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One of the most heated arguments that I’ve been a part of was about whether or not Taylor Swift is a good dancer.

The first thing you should know about me is that Taylor Swift is my favorite artist. So you’d have a hard time convincing me she’s bad at anything (because she isn’t).

SEO experts are probably the same way when debating whether subdomains or subdirectories are better for SEO. As a marketer, that debate can cause confusion and analysis paralysis.

In this article, you’ll learn the differences between a subdomain and subdirectory and how they affect SEO. There are pros and cons to both, and you’ll want to consider all of these factors before moving forward with your website project.

Subdirectory URL

In a URL, the subdirectory comes after the root directory or domain name. For example, HubSpot’s root domain is hubspot.com. So a subdirectory URL might be hubspot.com/pricing. Or it might be something more complicated like hubspot.com/pricing/sales. Below is an illustration of one possible subdirectory structure.

When it comes to subdirectories, think of a structure similar to nesting dolls. Each folder can build off of one another almost indefinitely. That means you could have a subfolder within a subfolder within a subfolder until you’re dozens, potentially hundreds, of layers deep.

But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Too many layers of subfolders can become an SEO nightmare. The URL string becomes long and confusing, the user experience is at risk with every click it takes to get to the next piece of content, and search engine crawlers will find it nearly impossible to crawl your site for new content and other SEO wins you may have added.

On the other hand, subfolders can be great for SEO as they keep any earned backlinks, domain authority, and page authority closely tied to the root domain. And when the site is fairly easy to navigate, the URLs are short and simple, like hubspot.com/careers, which means you can market specific webpages or landing pages by their URL without confusing your audience.

The structure of a subdomain is fairly flat at the top levels. You’ll have your root directory, then all the subdomains underneath it in a horizontal row. All subdomains are on the same level. You won’t have a subdomain within a subdomain like you would a subfolder within a subfolder.

SEO and Subdomains

A subdomain can be great for SEO, but it will require a dedicated person or team that can manage it. Unlike subdirectories, a subdomain’s domain authority won’t automatically trickle down from the primary domain name. You might also pay extra for tools or subscriptions if you’re billed per domain name since each subdomain will typically count as a separate website. Keeping these challenges in mind, let’s take a closer look at the benefits of using a subdomain.

Why use subdomains?

Subdomains are ideal if your business houses a lot of content that would be difficult to manage all on one website. You may also find this structure beneficial if you run several large recurring campaigns that need separate landing pages or if you plan to do a partnership with another organization and want to split the branding on the project.

In short, subdomains make sense if you have a relevant business need to separate content on your website.

There are a number of instances when a company should use a subdomain. Below are the most common.

1. Support

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to have your customer support on your main site. For instance, Google uses support.google.com instead of google.com/support. The main reason is probably because of the site structure. Google.com is a search engine, and Google’s Support line doesn’t belong to its Search business line. Therefore, it needs its own subdomain to properly connect with and serve its users.

2. Different Regions

If you serve multiple regions, whether nationally or internationally, using a subdomain would be a good idea. If you had a site in German and one in English, it wouldn’t make sense to list those as subdirectories. For instance, Craigslist uses subdomains for the different regions it serves. Here are two of its subdomain sites: orangecounty.craigslist.org/ or stgeorge.craigslist.org/.

3. Blog

Many companies choose to have their blog as a subdomain. In fact, that’s what HubSpot does. If you’ll notice, the page you’re on right now is a blog.hubspot.com page. However, this specific article is in the Marketing subdirectory of the blog.hubspot.com subdomain. Sites may choose to have their blog as a subdomain if they have a content campaign in mind that’s large enough in volume to deserve its own hierarchy and growth path (more on that in a minute). Additionally, a subdomain is useful for a blog if you want to create a niche authority.

4. Ecommerce Store

For companies that sell merchandise, in addition to their regular product or service, they can put their ecommerce store on a subdomain. HubSpot does this as well. Aside from our main software hubs, HubSpot merchandise is available at shop.hubspot.com.

5. Events

If your company hosts events, it might be a good idea to partition that section of your site into a subdomain. Again, this is helpful when you want to distinguish a section of your site from your regular product or service. Microsoft does this with its events.microsoft.com.

Technically, a website can use both a subdomain and a subdirectory structure. Subdomains will usually have at least a few subfolders within them to organize content, but likely not as many as a subdirectory. That’s because there is a smaller variety of content covered on a subdomain than a root domain with subfolders.

So it’s important to understand what the primary structure of your website will be. To decide this, let’s take a closer look at how subdomains and subdirectories impact SEO.

How do subdomains and subdirectories affect SEO?

Some SEO experts believe that Google’s crawlers could confuse a subdomain for an entirely different website from the main domain. However, others say its crawlers can recognize subdomains as extensions of parent domains.

According to Google, the site crawls, indexes, and ranks subdomains and subdirectories the same way.

In the video below, Google Webmasters Trends Analyst John Mueller says, subdomains generally don’t hurt a site’s rankings. In fact, he says Google is smart enough to see your main domain and subdomain as being tied to the same website.

Some SEO professionals argue that subdomains don’t share the authority they receive from inbound links (or backlinks) with the root domain. The reverse can also be true; because subdomains are considered separate entities from your root domain, they may not inherit any of the link authority you’ve already built to your core website content.

Additionally, if you’re optimizing pages for the same keywords on your main site and subdomain, you could be competing against yourself.

On the other hand, other SEO experts argue that subdomains make it easier to navigate your site. Ultimately, this leads to a better user experience, which could result in better engagement rates, therefore improving your SEO.

Subdomains can be beneficial if you have a large corporation and the subdomains serve a different purpose and essentially function as a separate business.

For example, Disney has subdomains such as cars.disney.com, shop.disney.com, and movies.disney.com.

Since these subdomains serve very different purposes, it doesn’t matter if the sites don’t share the same authority from backlinks, because they probably aren’t targeting the same keywords.

According to some SEO experts, another benefit is that subdomains can help build niche authority. For instance, you might want your blog to be considered a separate entity from your product or service.

Conversely, if your site doesn’t have any extensive verticals on your navigation, then you might not need to use a subdomain because you want as many links going back to your main site as possible. If you don’t have a compelling reason to use subdomains, then subdirectories work just fine.

Which is Better: Subdirectory or Subdomain?

Although this topic can often be confusing, ultimately the decision depends on your website’s needs. Subdomains can provide organization and structure to your site if you have a lot of different, but important content to share. Subdirectories can be helpful for smaller websites that don’t have a large variety of content. No matter which structure you choose, you’ll want to stay abreast of SEO best practices in order to meet your website goals. The free guide below will help you improve your site with a free SEO audit tool kit.

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

By aligning team members and different teams, your business’s employees are able to work together to create delightful experiences that make prospects want to convert and stay loyal to your brand.

One example of a process in which this type of collaboration only improves your ability to convert prospects into loyal customers is lead qualification.

Think about it this way: If your marketing team can align with sales on what makes for a high-quality lead at your company, then marketing can identify and handoff these leads to reps after a lead’s initial interaction(s) with your brand. Then, once sales has these contacts from marketing, reps can also qualify them and nurture them accordingly. This leads to time being well-spent across the org and ensures sales reps aren’t wasting their time trying to identify leads that marketing has already engaged and vetted.

These leads that marketing engages, vets, and passes along to sales are called marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

MQL

In this post, we’ll talk about what an MQL is, why identifying MQLs is worthwhile, and MQL criteria you can establish on your team.

How does the qualification process for an MQL work?

At a high level, a lead becomes an MQL, then a SQL, working their way down the funnel until they (hopefully) become a customer.

As mentioned, if a lead becomes an MQL, they’ve been vetted by the marketing team. In other words, the marketing team determines whether or not they believe sales would have a good chance at successfully nurturing and converting a specific lead into a customer.

If the sales team does agree with the marketing team — and believes they have a good chance of converting an MQL into a customer — then that MQL becomes a sales qualified lead (SQL).

Why You’d Want to Mark a Lead as an MQL

Whether through a content offer, social post, virtual or in-person event, web page, blog post, subscription, podcast, or ad, marketing has many potential touchpoints with leads, prospects, and target audience members before anyone else at your business does.

The resulting engagement data (and contact information, if any) is vital to the success of your business. It’s how your marketing team can efficiently sift through those prospects to identify the highest-quality leads based on criteria (which we’ll talk more about below) set by your business.

Once marketing has identified MQLs for your business, then can send them along to your sales team — this propels sales through the initial steps of their roles (e.g. discovery and prospecting), and provides them with leads their marketing counterparts believe are worthwhile.

Sales then performs their own qualification process and pulls out the top-tier prospects from that list of MQLs.

Not only does this save sales reps time, but it also ensures marketing and sales are aligned on who your buyer personas are, what type of marketing content brings the right prospects for your business in, and more.

Marketing Qualified Lead Criteria

Setting accurate MQL criteria is how you ensure your sales team is sent leads of the highest quality. Establishing these criteria is also worthwhile because it helps marketing determine which type of marketing materials, content, and offers will do best among your audience members who fit that criteria. In other words, establishing solid MQL criteria is a win-win for both marketing and sales.

How to Establish With MQL Criteria (Plus Examples of MQL Criteria)

1. Establish a working marketing and sales team relationship.

As mentioned several times throughout this article, a major aspect of MQL success is the process of maintaining open communication and alignment between the marketing and sales teams. Marketing cannot target or identify high-quality leads without aligning with sales. And sales will not have access to MQLs without the help of marketing.

You might start by reiterating the importance of this relationship to the marketing and sales orgs so they understand the value that will come from cross-team communication.

Then, you might set recurring meetings to discuss alignment as well as roles and areas for potential growth (e.g. which marketing content is working best among prospects, which enablement materials sales feels like they’re missing, or prospect feedback that reps get directly from the source and can share with marketers to help their campaign targeting, etc.).

