the subject line implies that there’s an intriguing story ahead. Why the heck did this person get Botox? And what did it look like? As the saying goes, “Inquiring minds want to know.”

Think of the stories behind your industry, and then, find ways to include them in email newsletters and frame them within the subject line in a way that piques your recipients’ collective curiosity.

8. “Improve Your Website from Concept to Code 💻”

Sender: Namecheap

Want people to open your newsletter? Tell them how they’ll benefit straight away like in this newsletter subject line by Namecheap. It used this subject line for Inspire, its monthly newsletter, and like in the WIRED example above, it left the subject line story last so that users scroll through the entire email.

Like many examples on this list, it uses an emoji to draw the eye and keeps the tone of the conversation more casual and fun. In contrast, the subject line “Improve Your Website from Concept to Code” feels much more wooden and unfriendly.

9. “The best options for grocery delivery”

Sender: Wirecutter

Simple, right? But effective. This newsletter subject line from Wirecutter gets straight to the point and solves one of the biggest challenges we faced during the pandemic: How to get groceries while social distancing. If you’d never used grocery delivery services up until that point, you’d likely be at a loss for what services to use.

Wirecutter realizes that and immediately invites you to open the email with a simple and actionable subject like.

10. “‘I didn’t realise architecture was so dangerous’”

Sender: Dezeen

Dezeen is an architecture and design publication whose newsletter subject lines always feature a comment from a user. Only one comment is chosen every week.

This approach is brilliant for various reasons: 1) It makes you wonder why the user made that comment and will make you click through, 2) It makes you want to comment on the publication’s posts to potentially get featured, and 3) It takes the work out of writing a subject line. Indeed, Dezeen doesn’t have to write a subject line at all, because its readers do it for them.

Here are a few comments that have been featured of late:

• “Absolute garbage”
• “The cardboard box aesthetic”
• “Meet The Flintstones”
• “Does it come with a smoke machine?”

If you have a publication that’s often commented upon, consider using one of the comments as your subject line.

HubSpot Email Marketers’ Favorite Subject Lines

Above are some of the best subject lines we’ve gathered, but we asked both former and current marketers on our team to give some additional favorites and what makes them so good:

1. “Show them what you’re made of”

Sender: Canva

“Using empowering, positive, and defiant language to leverage the use of Canva tools — love it.”

— Lucy Reddan

2. “Drooling over email designs 🤤”

Sender: Really Good Emails

“Emojis always catch my eye amongst the 100+ emails I receive on a daily basis. As an email geek myself, this subject line matched my interests and piqued my curiosity.”

— Ashley Riordan

3. “Can you help me name this dance, [First Name]?”

Sender: Marie Forleo

“It’s personalized and piques my interest because A) I’m being asked for input and B) I want to be in the know about this mysterious dance (#fomo).”

— Christina Perricone

4. “Who you gonna call?”

“If you can make a pun, include a social reference, or even just a familiar phrase, it’ll catch people’s attention.”

— Clint Fontanella

5. “Shoes You Can Wear All Damn Day”

Sender: Everlane

“Swearing is controversial in email marketing, but I think it worked really well in this email from Everlane. Not only was it a clever and concise way to introduce their new line of footwear called ‘The Day Collection,’ but it also aligned with the brand voice they use in other emails and across their website.”

— Anna Fitzgerald

6. “You were on point last week 🎯”

Sender: Grammarly

“Grammarly is so good about rewarding you and making you feel good about your writing.”

— Jordan Pritikin

7. “Hmm…No writing activity last week?”

Sender: Grammarly

“If or when you turn their plugin off, Grammarly’s retention strategy is great. They reach out with subject lines like these that immediately drive me to click through and turn their plugin back on. Very well done.”

— Jordan Pritikin

8. “‘Not intended for swimming’”

Sender: Dezeen

“I’m a sucker for architecture, and Dezeen’s weekly newsletter tells me the top new projects that come up, as well as their reader’s responses to them. My question is: What’s not intended for swimming? And if it’s not intended for swimming, why did the architect build it? Boom, you’ve got my interest. And my click.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

9. “Our #1 most asked question…”

Sender: Supergoop

“What an easy way to get me to click — by trailing off and leaving the rest of the content in the email. Nicely done, Supergoop.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

10. “[First Name]! You’re One of HubSpot’s Top Blog Readers 🎉”

Sender: HubSpot

“No one actually likes taking feedback surveys. Not unless you earn money, and not many of them offer that. When I received the above email from our very own HubSpot blog, I clicked straight through, and voila! There it was: A feedback request. Turns out, flattery does work.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

The Best Email Subject Lines are Simple and On-Brand

When writing subject lines for your emails, keep it engaging, simple, and on-brand. Don’t forget to appeal to the emotions and needs of your target buyers, and most importantly, have fun — include emojis, puns, or references to pop culture. Your emails will get opened, guaranteed.