There may be a dedicated amount of time during these meetings for discussion about how to improve the marketing and sales relationship and alignment, and another portion of time set aside for feedback, ideation, and fact sharing.

2. Create lead definitions.

Marketers and salespeople should also work together to develop lead definitions for your business. Meaning, marketing should meet with sales to identify, explain, and record the main characteristics and traits that make up an MQL on your team.

For example, your marketing managers may meet with your sales managers to create a definition of an MQL. This process will look likely look a lot like the process you used to develop your buyer personas.

Here are some examples of questions to ask while defining MQLs:

• What type of marketing content should be engaged with in order to define someone as an MQL?
• Which specific defining traits (demographic and firmographic) are necessary to call someone an MQL?
• Which pain points or challenges should a person have to make them an MQL?

Based on the lead definitions you create, you can go a bit deeper and assign point values for various MQL qualifications in order to form the basis of a lead scoring system. This will ensure your sales team is delivered high-quality leads in an organized fashion so they stay as productive as possible.

3. Revisit your lead definitions and regularly.

Not only do your business, internal teams, and customer base grow in size over time, but your prospects, buyer personas, and leads also evolve. That’s why it’s so important to circle back to your lead definitions regularly and update them as needed.

For instance, maybe your marketing team revisits your lead definitions quarterly — they may review them as a team and then present any changes they believe are necessary to sales in order to get their feedback. Or maybe marketing and sales review the definitions together and update them accordingly in a collaborative meeting.

Either way, remember that just because something works for you now doesn’t mean it’ll be something that works for you in the future. Be cognizant of the fact that your lead definitions will need updating in order to ensure marketing is targeting, identifying, and presenting high-quality leads for and to sales reps.

Start Creating and Using MQLs

Now that you see the power of MQLs, it’s time to start creating your own. Think about the tips we covered above to get started identifying and converting more qualified leads.

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

In Q1 of 2021, ebook sales increased 38% for publisher Harpercollins, following a trend of increased revenue earnings for the company. Although this is a snapshot of one publisher’s success, it speaks to a larger movement toward digital content consumption among marketers.

Lead magnets come in many forms, but the ebook still reigns supreme. They give the reader:

• In-depth digital content in an environment largely overrun with quick headlines and soundbites
• Visual data that compliments the editorial content
• On-demand access to the ebook content

Your business benefits from publishing an ebook, too. Turning a profit, acquiring new customers, generating buzz, and becoming an industry thought leader are just a few of the advantages of this type of content.

But what exactly is an ebook and why do they deliver such great results for marketers?

18 Free Ebook Templates – Download Now

Download HubSpot’s 18 free ebook templates to create an ebook on PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Adobe InDesign.

What are the benefits of an ebook?

Let’s say you have an amazing blog full of long-form content. Why in the world would you want to offer your readers an ebook? Is it even worth your time?

Here are some advantages ebooks offer content creators:

• Unlike long-form printed publications that are purchased in-store or shipped, an ebook is immediately accessible the moment you’re ready to read.
• You can put it behind an opt-in of some kind, incentivizing your website visitor to become a lead if they want the information.
• In some ways, ebooks have design capabilities like in-depth charts, graphs, and full-page images which you may not be able to achieve on your blog.
• After the initial creation of the ebook, you can distribute the file a multitude of times with no additional production cost. They also have no associated shipping fees.
• You can embed links to other media in the ebook file, encouraging the reader to further engage with your content.

Perhaps more importantly, ebooks offer a number of advantages for your audience:

• Ebooks are extremely portable, able to be stored on a number of devices with no physical storage space associated.
• The reader gets the choice to print the ebook out if they want to consume the information in a traditional physical format. Otherwise, the digital format is environmentally friendly.
• Ebooks are accessible with the ability to increase font sizes and/or read aloud with text-to-speech.
• They’re also easily searchable if the reader is looking for something specific.

Are ebooks profitable?

They can be. Ebooks are high-volume, low-sales-price offers. This means you’ll need to sell a lot of them at a relatively low price point in order to compete in the market and turn a significant profit. Depending on your industry, ebooks can range from free to more than $100.

Before setting a price for your ebook, do some research. Determine who your audience is, what they’re willing to pay, and how many people within your target market might be willing to buy it. Then, determine the platforms you’ll sell your ebook through. Amazon? Apple Books? Your own website? You can research how much ebooks usually go for on these sites and incorporate this insight into your pricing strategy.

How is an ebook structured?

There’s no set rule for organizing your content into an ebook. It generally mimics the structure of a novel or textbook (depending on what it is you’re writing about). But, there are some aspects of an ebook you should be sure to adhere to.

Ebooks typically have a system of chapters and supporting images. Similar to a blog post, they also do well when further segmenting their text with subheaders that break down the discussion into specific sections. If you’re writing about professional sports, for example, and one of your chapters is about Major League Baseball (MLB) in the U.S., you might want to establish subchapters about the various teams belonging to the MLB.

What can an ebook be about?

Anything. Well, within reason. Ebooks are simply a marketer’s way of delivering lots of critical information in a form their potential customers are most willing to read. An environmental company might write an ebook about water conservation. They might also focus an ebook entirely on how their water-saving product is used, or how it helped a customer solve a problem. Discover more ebook ideas at the end of this article.

No matter what topic your ebook takes on, research is a significant part of ebook creation. Contrary to short-form content like articles and videos, the content of an ebook is predicated on trust and evidence. A user who obtains (or requests access to) your ebook wants the full story, not just the bullet points. That includes all the content and testing you went through to produce the ebook.

Can you edit an ebook?

Nope. An ebook can’t be edited once it’s been saved in one of the major file formats, so it’s best to ensure you have an editable version saved in a program like Microsoft Word.

But why would you want your ebook to be uneditable? Making ebooks uneditable ensures the content remains unchanged — both the format and the information — as it’s shared between multiple uses.

You can edit ebooks if they’re saved using an editable PDF, a feature that is specific to Adobe Acrobat — the founding program of the PDF file type. Learn how to edit PDFs in this blog post.

How do you read an ebook?

You can read an ebook on many different devices: iPhone, Android smartphones, a Macbook, PC, and e-readers such as the Nook and Kindle. The latter two devices are typically used to read novels in digital form. Nook and Kindle owners can store thousands of books (literally) on a single Nook or Kindle.

But making an ebook can be overwhelming. Not only do you have to write the content, but you also need to design and format it into a professional-looking document that people will want to download and read. With lead generation being the top goal for content marketing, however, ebooks are an essential part of a successful inbound marketing program.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of creating an ebook by, well, creating an ebook. And if you’re worried about your lacking design skills, fret not …

18 Free Ebook Templates in PowerPoint, Google Slides, and InDesign [Free Download]

Got your free ebook templates? Ready to make an ebook? Great — let’s get to it.

What ebook file format should you use?

Ebooks can be saved in one of several formats. Depending on your end-user, though, you might find a use for any of the following file types:

PDF

PDFs are likely the most well-known file type. The “PDF” extension stands for “Portable Document Format,” and is best for ebooks that are meant to be read on a computer (digital marketers, you’ll want to remember this one). We’ll talk more about how to save your ebook as a PDF later in this article.

EPUB

This file type stands for “Electronic Publication,” and is a more flexible ebook format. By that, I mean EPUB ebooks can “reflow” their text to adapt to various mobile devices and tablets, allowing the ebook’s text to move on and off different pages based on the size of the device on which a user is reading the ebook. They’re particularly helpful for viewing on smaller screens, such as smartphones as well as the Nook from Barnes and Noble.

MOBI

The MOBI format originated from the Mobipocket Reader software, which was purchased by Amazon in 2005 but was later shut down in 2016. However, the MOBI file extension remains a popular ebook format with compatibility across the major e-readers (except the Nook).

While the format comes with some limitations, such as not supporting audio or video, it does support DRM, which protects copyrighted material from being copied for distribution or viewed illegally.

Newer Kindle formats are based on the original MOBI file types.

AZW

This is an ebook file type designed for the Kindle, an e-reader device by Amazon. However, users can also open this file format on smartphones, tablets, and computers.

ODF

ODF stands for OpenDocument Format, a file type meant primarily for OpenOffice, a series of open-source content creation programs similar to Microsoft Office.

IBA

IBA is the proprietary ebook format for the Apple iBooks Author app. This format does support video, sound, images, and interactive elements, but it is only used for books written in iBooks. It is not compatible with other e-readers.

Data Visualization 101: How to Design Charts and Graphs [Free Download]

1. Choose a topic that matches your audience’s needs.

Remember: The goal of your ebook is to generate leads for your sales team, so pick a topic that will make it easy for a prospect to go from downloading your ebook to having a conversation with your sales team.

This means your ebook shouldn’t deviate much from the topics you cover in your other content marketing channels. Rather, it’s your opportunity to do a deep dive into a subject you’ve only lightly covered until now, but something your audience wants to learn more about.

For example, in listening to sales and customer calls here at HubSpot, I’ve learned that creating ebooks is a huge obstacle for our audience, who are marketers themselves. So if I can provide not only this blog post, but resources to make ebook creation easier, I’m focusing on the right topic that will naturally lead to a sales conversation.

To get your creative juices flowing, here are some example ebook titles to consider. (Note: Replace “x” with an appropriate number.) You can also use our free Blog Topic Generator tool to come up with more ideas. Most blog topics can be made comprehensive enough to serve as longer form ebook topics.

• X Best Practices for [Insert Industry/Topic]
• An Introduction to [Insert Industry/Topic]
• X Common Questions About [Insert Industry/Topic] Answered
• X [Insert Industry/Topic] Statistics For Better Decision Making
• Learn From The Best: X [Insert Industry/Topic] Experts Share Insights

For this blog post, I’m going to use the PowerPoint version of template two from our collection of five free ebook templates. Through each section of this post, I’ll provide a side-by-side of the template slide and how I customized it.

Below, you’ll see my customized cover with my sales-relevant ebook topic. For help with writing compelling titles for your ebooks, check out the tips in this blog post.

2. Outline each chapter of your ebook.

The introduction to your ebook should both set the stage for the contents of your ebook and draw the reader in. What will you cover in your ebook? How will the reader benefit from reading it? For tips on how to write an effective introduction, check out this post.

Some ebook creators say that an ebook is simply a series of blog posts stitched together. While I agree you should treat each chapter like an individual blog post, the chapters of your ebook should also flow fluidly from one to the other.

The best way to outline your ebook is by thinking of it as a crash course on the sales-relevant topic you selected. In my example of creating an ebook, I know I need to cover how to:

• Write effective copy
• Design an ebook
• Optimize ebooks for lead generation and promotion

While my example has a few chapters, keep in mind that your ebook does not need to be lengthy. I have one golden rule for ebook length: Write what is needed to effectively educate your audience about your selected topic. If that requires five pages, great! If that requires 30 pages, so be it. Just don’t waste words thinking you need to write a long ebook.

With that, let’s move on to the actual copy you’re writing.

3. Break down each chapter as you write.

Get writing! Here, you can approach each chapter the way you might write a long blog post — by compartmentalizing each chapter into smaller sections or bullet points, as shown in the picture below. This helps you write simply and clearly, rather than trying to use sophisticated language to convey each point. It’s the most effective way to educate readers and help them understand the new material you’re providing.

Be sure to maintain a consistent structure across each chapter, as well. This helps you establish natural transitions between each chapter so there’s a clear progression from one chapter to the next (simply stitching blog posts together can rob you of this quality).

These practices should hold true for all your other marketing efforts, such as email marketing, call-to-action creation, and landing page development. “Clarity trumps persuasion,” as Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of MECLABS often likes to say.

Want to make sure you’re keeping your ebook exciting for readers? Here are some key tips to keep in mind:

• Use keywords in the title that emphasize the value of your offer. Examples include adjectives like “amazing,” “awesome,” or “ultimate.”
• Keep your format consistent so you create a mental model for readers and enhance their understanding of the material.
• When appropriate, make use of formatting — like bulleted lists, bold text, italics, and font size changes — to draw people’s eyes to your most important content or emphasize certain points you want readers to remember.

4. Design your ebook.

Our downloadable ebook templates are offered in both PowerPoint and InDesign. For this example, we’ll show you how to do it in PowerPoint, since more people have access to that software.

You’ll notice we only have one “chapter page” in the template (slide three). To create additional chapter pages, or any pages really, simply right click the slide and choose Duplicate Slide. This will make a copy of your slide and allow you to drag it to its proper place in your ebook via the sidebar or Slide Sorter section of PowerPoint. You can then customize it for any subsequent chapters.

5. Use the right colors.

Ideally, our free ebook templates would magically match your brand colors. But, they probably don’t; this is where you get to truly personalize your work. However, because ebooks offer more real estate for color than your logo or website, it’s a good idea to consider secondary colors within your brand’s color palette. Ebooks are where this color scheme can truly shine.

To learn how to add your brand’s colors to PowerPoint, check out this blog post. That way, you can customize the color scheme in our ebook templates to match your brand!

6. Incorporate visuals.

Images and graphics in ebooks are hard to get right. The key to making them fit well is to think of them as complementary to your writing. Whether you add them during or after you’ve finished writing your ebook’s copy, your visuals should serve to highlight an important point you’re making or deconstruct the meaning of a concept in an easy-to-understand, visual way.

Images shouldn’t just be there to make the ebook easy on the eyes. Rather, they should be used to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material you’re covering. If you need help gathering visuals, we have three sets of free stock photos that might help you along the way:

• 75 Standard Stock Photos
• 160 Business-Themed Stock Photos
• 250 Holiday Stock Photos

And if you’re compiling a data-heavy ebook, you might want to download our free data visualization ebook for tips about designing compelling charts and graphs for your content.

7. Highlight quotes or stats.

Another way to enhance your ebook is by highlighting quotes or stats within your design. Just be sure the quote or stat you’re using genuinely adds value to the content.

Whether you’re emphasizing a quote or adding a visual, keep all your content within the same margins. If your copy is consistently one-inch indented on your page from both the left and right sides, keep your designed elements aligned using that same spacing.

8. Place appropriate calls-to-action within your ebook.

Now that your content is written and designed, it’s time to optimize it for lead generation, reconversion, and promotion.

Think about how you got here — you clicked on a call-to-action (CTA) in an email, on a social media post, or somewhere else. A CTA is a link or visual object that entices the visitor to click and arrive on a landing page that will get them further engaged with your company. Since your ebook readers have probably converted into leads in order to get their hands on your ebook to begin with (more on this in step below), use the CTAs within your ebook to reconvert your readers and propel them further down your marketing funnel.

For instance, a CTA can lead to another offer, your annual conference’s registration page, or even a product page. Depending on what this next action is, CTAs can be an in-line rectangle or a full-page teasing the next offer (see both images below).

To hyperlink the CTA in your ebook (or any image or text in your ebook) to your destination URL, simply go to Insert >> Hyperlink in PowerPoint.

We’ve even designed 50 customizable calls-to-action in PowerPoint you can download and use in your ebooks. You can grab them here.

Now, we don’t have a dedicated CTA template slide in the PowerPoint ebook templates for you to customize … but it’s still simple! All you have to do is duplicate slide four (the Header/Subheader slide) and customize copy or add images as needed. You can also go to Insert >> New Slide and work from there.

9. Convert it into a PDF.

Once you’ve finished writing your ebook — CTAs and all — it’s time to convert it to the right file type so it’s transferable from you to your recipient.

To convert your ebook to a PDF, click File >> Save As in the ebook template you have open. Under File Format, select PDF and select a destination on your computer for this new file.

Why can’t you just attach what you have to a landing page and be done with it? Word documents, PowerPoints, and similar templates are perfect for creating your ebook, but not for delivering it. Because these templates are editable, the contents of your ebook are too easily corrupted, distorted, or even lost when moving from your computer to the hands of your future leads. That’s where PDFs come in.

You’ve seen these letters at the end of files before. Short for Portable Document Format, the .PDF file type essentially freezes your ebook so it can be displayed clearly on any device. A popular alternative to PDFs is the .EPUB file type. See a comparison of EPUB to PDF here.

10. Create a dedicated landing page for your ebook.

Your ebook should be available for download through a landing page on your site. A landing page is a web page that promotes/describes your offer and provides a form that visitors need to fill out with their contact information in order to access your ebook. This is how you are able to convert your visitors into business leads that your sales team can ultimately follow up with.

For instance, you went through this landing page in order to access this ebook template. To learn more about how to optimize your landing pages for conversion, download this free ebook.

11. Promote your ebook and track its success.

Once your landing page is all set, you can use that destination URL to promote your ebook across your marketing channels. Here are five ways you can do this:

• Advertise your new ebook on your website. For example, feature a CTA or link to your offer’s landing page on your resources page or even your homepage.
• Promote your ebook through your blog. For instance, consider publishing an excerpt of your ebook as a blog post. Or write a separate blog article on the same topic as your ebook, and link to it at the end of your post using a call-to-action to encourage readers to keep learning. (Note: This very blog post is the perfect example of how to promote an offer you created with a blog post.)
• Send a segmented email to contacts who have indicated an interest in receiving offers from your company.
• Leverage paid advertising and co-marketing partnerships that will help you promote your ebook to a new audience.
• Publish posts to social media with a link to your ebook. You can also increase social shares by creating social media share buttons within your ebook, such as the ones at the bottom right of this ebook.

After your content is launched and promoted across your marketing channels, you’ll also want marketing analytics in place to measure the success of your live product.

For instance, you should have landing page analytics that give you insight into how many people downloaded your ebook and converted into leads, and closed-loop analytics that show how many of those people ultimately converted into opportunities and customers for your business. Learn more through HubSpot’s Landing Pages App.

And with that, we’ve built an ebook, folks! You can check out the packaged version of the example I built through this post here:

After your content is launched and promoted across your marketing channels, you’ll need to have marketing analytics in place that measure the success of your ebooks. For instance, having landing page analytics that give you insight into how many people downloaded your ebook, or show how many of those downloaders converted into opportunities and customers for your business.

Ebook Ideas

So, what should you write about in your ebook? I’ll answer that question with another question: What do you want your readers to get out of this ebook? To identify an ebook idea that suits your audience, consider the type of ebook you’re trying to create. Here are a few ideas.

New Research

Conducting an experiment or business survey? This is a great way to develop proprietary knowledge and become a thought leader in your industry. But how will you share your findings with the people who care about it? Create an ebook that describes the experiment, what you intended to find out, what the results of the experiment were, and what these findings mean for your readers and the market at large.

Case Study

People love success stories, especially if these people are on the fence about purchasing something from you. If you have a client whose business you’re particularly proud to have, why not tell their story in an ebook?

Ebook case studies show your buyers that other people trust you and have benefited from your product or service. In your ebook, describe what your client’s challenge was, how you connected with them, and how you were able to help your client solve their challenge and become successful.

Product Demo

The more complex your product is, the more information your customers will need to use it correctly. If your product or service can be used in multiple ways, or it’s hard to set up alone, dedicate a brief ebook to showing people how it’s done. In the first section of your ebook, for example, explain how to launch your product or service. In the second section, break down the individual features and purposes your product is best used for.

Interview

Interested in interviewing a well-known person in your market? Perhaps you’ve already sat down with an influencer to pick their brain about the future of the industry. Package this interview into an ebook, making it easy for your customers to read and share your inside scoop.