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

I moved five times in the last year. And every single time I moved, I forgot to sign up to have my mail forwarded to my new address.

Mail forwarding is an important step in any moving process, as it ensures you don’t lose any valuable information that’s sent to you.

And the same can be said for your website: If you’re moving a website from one URL to another, you need to take the necessary steps to ensure your visitors get sent to the right place. In the world of tech, this is called a 301 redirect.

Here, we’re going to discuss what a 301 redirect is and when you need to use one, as well as how to redirect a URL in HubSpot or WordPress. Additionally, we’ll explore the differences between a 301 and 302 redirect.

301 is one of many possible HTTP status codes, some of which you’ve probably heard of (including 404 – Not Found, 403 – Forbidden and, 500 – Server Error). When you visit a web page and the server sends the page normally, the status code it attaches to that page is 200 – OK.

You can think of a 301 redirect like a mail forwarder. Once you’ve moved a piece of content away from a specific URL, anyone who tries to visit it will receive a 404 – page not found message.

To improve their user journey, you can ask the server to forward visits from the old URL to a new location — the new home of your piece of content — using a 301 redirect.

Now, when you attempt to visit the old URL, the server will send back the 301 – Permanently Moved status code, and then move you on to the new location.

This happens so quickly that you’re usually not aware of it, and will simply find yourself on the piece of content for which you’d searched. You might notice that the URL is different from the one you clicked on or typed in. Or you might have a browser extension such as Ayima Redirect Path which lets you know when you’ve been redirected.

The other key role that a 301 redirect fulfills is with search engines. Having useful status codes that correctly signal where content has moved to allows search engines such as Google and Bing to keep their index up-to-date.

Essentially, a 301 redirect will let search engines know: “Hey, you know that piece of content that users enjoyed clicking on from the SERPs? Well, it now lives over here, so take all that visibility you associated with this page, and transfer it over to this new URL.”

This is why 301 redirects are important for SEO.

Now that we’ve covered that, let’s dive into how you can do a 301 redirect for yourself. 

How to Do a 301 Redirect In a CMS

The actual process of implementing a 301 redirect varies from CMS to CMS and platform to platform. While we aren’t able to discuss the specifics of every CMS platform, we can take a close look at HubSpot and WordPress. Hopefully, these instructions should help you get started regardless of the CMS you use.

How to Redirect a URL in HubSpot

HubSpot makes it simple to add 301 permanent redirects inside the tool. To set up a redirect in HubSpot:

1. Click Settings (the cog in the top right corner).

2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Website > Domains and URLs.

3. Click the URL Redirects tab, then click Add URL redirect in the top right.

This reveals a right-side panel. We’ll go over some use cases later, but for now let’s look at the options in this panel.

Standard

In most cases, you will want to implement a single page-to-page redirect. In this case, choose Standard.

Next, you’ll want to add the Original URL and the Redirect to URL for your old and new URLs, respectively.

Click Add URL Redirect and the redirect will be added to HubSpot.

We also recommend testing your redirect. First, wait a few minutes for the change to apply to the server. Next, try visiting the original URL in an incognito browser window and check that it works as expected.

Flexible

In some cases, creating single page-to-page redirects is very inefficient. For example, if you have just moved an entire folder of content, you may have 15 pages within a subfolder that you now need to redirect. In such cases, it’s a better idea to use a Flexible redirect.

You can think of a flexible redirect as a formula or a rule. It will allow you to redirect everything within a certain folder to a different folder while keeping the rest of the URL the same.

When you select Flexible redirect, HubSpot will automatically provide you the link to the flexible URL pattern redirect help page, which will give you specific guidance on how to use the syntax for this feature.

More Options

Under More Options, HubSpot offers various advanced variations on these redirect types.

It will allow you to deliver a 302 Temporary Redirect or a proxy redirect (redirect the content of a live page without changing the URL shown in the visitor’s browser) instead, choose the order which HubSpot moves through the redirect rules when resolving a URL (which may change which valid rule is triggered), disable a redirect if content is present at the URL, preserve query strings, force HTTPS, and force trailing slashes on the end of all URLs.

How to Redirect a URL in WordPress

If you aren’t a HubSpot customer, then you will need to apply 301 redirects differently. WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, so it makes sense for us to touch upon how one might go about looking at redirects in a WordPress context next.

However, it’s important to note that WordPress itself is very flexible. Installations of WordPress can vary wildly, and so there is no one-size-fits-all guide we can provide as was the case with the HubSpot CMS.