Playbook

A “playbook” is a document people can use when taking on a new project or concept that is foreign to them. Think of it like a cheat sheet, full of tips and tricks that help your customers get better at what they do.

When done right, a playbook equips your customers with the information they would need to excel when using your product. For example, a software vendor for IT professionals might create a “virus protection playbook” that makes support teams better at preventing viruses at their respective companies.

Blog Post Series

Sometimes, the best ebook for your business is already strewn across a series of blog posts. If you’ve spent the last month writing articles all on the same subject for your business, imagine how these posts would look stitched together?

Each article can begin a new chapter. Then, once this ebook is created, you can promote it on a landing page, link to this landing page from each individual blog post, and generate leads from readers who want to download the entire blog series in one convenient ebook.

Share Your Expertise in an Ebook

Ebooks are one of the top converting lead magnets a business can offer to its audience. Creating an ebook is all about delivering high value at a low price point to generate a high volume of sales. Ebooks work well for new businesses looking for brand awareness and established companies securing a spot as an industry thought leader. So long as you and your team have outlined what success looks like for your ebook launch, you’ll reap the rewards of this stand-alone asset for months — or even years — to come. Get started on your own ebook using the free template available in the offer below.

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

If your product team is working on the next big thing, there ought to be an equally awesome promotion strategy to spread the word.

While some companies are guilty of drafting a press release, crossing their fingers, and hoping that the users will come, there’s actually much more to it than that.

Quite simply: If you have big news, you need a big strategy. And that’s where your product launch marketing plan comes in.

From establishing the proper messaging and creating the assets to enabling your sales team and keeping momentum, there’s a lot that goes into putting together a solid product launch plan.

At HubSpot, I work on the product marketing team, and we’re responsible for launching all of HubSpot’s new products. Our experience has shown us that there are three distinct phases of a product launch: the pre-launch, the launch, and the post-launch.

Pre-Launch

Before you launch, take the time to get really close to the product. Work with your product team to understand the problem they are trying to solve. Join them as they do users tests. Chat with them about their product philosophy. And most of all, ask a ton of questions — especially if you’re not familiar with the space.

Focus on understanding their vision and becoming a product expert. Outside of the product manager, the marketer launching the product should be the most knowledgeable person at your company about that product.

By understanding the product and performing market research, you’ll be able to align your messaging strategy with the product. The primary goal will be to bridge the gap between what the prospects’ pains are and what the competition is not doing to address them.

The pre-launch stage also includes the necessary promotion planning as you decide:

• Where you’ll advertise (e.g. search engines, social media, traditional channels)
• Where you’ll promote your message organically (e.g. social media, blog, website homepage, events)
• How you’ll get picked up by media outlets (i.e. your PR strategy and media outreach)
• Who you’ll rely on to spread the word (e.g. partners, communities, forums, third-party marketplaces)

Launch

During the pre-launch phase, you’ll have decided what channels to promote on, established relationships with any partners who will help you do so, and created the assets that will draw attention to your messaging on these channels.

The launch phase is simply the execution of all your planning. This phase is much shorter than pre-launch: it can take a day, or a week — depending on how long you feel you need.

As you prepare to move on to the launch, you want to stay focused on the work and be ready to put out any fires.

Post-Launch

The work isn’t over simply because the product is launched. In the post-launch phase, you’ll do a retrospective, pulling together the data to determine what went well and what didn’t go so well.

In addition, a product still needs to be maintained and improved upon beyond its launch, taking into account customer feedback in order to maintain adoption and retention.

This is, of course, a high-level overview of a product launch. However, there are some specific tactical things that you can do to help your launch go off without a hitch.

Pre-Launch

1. Research the space in-depth.

At most companies, the product manager will own the problem that the product solves. They’ll have a deep understanding of who the end-user is and what their unique needs are.

The product marketer’s job is to understand the market. They must be able to answer questions like:

• What’s the larger narrative around this space?
• How do current customers feel about it?
• What do people like and dislike?
• Is it growing and cutting edge or old and getting disrupted?
• What are the leading strategies and tactics in this space?
• What is your company’s unique point of view when it comes to this space?
• How does your new product fit in?

2. Focus on a single buyer persona.

You may not need to reinvent an existing buyer persona, but you should outline who amongst your target audience is a great fit for this new product. What kind of challenges do they have? How do they work? How big is their team? Talk to people who fit this profile to really understand their needs and goals.

If you need help organizing this information, check out these buyer persona templates or this handy tool.

3. Write a mock press release.

At HubSpot, we write a mock press release before we launch a product. We do this very early on in the product’s life to ensure that everyone involved in the launch is aligned on the messaging.

To give you a better sense of how this exercise unfolds, here’s an example:

But we’re not the only ones practicing this approach. In fact, the folks at Amazon use this exercise, too. The idea is that when you work backward and start with the press release, it’s easier to put yourself in the customer’s shoes.

If the press release doesn’t sound very interesting or fails to conjure a reaction, it’s likely that there’s more work to be done.

(Need some help getting started here? Check out these free press release templates.)

4. Build your messaging — but don’t marry it.

Messaging or positioning is mostly about refining your product narrative to focus on only the most valuable aspects of the new product via a simple message.

This is tough.

Most product people have the urge to communicate how great individual features are –something you want to avoid in launch messaging. At launch, you may only have someone’s attention for a few minutes or seconds, so your messaging needs to be persuasive, simple, and unique. It needs to communicate what your product actually does and communicate its high-level value.

You want to get this right, but don’t over-commit to messaging. It can (and should) change as you share your messaging with internal folks and customers.

Elements of good position often include:

• A tagline
• The problem it solves
• A list of core features
• The value prop
• A 10-word positioning statement

In the screenshot above you can see some of these elements in action on the HubSpot Ads product page.

5. Share your messaging with everyone.

It’s time to take the messaging you’ve been slaving over and get it in front of your co-workers, customers, and prospects.

This is often the least fun part of a product launch. Mainly because no matter how good your positioning is, it takes time to get the pitch down, and not everyone will get it.

It’s good to start with individuals who may be a little more forgiving and honest before presenting to executives. Use every meeting to pitch people and ask questions. You want to gather as much info as possible here and root out any confusing or bad messages.

6. Get involved in the beta.

Having a group of beta testers evaluate your product before you release it to the public is a really important step. At HubSpot, we release products to a group of folks — our beta testers — that have opted-in to give us feedback in exchange for early access.

If your company does this, make sure you are talking to the customers using the tool in the beta. Capture their stories, review their performance, and validate your value prop with them. This is your opportunity to test your messaging and build real-world proof to support your pitch with an audience that is ready to share feedback.

7. Change your messaging and find the best hook.

After talking to prospects and salespeople, and seeing how beta users use the product, it’s likely that you’ve uncovered a thing or two about your messaging that you might want to adjust. That’s good.

If you’ve done things right, this won’t mean drastic changes, but most likely a tweak to the value prop or tagline.

8. Set ambitious goals.

You need to be deliberate and ambitious with the goals you set, and that can be challenging when you have a new product without benchmarks. To combat that, we ask the question: “If everything went exactly right, what is the highest possible number — whether that be leads, users, etc. — we could achieve?”

This sets a ceiling for your campaign — a number that is realistically almost never achieved.

If I project that the highest possible number of leads the campaign can generate is 500, and I end up with 450, I know we got just about everything right. If I generate 550 leads, it means I probably didn’t do a great job of setting a realistic ceiling. And if we only generate 300 leads, we know some tactics didn’t work at all.

The image below can be a useful slide as part of your go-to-market plan:

9. Take the time to get the market ready.

If you’re launching a new product that enters your company into a new space — potentially a space where your company doesn’t have a ton of authority — start creating content about that space pre-launch.

You’ll want to seed this content for SEO purposes and to establish your company as experts in the market. It’ll also give you a chance to see what kind of content resonates prior to the launch, as well as help you surface any issues.

10. Build compelling creative assets.

At this point, you’re close to launch and it’s time to start building launch assets. But before you start writing emails or building landing pages, think about the customer journey:

• How do people make purchase decisions in your space?
• What do they need before buying?
• Is it a free trial? A demo?
• Is it best for them to talk to a salesperson?
• What do they need to know before they get to that point?

Once you’ve answered those questions, outline your conversion path. How will you first get people’s attention? Perhaps it’s an email, that drives people to a landing page, where users are encouraged to fill out a form.

Once you have this, get to work building the actual forms, site pages, videos, social posts, emails, and other tactics that will drive users down your funnel and to your conversion point.

(If you’re looking for inspiration, check out this list of the best promotional product videos we’ve ever seen.)

11. Assemble your go-to-market strategy.

All the elements I’ve mentioned should come together in a deck or a doc — something that is clear, complete, and easily shareable.

This is your go-to-market guide: A holistic document of all launch activities, planning, and goals. This can include pricing recommendations, market research, competitive analysis, and any other relevant information you might need.

Launch

12. Choose the right channels.

During the planning phase, you should have outlined the channels you want to use to share your message. This is not a “the more the merrier” sort of thing — a mistake new product marketers often make.

Be sure to avoid channels where the audience may not be the right fit. Pick one main channel — an event, a Product Hunt post, or blog post — and use email, social, paid, and other channels to support that main post.

For example, in 2018, we launched HubSpot’s free email marketing tools on Product Hunt. We choose Product Hunt because it serves as a great way for startups and technology companies to introduce new products to a community of product-centric influencers.

16. Revisit your “go-to-market” doc for reporting.

With all the work that’s going into launch, you don’t want to have to retroactively figure out what to report on. If you’ve done a good job with your go-to-market doc, you should be able to create a new slide and fill in your results with real numbers.

Once you’ve had a little more time away from your launch, spend some time analyzing the results. Where did your campaign succeed and fail? What did you fail to anticipate? What did you learn? Post these to your internal wiki or as a public blog post.

17. Shift your focus on retention.

Now that you’ve successfully launched a new product, shift your attention to retention. Marketing can generally play a bigger role in driving new users, but it’s important to work with your product team to figure out how you can help keep those users around.

This means more ongoing education like post-launch product webinars, as well as sharing case studies and success stories to show your users what they can achieve with your product.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in September 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

As a legally blind woman, it took me years to disclose the full extent of my disability to employers. When I did, I downplayed my blindness as “just a bit of nearsightedness,” or I had to give a disclaimer of, “It’s never held me back and I have references to prove it.”

And, if I had to go back in time, I’d do the same thing.

Why? Even if I had a great manager, I couldn’t deny the stats that were engrained in my mind. Although one in five U.S. adults has a disability, more than one-third of corporate employees report negative bias or discrimination at work.

If that stat seems tough to swallow, imagine reading it as a young professional with a disability.

Because of hard data, combined with the fact that I knew no one like me in my field, I was terrified to mention my disability.         

Now, at HubSpot, I’ve safely opened up about my blindness. Through doing so, I’ve met others with disabilities. I’ve even helped other colleagues to form HubSpot’s first Disability Alliance, which provides education, virtual meetups, and resources to our allies and others in the disabled community.

One thing I’ve discovered is that disability impacts almost all of us — regardless of race, gender, or geographic region. If you don’t have a visible or unseen disability right now, you might learn how to navigate one as you age. If not, you might have a friend or family member that navigates a disability every day.

Unfortunately, there are still employers that will ignore someone’s achievements due to physical or mental disabilities. Sadly, because disabled people might be limited by location or financial restraints, they might still have to endure judgment in the workplace to earn a living wage.

But, although I’d still avoid disclosing my blindness if I went back in time, I believe we can work towards a future where people like me can safely own their identities at work.

And, there’s no better time to start than July (a.k.a. Disability Pride Month).

These endeavors encourage those with disabilities to show pride in what makes them unique while encouraging allies to promote the visibility and representation of those in this group.

Disability Pride Month is also an important time to look back and reflect on all the great strides that the disabled community has made in the past. When we look back on positive historical outcomes, it can motivate us to act for a change and a better future for those with disabilities.

Why Marketers and Businesses Should Embrace Disability Pride

Although Disability Pride Month is only observed in July and primarily within the United States, Disability Pride can be celebrated every day by marketers, managers, and companies around the globe.

While marketers can take time to brainstorm new ways to make their campaigns, offerings, and content more inclusive and accessible, managers and employers can consider how they can help all employees receive the accommodations and support they need to succeed.

To inspire future action and change, here’s a brief history of how disability rights have changed and improved around the world — leading up to Disability Pride Month, declared in 2015. This is not an exhaustive list of wins for the disabled community, but it highlights a few people, landmark court cases, and international events that spread disability awareness or encouraged disability equality.

A Timeline of Disability Pride

Disability in the Late 1800s and Early 1900s

1880-1986: The Era of Helen Keller

Helen Keller, a deaf and blind woman who was nearly institutionalized for her impairments as a child, proved many skeptics wrong when receiving degrees from Radcliffe College, within Harvard University; Cambridge School in Weston; and Wright-Humason School of the Deaf.

Keller went on to work in public service and wrote a number of best-selling books.

Keller’s early life and work with teacher Anne Sullivan were chronicled in a groundbreaking book titled “The Miracle Worker.”

1930: The Mental Treatment Act 1930

This was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that permitted voluntary admission to, and outpatient treatment within, psychiatric hospitals. At this point, “asylums” transitioned to “mental hospitals.”

1946: Psychiatric Hospital Employees Tried for Murder

German courts tried members of the Hadamar Psychiatric Hospital staff for the murders of nearly 15,000 citizens at the facility. Adolf Wahlmann and Irmgard Huber, the chief physician, and the head nurse, were convicted. This trial was a landmark case that put the same importance on those with mental illnesses as those without them.

1947: Japan Enacts Accessibility Laws

During this year, Japan enacted three laws including

• The School Education Law: Provided education for disabled children such as general classes, special classes, non-residential classes, special schools, and itinerant teaching.
• The Workmen’s Accident Compensation Insurance Law: Provided disability pension and disability lump-sum payments, as well as welfare services such as special allowance, medical services, health care, or supply of prosthetic appliances.
• 1947: The Mail Law: Made postage for Braille paper and recorded mail for visually impaired persons are free of charge, and parcels for disabled people can be mailed at half the cost. The postage for periodicals published by disabled person groups can be mailed at a small charge.

1973: Rehabilitation Act. Section 504 is Passed by US Congress

The passage of section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act guaranteed that people could not be denied services or federal funding on just the basis of disability. It also recognized those with disabilities as a minority for the first time. This law was also incredibly historic because it labeled the exclusion or segregation of children or adults with disabilities as illegal discrimination. Because of this, disabled people were now able to be educated or work in similar roles as those without disabilities.

The law passage was highly publicized and led to more conversations about disability rights and equality in the U.S. Ultimately, it was seen as the foundation for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Disability Pride Celebrations Begin with the ADA

1988-1990: The Americans With Disabilities Act is Proposed and Passed

The ADA was drafted in 1988, brought through Congress within the next two years, and was ultimately passed and celebrated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

In its earliest form, the act aimed to protect those with disabilities from discrimination both in and out of the workplace. A few of the act’s major regulations include:

• State and local governments must give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from all of their programs, services, and activities (e.g. public education, employment, transportation, recreation, health care, social services, courts, voting, and town meetings).
• Employers with 15 or more employees must provide qualified individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from the full range of employment-related opportunities available to others.
• The act prohibits discrimination in recruitment, hiring, promotions, training, pay, social activities, and other privileges of employment and restricts questions that can be asked about an applicant’s disability before a job offer is made.
• All employers must make reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities unless it results in an undue hardship.
• Public transportation authorities can’t discriminate against people with disabilities in the provision of their services.
• Public transit must also comply with requirements for accessibility in newly purchased vehicles, make good faith efforts to purchase or lease accessible used buses, remanufacture buses in an accessible manner.
• Paratransit must also be provided on fixed-route bus or rail systems.
• Businesses must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific architectural standards for new and altered buildings, such as reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures. Additionally, public businesses must remove physical disability barriers in buildings.

Disability Pride Celebrations Begin

The first Disability Pride Day was held in Boston in 1990 to coincide with the passing of the ADA. Later, in 2004, the first Disability Pride Parade in the U.S. was held in Chicago, which made the celebration an annual tradition in the city after the first drew thousands of people into the city.

Image Source

Disability Pride did not become a full month until 2015 — when Mayor Bill De Blasio designated July as Disability Pride Month in New York state to celebrate ADA’s 25th anniversary. Aside from 2020, when public gatherings were canceled, NYC’s Disability Pride Month Parade has become a major annual celebration that pulls in people from all around the world.

Disability Pride Today

In the past decade, we’ve seen more representation of disabled people in the media and workplaces than ever before. While there are still a number of changes we’re fighting for, equality rights have come a long way. Here are a few great examples of where we’re seeing groundbreaking disability pride:

Books

One area where disability stories have particularly been embraced is in the world of literature. Even in the 1900s, we had groundbreaking books like, “The Miracle Worker” which followed the early life of Helen Keller (noted above). Today, there are thousands of great works written by disabled figures, their advocates, or their followers. Here’s just one long list to start with.

Television

Here are two awesome examples of current or upcoming shows that feature disabled actors playing a character with a disability:

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Netflix, YouTube)

This Netflix documentary follows a groundbreaking Woodstock-era summer camp that inspired a group of teens with disabilities to build a movement and forge a new path toward equality and independence.

Ramy (Hulu)

A few members of HubSpot’s Disability Alliance have recommended Ramy, a Hulu dramedy that follows a first-generation American Muslim, played by comedian Ramy Youssef, on a “spiritual journey in his politically divided New Jersey neighborhood.”

While the show’s been buzzed about for its plotline, it’s also made news because Youssef cast his best friend, a standup comedian with muscular dystrophy named Steve Way, to play his onscreen pal.

Here’s an interview Way gave about the show and how the casting was a groundbreaking move in streaming content:

This Is Us (NBC, Peacock, Hulu)

The most recent seasons of This Is Us have partially followed the parents of a blind character named Jack. As Jack grows up, he gains independence, struggles as a musician, and eventually becomes a famous singer and parent. Not only is the story hopeful, but the character is incredibly realistic because he’s actually played by a blind man.

Here’s an interview with Blake Stadnik, who plays Jack, talking about his experience on This Is Us:

Social Media

Social media has become a major platform for those with disabilities, and their allies, to tell their stories. Below is a list of just a few great accounts to follow, courtesy of HubSpot’s Disability Alliance:

• Diversability: Instagram, Website
• Tiffany Yu (Founder of Diversability)
• Sinéad Burke: Website, Twitter, Podcast
• Tess Daly:  Instagram
• Jillian Mercado: Instagram
• Tae McKenzie: Instagram, Website
• Madeline Stuart: Instagram, Website
• Haben Girma: Instagram, Website, Twitter
• Keah Brown: Instagram, Website
• Andrea Dalzell: Instagram,
• Annie Segarra: Instagram, Youtube 
• Chella Man: Instagram, Website 
• Imogen Fox: Instagram, Website
• Rebekah Taussig: Instagram, Website
• Angel Giuffria: Instagram
• Holly Scott-Gardner: Website, YouTube
• James Rath: Instagram, YouTube
• The Blind Life Sam: Instagram, YouTube 
• Squirmy & Grubs (Shane & Hannah): YouTube
• Molly Burke: YouTube
• Megan Absten: YouTube
• Cole & Charisma: YouTube

Where We’re Continuing to Increase Awareness

Disability Pride Month is a great time to recognize how far we’ve come, and how far we can still go. As we continue to boost awareness, July is also a time to ask ourselves questions like:

• “Am I being a good ally for those in the disabled community?”
• “How can we push businesses and people to become more inclusive?
• “How can we make workplaces safer for those with unseen or mental health disabilities?”
• “How can we prevent people with disabilities from feeling like they have to hide their identity to have job security?”