If in doubt, consult your web developer when it comes to adding URL redirects.

Apply a redirect via the server itself.

The best way to apply redirects from a speed and technical point of view is via the web server itself, rather than relying on WordPress. WordPress does not offer a facility to implement 301 redirects out-the-box, although there are plugins available that will give you access to this functionality.

The process of applying 301 redirects via the server itself will vary depending on the software stack your server is using. You might be using Apache, Nginx, IIS, or some other platform, each of which requires a different approach. This may also vary depending on your hosting provider.

If you do not know how to apply a redirect via the server itself, it’s not something we’d recommend fiddling with as it may lead to an interruption of service for your website — instead, we’d suggest consulting with your IT team, host, or web development partner.

Redirect a URL using a free WordPress plugin.

Sometimes in marketing, you must compromise that optimal solution for the solution you can actually achieve. This may be one of those cases. If you are not able to implement a redirect via your server, consider using a WordPress plugin. This is not the optimal method — plugins are slower, and you’ll have to rely on third-party code, so proceed at your own risk.

Each plugin interface will be different, so consult your chosen plugin’s documentation for specific guidance. Here, we’ll briefly walk through how to set up 301 redirects with the free Redirection plugin:

1. Install and activate the Redirection plugin.

2. Navigate to Settings > Redirection and follow the setup instructions.

3. At the end of setup, you’ll be taken to the plugin Options menu. To add a new redirect, choose Redirects from the top menu.

4. Under Redirects, you can view all of your active 301 redirects and add new ones. To add a new 301 redirect, under Add new redirection insert a Source URL (the old URL) and a Target URL (the new URL).

5. Click Add Redirect. You’ll now see the new redirect in your list of active redirects.

When to Use a 301 Redirect

Here are some specific cases where you will want to reach for the 301 redirect as a tool.

1. Changing a URL.

Maybe your original URL was poorly optimized, or you are re-organizing the folder structure of your website URLs.

Moving a piece of content in HubSpot CMS is very simple — just change the URL on the settings tab of the content’s edit page, and HubSpot will automatically add a URL redirect for you. Be sure to check that this is working before you move on.

2. Recreating a piece of content.

Sometimes, you might want to completely rebuild your old piece of content on an entirely new page — for instance, if you decide you want to use a different web page template. 

In this case, you’ll want to make sure that you have implemented a simple 301 redirect from the old URL to your new one. Once this is in place, be sure to unpublish and archive the old page.

If doing a lot of these, we suggest using a flexible rule or, if a flexible rule is not appropriate, using a tool such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider in conjunction with Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to map your redirects in bulk, and then import them into HubSpot.

You can do this on the URL Redirects page using the Import button:

HubSpot will provide you with a sample file to structure your redirects, and a link to the bulk upload redirects help page.

3. Consolidating several pieces of content.

If you have decided that you have multiple pieces of content that overlap, compete for the same keywords, or all cover the same topic, you might want to consolidate them. However, you will not want to throw away the search engine visibility that these old pages might have achieved.

Once you have created your new, consolidated resource, you should set up a simple 301 redirect from each of the old pages to the single new page.

4. Migrating content from one domain to another.

If you’re moving your website from one domain to another, it is vitally important that you implement page-to-page 301 redirects from your old content to your new content.

This is easy if the site is moving a domain, but remaining the same in terms of structure and layout. If the content is changing or being restructured, it is still important that you make sensible redirection choices that honor your users’ original intent, in order to pass the visibility of each of your old pages to their new counterparts.

When implementing page-to-page 301 redirects from one domain to another, you have a specific challenge to keep in mind: your redirects must be served from the original URL.

It is useless if, for instance, you’ve connected HubSpot to your new domain, but not your old domain, for you to then host the 301 redirects for your old domain onto HubSpot. You will need to work with your IT partner, web development partner, and/or HubSpot partner to ensure that serving redirects from your old domain has been accounted for. We recommend that these remain in place indefinitely.

5. Migrating a Website During a Phased Web Launch

You may be moving your website from one domain to another as outlined above, but due to project constraints, you are using a phased launch approach. This means that you’re launching the core website pages in phase one, then a second wave of pages in phase two, and so on.

In this case, we recommend creating a phased redirect map. All URLs from your old domain should be accounted for, and a redirect outlined for each phase.

For phase one, you will expect to implement 301 redirects for all the pages that will be accounted for on the new site. You will also add 302 redirects for all other pages, usually to the new website’s homepage. This will prevent users trying to visit your old domain from receiving a 404 error, without confusing search engines by having your pages suddenly redirect to seemingly irrelevant content.

As you launch each phase, you should update your redirects, replacing your 302s with 301s as the counterpart content becomes available.