By continuing to learn, tell our stories, and listen to others, we can better reflect on where we can better improve the lives of those with disabilities.

Ultimately, landmark laws, regulations, and change — like what we’ve seen above — come from a combination of advocacy and allyship. By telling and listening to Disability Pride stories, those with disabilities can be empowered to advocate for themselves. Meanwhile, those without disabilities can learn how to serve as stronger allies.

To learn more about building inclusive campaigns or offices, check out these recent posts:

• 7 Brands That Got Inclusive Marketing Right
• Why Accessible Marketing is the Future, According to an Inclusive Design Expert
• 25 Stats That Prove Why Workplaces Need to Embrace Diversity
• 39 Stats About Diversity In Entrepreneurship

Want to learn more about how HubSpot celebrates Disability Pride Month? Follow HubSpot Life on Instagram to catch takeovers from myself and other members of HubSpot’s Disability Alliance.

Recently, our own David Fortino was lucky enough to be invited onto a number of podcasts to talk about NetLine’s 2021 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report for Marketers. 

In the coming weeks, we’ll be breaking down a few of the most interesting takeaways from each episode so that you can get the most out of each conversation. We’ll go in order of release, starting with In Pursuit of Growth.

Why Content Marketing and Sales Enablement are Tied at the Hip 

Being one of the first guests on a brand new podcast is quite an honor. Hosted by the spectacular Alice Heiman, Modus’s In Pursuit of Growth debuted in the Spring of 2021 and is a monthly show focused on getting businesses to drive more sales. As Alice describes it, the podcast is all about, “really helping our sales teams win,” and she does her best to make sure that each episode delivers actionable pieces of information that ultimately provide sales enablement—whether that’s through Sales, Marketing, or (ideally) a combination of the two.

While Dave was invited onto the show to talk about our report, he and Alice touched on a variety of topics from content insights to arming sales with content to keep buyers engaged throughout their journey. Let’s dig into some of the highlights.

What Your Content Needs to Intrigue Your Audience

In the first part of the interview, David shared how the original idea for our annual Content Consumption Report was all about trying to elevate our position in the market. 

“We wanted to use content to not create thought leadership pieces, which everybody, I think collectively loves to throw around and as if it just miraculously occurs and every executive is just a perfect thought leader,” David said. “So we thought, “well, being in the business that we’re in, why not let that data do the talking instead of us? Why don’t we create content that’s actually the front and center voice for the brand?”

Since introducing the report in 2016, NetLine has been able to lead with value, which has enabled our Sales team to take little snippets of data and capture the attention of the people that they’re reaching out to. As David continued, he stressed that the ability to isolate the best snippets for each target is what has truly been the most successful element of each report.

“It’s really about distilling key nuggets to capture attention and intrigue that will then compel a dialogue,” David said. 

Alice jumped all over that idea.”Oh, right there, let’s just repeat that: Capture their attention, engage them, and create intrigue.”

Alice continued along this line of thinking, talking about how just sending another email or making another phone call, or sending another LinkedIn request isn’t working. “You get such a small percent return because you don’t really have anything that’s intriguing. If you want people to be interested, you have to be interesting.”

Feed the Sales Team

Photo by Ulysse Pointcheval on Unsplash

“Our marketing teams aren’t feeding the salespeople enough things that make them interesting.” This is one of Alice’s pillars of focus on the podcast and is something she got into right away with David. She made the connection of how fishermen need to use the right bait to attract the ideal fish.

“I’m not a fisherman per se, but my dad is so the bait part is really the key,” David said. “There’s  specific types of bait that use for specific types of fish, and so, if you’re going to market saying, “Well, this is some amazing bait and we’re trying to catch mackerel today,” but it turns out tuna only bite that bait, that’s a problem and you’ll be out there all day.”

David shares how NetLine has continued to rework the static report for Sales to slice and dice in whichever way they need to effectively repurpose and atomize, however, they see fit. (One of the best ways that we’ve done this is through Audience Explorer, where Marketers from nearly any B2B industry can pull up-to-date snippets of data that makes sense for them.)

The other part of feeding your Sales team with strong, relevant data points is allowing yourself to get out of the way. “As a marketing team, and I’ve been guilty of this in the past, you consistently always want to control [every element of the brand] voice,” David said. “[But the real goal is to have everyone] abide by a general framework which is not only compelling with our prospects but also drives engagement with our own team because they feel like they’re empowered.”

Quality Instead of Quantity

Take a look at your inbox. If you were to take a guess, what percentage of messages do you get every day that are follow-ups to emails you’ll never respond to? The answer is probably much higher than we really want to admit.

This is an issue that is plaguing marketing across every vertical. While a good deal of lip service is given to being personalized and staying within a given niche, organizations still love to talk about volume. “In order to reach our numbers, we need to have this many sends, meaning that we need to have X number of cold outreach emails.” It’s a painful reality we all deal with…and Alice and David are tired of it.

“Quantity instead of quality is hard,” Alice said. “Here I am with my tool that sends out messages as a salesperson—even though marketing is sending out their own set of messages—and maybe my sequence has eight or 12 touches in it I loaded into my flow. And then it tells me what they interacted with on LinkedIn and then it tells me to try to call them again, and then it sends the next message, and then it sends the next message,” and on and on.

Essentially, we get so wrapped up in the machinery of the marketing that we forget about what the marketing is trying to accomplish. “It’s a huge hurdle for anyone in the revenue side of the organization to get past because, quite honestly,” David said, “and this is terrible to say this, but I don’t think that they believe that their teams are capable of [isolating which content and which messaging is right for a given prospect or customer].”

As Alice points out, the sales cycle has only gotten longer in recent years—a trend we certainly expect to continue extending—with more people in the Buying Committee making decisions that are more and more complex. But even with this complexity comes a return to the basics: understanding what it is that your prospects need. And how do we discover what those needs are (beyond your initial research and intent discovery data)? Quality conversations.

“We want to have quality conversations every day,” Alice said, “and that’s what I want CEOs to start asking their sales leaders: Are your salespeople having quality conversations? Let’s enable them to do that, and get back to earning the attention of the people they want to talk to.”

Listen to the Episode

These three highlights are just a taste of what Alice and David dove into during their conversation. We really loved the Sales-centric approach that Alice took to the report and how many new insights she ultimately sussed out of David. It’s truly a must-listen podcast for anyone who is interested in how content can better facilitate sales enablement.

Get comfortable and listen to episode four of In Pursuit of Growth!

Ten years ago, SEO strategists across the world followed a relatively similar process.

Step one, conduct keyword research. Step two, randomly write those keywords into the text on a page approximately five billion times. And step three — rank number one for that keyword.

I hate to break to you, but that isn’t the case anymore.

Several algorithm updates like Hummingbird and RankBrain brought about a new concept: semantic search.

While this may remove jobs for black-hat keyword stuffers, SEOs who prioritize the importance of providing a good customer experience can sigh in relief that Google is now on their side.

Google and other search engines are continuously striving to satisfy the searcher with the most accurate results — which is precisely where semantic search comes in. In other words, it connects search intent with the context of your content to provide the most relevant and helpful results.

With these updates in place, how does this affect search traffic? And what do SEOs need to consider moving forward?

That’s what I’ll cover in this article.

What is semantic search?

To start, let’s dive deeper into how semantic search works.

Semantic search is the process search engines use to try to understand the intent and contextual meaning of your search query in order to give you results that match what you had in mind.

In other words, semantic search aims to know why you are searching for these particular keywords, and what you intend to do with the information you get.

It’s important to note — you don’t want to mistake semantic search with Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), or what some may call semantically-related keywords. LSIs can help provide context on what your content is about (which consequently helps with matching search intent), but semantic search is so much more than that.

If we’re looking at semantic search holistically, here are the factors that guide how it works:

1. A user’s search intent.

The term “search intent” refers to the reason why you are performing a query (or, in layman’s terms: why you Google something). Most often you want to buy, find, or learn something.

For instance, if I search for “content marketing”, Google provides results around the definition of content marketing, since the intent is fairly broad:

However, if I instead search “How do I get started with content marketing”, Google does not provide definitions of content marketing, because my intent is different:

The takeaway: For all content marketers and SEOs, the big lesson here is that you need to heavily consider search intent when choosing keywords and creating content. Even if you have content that ranks well, if it doesn’t match search intent, the user will leave the page — and that certainly doesn’t help conversions.

2. The semantic meaning of search terms.

“Semantic search” was coined based on semantics, or the study of the meaning of words and phrases in certain contexts and the relationship between those words. When it comes to search, semantics refers to the connection between a search query, words related to it, and the content on website pages.

All of those factors combined help search engines understand what the search queries mean beyond a literal translation, so it can display results that are related to the context.

For example, if you search for “wedding dresses”, the words related to that might include “wedding”, “cake”, “bride”, and “dream”. When the search is for “dresses”, the related words might be “beautiful”, “knee-length”, and so on.

The takeaway: When choosing the keywords that go into your content, I recommend creating what’s known as “keyword clusters“, or groups of related keywords. These clusters directly relate to semantic search, because they ensure that your content covers a broader range of the topic. And with a broader range, comes multiple keyword rankings per page.

Other Factors Related to Semantic Search

Although the above two are the main factors, these factors also affect semantic search:

• Featured snippets: Featured snippets are based on providing the most direct and helpful answer to the searcher.
• Rich results: These affect semantic search as well through content such as images, and you’ll see how in the example in the next section.
• Voice search: Voice search queries are usually very direct, include natural language, longer phrases, and question words that lends to how search engines process results.
• RankBrain: based on machine learning technology, the RankBrain algorithm helps Google understand the first-instance set that satisfies the query and related concepts, phrases, and synonyms.
• Hummingbird: the focus of the Hummingbird algorithm update was to provide better results for voice search, conversational language, and searches for specific people.

Semantic Search Examples

In order to give you a clear idea of how semantic search works, here are a few concrete examples.

Here, I searched “order a pizza”, so the results are inclined towards local search:

Here, I Googled “Make a pizza”, and I see rich results with recipes:

If I Google just “pizza”, I will likely still get local search results, because more users are looking to order rather than make their own. However, if my search history is filled with pizza recipes, my results for “pizza” will likely also be recipes because of the personalization component.

Semantic search basically affects all results a user receives. So a website will only be served as a result for a certain keyword if the content on the page matches the context of that search query. Results for “make a pizza” will have ingredients, time to prepare, and so on, while “order a pizza” will have locations, delivery, and prices.

On an interesting note, current news affects search results, as well. Before the pandemic, a search for “corona” would have mostly returned the beer brand, but after the spread of COVID-19, you mainly get results regarding the virus.

Another example is Jeff Bezos. When you search for his name, you get a knowledge graph, general information, and below that, recent news. However, if something big has happened recently with Jeff Bezos, you’ll see the Top Stories first.

How Google Uses Semantic Search

Google’s bottom line is to give users the best search experience possible. To do that, they use semantic search to:

• Identify and disqualify low-quality content.
• Gain a better understanding of user search intent. For example: is the user searching to navigate to a particular page? Or are they searching to do more research about a topic?
• Formulate answers to questions.
• Determine what relevant data to pull from the Semantic Web
• Understand websites and pages in terms of topics instead of keywords.
• Integrate Google technologies where semantic search plays a role such as Knowledge Graph, Hummingbird, RankBrain, BERT.
• Appropriately format the data for inclusion in the search results.
• Connect with queries with all possible meaning when the search intent is not clear.

How to Use the Power of Semantic Search to Your Advantage

To put it simply, if your content doesn’t have a semantic relationship with the search query, it won’t show up in search results. The simple solution to this is matching your content to the search term in combination with the right strategy.

To be on the right side of SEO when it comes to semantic search, I recommend that you strive to do the following:

• Focus on topics, not keywords.
• Make sure you understand user search intent: is it to buy? to reach a particular page of a brand? To learn?
• Build relevancy through links (both internal and external).
• Use schema markup.
• Use semantic HTML like <header>, <footer> and <article>.
• Answer all relevant questions around your topic.
• Be answer-based and structure your sentences to be easily understandable.

Check these off your list, and you’ve got a one-stop shop to a powerful SEO strategy with the support of semantic search.

Have you ever done some obscure search on Google, and been amazed when the search engine still returned such accurate results? 

You can thank RankBrain for that.

RankBrain went live in 2015 and is now an essential part of the Google algorithm.

This article will help break down what you should know about it, and how you can optimize for it.

What Is Google RankBrain?

RankBrain is a part of Google’s algorithm that uses machine-learning and artificial intelligence to better understand the intent of a search query. This understanding can help return the most relevant search results to users.

It was implemented into the core algorithm back in 2015 and was initially only applied to the 15% of never before seen queries it received. Once Google became more confident in it, they made it a part of every search query.

Let’s explore how machine learning and AI contribute to RankBrain.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence helps computers understand and act like a human when they are given tasks like decision-making, language translation, and visual perception.

Google has also stated they use what is called neural matching, which is an AI-based system that helps understand how words relate to concepts.

Although RankBrain and neural matching may differ, they do work together to bring the best results for a search query.

Machine Learning

Machine learning is essentially the ability for a machine to learn on its own from data it receives.

If you currently use a junk mail filter in your mailbox or have movie recommendations appear in your Netflix account, these are examples of machine learning.

The combination of AI and machine learning are what drives RankBrain to be an effective part of the algorithm.

As an example, if I were to look for “the scary hotel movie with the maze”, I would get results for The Shining.

Even without the results using that exact term on the page, RankBrain can assess the topical relevance and deliver the results I want.

Pretty cool, right?

How important is RankBrain?

Given that RankBrain is used in every search that takes place on Google, it’s pretty important.

RankBrain is the first attempt at machine learning and will be paving the path for the future of search. By implementing some best practices now, you can ensure that your website is ready for the continued improvements machine learning will bring to search results over time.

At one time Google claimed it was the third-most important ranking factor. While we are not sure that still applies, what we do know is that RankBrain is still a big part of how Google delivers search results.

So what does that mean for you?

It means you need to up your content and SEO game. Let’s dive into how to do that, next. 

Optimizing With RankBrain In Mind

You cannot directly optimize for RankBrain.

But what you can do is better optimize your content, which will then improve how RankBrain views your website.

RankBrain is focused on ranking sites that most accurately match a users’ query. So your job is to make sure you create content that can match those specific needs.

Below are some ways you can better optimize your content for RankBrain.

1. Use Natural Language

When creating content, you’ll want to write in a natural tone that you might also use when speaking.

Read your content aloud when creating it — does it sound like a human would say it? Is it conversational?

This writing style can make a big difference in helping RankBrain understand your content.

2. Search Intent

This is a big one!

Type the keyword you would like to rank for in the search results and review the top-ranking pages.

These pages are ranking because Google understands that this is the type of content a searcher is looking for based on interactions with the results.

3. Strengthen Relevance

Once you are clear on the intent of the keyword, you will need to create content and optimize it to match that intent.

Think of each page more as a “topic” than just a keyword and make it as comprehensive as possible.

In the past, we may have written several posts about a topic so we can optimize each for a specific keyword. But now the goal is to combine those posts into one post, and rank for multiple keywords and phrases.

When you create a post that covers all possible variations of a topic, you will ultimately rank for more keywords — which will help make the page more authoritative.

Below is an example of a website that has thousands of keywords ranking for their two top pages.

How can you create posts that have thousands of keywords?

Be comprehensive about your topic.

If your main topic is “how to potty train a puppy”, for instance, you’ll want to add content that relates to all aspects of training a puppy. This might include:

• How long does it take to train a puppy
• How fast can you train a puppy
• At what age can I start training a puppy
• How to potty train a “5” month old puppy (break it down by age)
• Easiest way to train a puppy

All of these variations of terms and phrases will build a strong piece of content that addresses all issues related to puppy potty training. This in turn will help with RankBrain because you are adding items of topical relevance!

4. Improve Click-through Rate (CTR)

Because RankBrain does look at how many clicks from the search results you get, writing exceptional title tags and meta descriptions is critical.

Using emotions in your title is one of the best ways to increase those clicks. You can also use numbers, brackets, or parentheses to help make your title stand out from the rest.

Look at what paid ads in your niche are using as inspiration, as well as the top ranking pages.

5. Quality Over Quantity

If you have been in SEO as long as I have, you will have to change how you view content and keyword strategy.

The days of writing a post around a singular keyword are gone. In the past you may have written a separate post for the terms “get more sales”, “increase your sales”, or “grow monthly revenue” so that you could optimize for each of those phrases.

Unfortunately, that no longer works with RankBrain.

Creating one post and maximizing the content around the term “get more sales” should help RankBrain understand that it is related to those other terms.

For instance, below you can see the search results for “get more sales” and “increase your sales”. You will notice how close the results are for these terms.

This may not have been the case before RankBrain.

RankBrain has made it more beneficial to create long-form content that can be optimized around many phrases or terms.

6. Time On Page (Dwell Time)

Once it delivers the search results, how does RankBrain understand which results are good ones?

There is some indication that it will take UX signals and pages that have more engagement, and rank those higher. Measuring a user’s time on page and whether any pogo-sticking is happening are two of the factors that are likely used.

Some things to consider to improve these UX signals include:

• Break-up the text into small paragraphs so it is easy to read
• Use titles to break content into sections
• Create an engaging introductory paragraph to get users interested in reading more
• Use images and videos
• Answer questions early in the content
• Create content that answers all the questions a user may have about the topic

This is why it is more important than ever to take time to craft great content that makes users’ stay on the page. The longer they stay on your website, the better signals it will send to RankBrain.

7. Improve Old Content

If your website has been around for a while, you may have old content that was optimized before RankBrain.

Additionally, you might have several posts that are topically relevant that might now be better served as one long-form post.

If this is the case, determine which post has the highest traffic, backlinks, and ranking, and make that your primary post. Then merge the content from the other posts into it and do a 301 redirect for those posts to your new “RankBrain-optimized” post.

This is a great opportunity for some quick ranking wins!

RankBrain is definitely a game changer for search. As a content creator or SEO professional, it’s important to use the strategies above to help improve your chances of ranking well with RankBrain.

One thing we know for sure is that RankBrain will be here for a while. While it may evolve over time, the combination of AI and machine learning is here to stay. Learn how you can adapt your own content to reap the full benefits of the SERPs. 

Over the last two years, you’ve probably heard a lot about cybersecurity.

Like many big, serious-sounding concepts, it feels like it sometimes plays out above our heads — the territory of huge conglomerates and governments, or maybe your IT department. And, let’s face it, not too interesting for professionals in marketing, sales, or services.

You may have even found yourself thinking, “Yeah, there are people worrying about this, but we probably don’t have to.”

As a product manager for security at HubSpot, I spend a lot of time thinking about this topic. Today I’d like to explore how essential good data protection and account security are to marketers and the businesses they represent.