Once again, these redirects must be implemented such that they are served from your old domain.

In general, you should expect to use 301 redirects on your website. However, there are a few cases when you might want to use a 302, instead, including:

• You might be using a phased website launch plan.
• You might be redirecting users as part of functionality where SEO does not apply, such as login gateways or e-commerce checkouts.
• You might be using a temporary holding page, and do not want to confuse search engines or damage your search engine rankings by signaling that you’re permanently redirecting your detailed, rich content to an empty holding page.

301 Redirect Mistakes to Avoid

Now that you understand the importance of the 301 redirect, we’ll review common steps in the process to make sure you don’t make a mistake that could adversely impact your site’s SEO.

1. Setting up a 302 redirect between versions of your domains.

301 redirects point the power of inbound links from one URL to another, and although it might not look like it, http://blog.hubspot.com and blog.hubspot.com are two different URLs. Make sure you set up a 301 redirect from all of the different iterations of your brand’s domain to boost your search engine results.

2. Setting up a 301 redirect after creating a new page.

Back in 2010, Toys ‘R Us purchased the toys.com domain without setting up a 301 redirect first, and their new site’s SEO results plummeted because it was re-crawled by Google as a brand-new domain without inbound links from the original Toys ‘R Us domain pointing to it. Be sure to set up the 301 redirect before migrating your website content so your site doesn’t lose traffic in the process.

3. Using a 302 redirect during content migration.

Unless you’re temporarily migrating your website’s content while updating or repairing your website, use a 301 redirect to maintain the inbound links and your search rankings while making changes to your domain.

4. Having redirects link to outdated content.

If you don’t set up redirects from the older internal links on your website (such as a link to your company blog on your homepage), you’ll create a bad user experience for site visitors who click on these older, not-directed links. The old internal link will eventually kick over to the new domain, but it might take several seconds or show a white screen in the meantime.

5. Redirect a page with a different intent than the destination page.

This will be a breeze with proper organization and record-keeping, but make sure that you’re redirecting to the correct pages. To illustrate, you wouldn’t want to redirect a user looking for your homepage to your blog page.

Keeping this transition smooth will contribute to SEO being accurate, and will lead to more happy visitors to your site.

Whether you’re thinking about overhauling all content in a site migration, or you’re just refurbishing some outdated web pages, 301 redirects help. If you’re planning out this new stage, think about incorporating them in your project; your SEO won’t take a dive and website visitors will continue to find the helpful content they’re looking for.

Other Types of Redirects

There are other types of redirect too, including:

1. 302 – Temporarily Moved

This functions almost identically to a 301 redirect. In this instance, however, we are acknowledging that the move is temporary. For a user, this makes no practical difference, but for a search engine the message is clear — don’t worry about ranking this new page, as it won’t be around for long. Stick to using the old one, it will be back.

2. Meta Refresh, or Javascript Redirects

This is different from the previous two approaches. The page will load normally with a 200 – OK status code. Then, a script runs on the page that moves the user onto another page.

There may be certain edge cases when this is the only practical option, but in general you should avoid this approach. It is not associated with SEO best practices and often can provide a confusing user experience.

Addressing Internal 404 Errors

Your SEO or web team might have identified some broken links on your website. In this case, it’s best practice to create a 301 redirect to forward users from the broken URL through to an appropriate resource — one that is fundamentally congruent with the piece of content they were expecting to find.

However, you should also look to update the offending hyperlinks to point to the new URL, as well. Having a website that relies on 301 redirects for internal navigation is not the best practice.

Addressing 404 Errors Reported in Google Search Console

Sometimes, you will see Google Search Console reporting 404 pages that you don’t even link to internally. So where do these come from?

Google Search Console populates its “Coverage” section from all kinds of sources. Sometimes the URLs are simply ones that it has seen before on a previous incarnation of your website, or it might have seen an external link on some other website.

Your mindset should be that if Google has seen this URL before, a user might have as well. They might have it saved as a bookmark, or have it written down in an email, or on a third-party website, and they may still click on it. That being the case, you want to make sure that those users receive the optimum user experience, so you should try to create 301 redirects to push these users to an appropriate piece of content that is fundamentally congruent with the piece of content they were expecting to find.

Don’t leave your old links hanging — use a 301.

301 redirects are vitally important for maintaining a healthy website. They serve a core function in signaling to both users and search engines when your website content moves and changes, and ensure that as your web presence evolves, your user journey remains clear and logical, and your visibility in search engines is preserved between iterations.

Be sure to familiarize yourself with implementing redirects in your current website environment. Then, test your website’s SEO strength — as well as speed, mobile-friendliness, and security — with our free Website Grader.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2010 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.