It all starts with one thing: trust.

Why Marketers Should Care About Data Security

1. Trust is a cornerstone of the inbound marketing methodology.

You build trust in your business in a multitude of ways.

This could be exemplifying expertise in your field or providing great service centered around the customer experience. You also build trust by creating genuine relationships with customers that transcend simply converting a lead — and includes ongoing support that brings your customers enough success that they feel comfortable recommending your service to anybody they know.

At the end of the day, building and maintaining trust is a key ingredient to keeping your flywheel spinning.

Without it, this whole machine grinds to a halt.

Loss of trust is a catastrophic hit for a business and a brand, too. For example, few things can cause a customer to sever a relationship with a company more quickly than a data breach. In fact, one in four Americans won’t do business with data breached companies.

2. Prospects and customers trust marketers to keep personal data secure.

Every day, your potential customers put trust in you — quite a lot of trust, in fact — when they do things like fill out contact forms on your website, register for your webinars, or sign up for free trials of your service.

By giving you their personal information, they’re putting a massive amount of trust not only in your business but in you as the marketer who maintains those tools. They’re trusting you to keep their personal information safe, not to abuse it (say, by sending them a bunch of spammy emails), and to use it in their best interest to help them meet their goals.

3. Proper use of data isn’t enough anymore — you need to keep customer data safe.

You’ve probably heard conversations about the proper use of customer data, such as emails, centered around the concept “don’t misuse the information.”

For example: don’t over-email someone, don’t send them offers you don’t have any reason to believe they’d be interested in or don’t contact them without their consent.

Just as important is a conversation you may be a little less familiar with — how to actually keep prospect and customer information safe, and out of the hands of people who would use that information to harm them.

If you’re not as familiar with that side of the conversation, that’s understandable. The risk of bad actors gaining unauthorized access to customer data at scale is relatively new.

At HubSpot, we believe it’s just as valuable as any other way to inspire and maintain trust.

As a marketer, you are the steward of your customers’ data.

The job of a marketer doesn’t stop at generating leads or building a brand. 

There’s another important piece to the puzzle — being a trustworthy steward of customer data. 

If customers place their trust in you because of all the hard work you’ve done to build those quality relationships, to build a brand that’s seen as trusted in your field, to create a community of evangelists who have encouraged others to trust you too — then it’s imperative that you hold up your end of the bargain.

It’s your job to do what is in your personal control to validate that trust and keep customer data safe. 

Start with the Fundamentals

Luckily, implementing security best practices to keep your online accounts safe isn’t difficult. In fact, you can get started on many of these things right away.

Here’s a list of content to help any marketer set up the foundational elements of security:

Blogs:

• The Ultimate Guide to Cybersecurity
• Ten Minutes to Secure Your Online Account

HubSpot Academy Content and Webinars:

• Implementing Website Security
• Data Protection at HubSpot
• Cybersecurity Tips for HubSpot Users

You’ve done a great job building relationships, communities, and image around your business. You can do a great job of security, too — and be a steward your customers can trust.

As one of the HubSpot Blog’s email marketers, one of the key metrics I use to measure email success is open rate.

When an open rate is high, it hints that your subject line did its job to pull readers, you’re sending emails at the most engaging time of day, or your subscribers are eagerly waiting to get your content in their inbox. When it’s low, it signals that your email subscribers might not even be reading your content.

But, now, the way email marketers leverage open rates could change with Apple’s recently announced iOS 15 privacy features.

At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the company announced a rollout of a handful of new iOS 15 privacy features that will include:

• Mail Privacy Protection (Free): According to reports from Litmus, those with early access to iOS 15, and other tech journalists, Apple Mail will allow users to opt in to mail privacy features that mask IP addresses and block third parties from tracking email opens or other IP data.
• iCloud+ (Subscription): An iCloud subscription with additional privacy features including a VPN-like Private Relay feature, which prevents sites from tracking Safari users who opt-in and allows users to see which websites they’re sending information to.
• Hide My Email (within iCloud+): An email address-cloaking feature that enables users to give sites a “fake” email address. While promotional emails sent from the brand to the fake address will still go to someone’s inbox and shouldn’t impact important communication, brands will not be able to see the person’s real address unless the contact shares it.

While the paid features might not create a huge impact for marketers because they require users to buy a service, the free Apple Mail privacy feature has already caused a stir in the marketing community.

So far, all Apple has said about this feature is, “In the Mail app, Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.”

Although Apple hasn’t explicitly said whether Mail Privacy Protection will be an opt-in or automatic feature, some iOS testers have shared images showing the Mail app prompts them to turn Mail Privacy Protection on when they enter the app:

Image Source

While Apple hasn’t expanded too much on its Mail Privacy feature, marketing experts say it could impact the tracking of open rates and email-based A/B testing.

Although this move might seem scary, it isn’t too surprising as it follows a trend of internet privacy rollouts from tech giants. Most recently, Apple’s iOS 14.5 update limited mobile app tracking by requiring users to opt into sharing information when they opened an app after downloading it. Meanwhile, Google has been building out its Privacy Sandbox while preparing advertisers and marketers for Chrome’s phase-out of third-party cookies in 2022.

When it comes to Apple’s iOS 15 pivots specifically, marketers aren’t only unsurprised, but many — including members of the HubSpot team — believe this will be a positive change for user experience.

“From its inception, HubSpot has been relentlessly focused on helping businesses match the way they market and sell to the way people want to shop and buy. Our founders developed the philosophy of inbound marketing in the early 2000s,  and Apple’s moves only serve to reinforce these trends,” says Will DeKrey, HubSpot’s Group Product Manager of Campaigns.

“Buyers get to be in charge of the data they share; not sellers. And big corporations shouldn’t get to create markets for tracking and selling personal data, giving them an information advantage over smaller businesses,” DeKrey says.

“This means that each individual company, large or small, will need to get better and better at building trusted relationships with their audience, earning the right to learn who they are and what they’re interested in.”

“What’s true about people today is that they want BOTH privacy AND personalization. They still want content that is targeted and messaging that speaks to their interests. Given Apple’s changes, email marketers will likely need to focus even more on creating remarkably relevant content that drives their audiences to take action, versus experimenting with headlines just to see if they can get a click,” DeKrey explains.

“Personalization isn’t going away. Conversion optimization isn’t going away. A/B testing isn’t going away. But each of these will need to be more focused on building deeper relationships and more meaningful actions,” concludes DeKrey

Although Apple’s recent open tracking pivot could be great for iOS users who’d like to feel more secure, we know that email marketers still have a lot of questions.

To help email marketers navigate the potential changes that could happen, here are a few tips and strategies teams can consider as the iOS 15 rollout gets closer.

How Email Marketers Can Navigate Apple’s Open Privacy Changes

1. Continue following updates from Apple.

Although Apple’s iOS 15 features have been announced, there’s still a lot that we don’t know yet about how it will impact email and IP address tracking. For example, while it seems like this feature will require an opt-in, Apple hasn’t explicitly confirmed that.

Throughout the next few months, HubSpot’s own email product team will be looking into the change and considering solutions if there will be a major open rate impact.

“On the HubSpot email product team, we’re going to take time to consider what the next best steps are for our customers. In this ever-evolving email landscape, our priority will be to support our marketers in continuing to create highly impactful emails and get the most value from our email tool,” says Shane Janssens, Email Product Manager at HubSpot.

As we know more about these new features and how they could impact HubSpot email analytics, we’ll continue to update this post with more information and links to helpful resources to keep you in the know.

2. Remember, this change won’t impact all email readers.

Although Apple Mail and Apple mobile devices make up over 35% of the email provider market share globally, Google, Outlook, and other email providers haven’t announced similar privacy moves, which means their open and IP data could still provide solid tracking information for email marketers.

While you should be wary that other companies, like Google or Microsoft, could follow suit on email privacy, it’s important to remember that you’ll still get open data from them for the time being and can still make some judgments on the success of opens from these email providers.

3. Consider adjusting open-rate goals.

Although open rates aren’t going away any time soon, a large chunk of email audiences might become untrackable. Because of this, you might need to lower or pivot your open rate goals to determine what your new low, average, and high open rates are.

If your goals are set by a manager above you, it will be important to audit and communicate how many opens you usually get from iOS users to help your manager and your team estimate how they could change after the rollout. You might also want to consider tracking your email open rates for a month or so after the rollout to see what new averages look like based on hard data.

4. Leverage other email marketing data.

While open rate is a key email marketing KPI at many companies, it’s certainly not the only data you can use to determine if your email content is successful. In fact, when sending HubSpot Blog emails, the open rate is just one of many metrics I look at. Here are a few others that I plan to continue to zone in on, even if open rates are impacted:

• Clicks and click-through rates: If you share links to content, such as blogs, product pages, and offers in email, the number of clicks and your click-through rates give you insights on how many or how often email readers engaged with and clicked on your content. High clicks or click-throughs can hint that your content was very engaging while lower clicks or click-throughs could hint that readers were less interested or skimming through your email.
• Traffic to your site: With software like HubSpot, or the use of tracking URLs, you can determine how much traffic came to your website from one single email — or which pieces of content sent the most visitors to your site. Ultimately, if you’re trying to build your audiences, get people to make purchases, or aiming to increase offer downloads, you’ll need to send people to your website. Good email traffic hints that you’re successfully getting visitors where they need to go with your content.
• Clickmaps: Many email providers, like HubSpot, allow you to see which content people clicked most or least in the email. This can help you see which content within your email was most and least clickable,
• Unsubscribe rates: While these usually don’t vary much, a spiked unsubscribe rate could indicate that an aspect of your email strategy (such as the content you sent or the frequency of emails) caused you to lose more audience members than usual. Meanwhile, a consistently low unsubscribe rate hints that you’re continuing to retain or even gain subscribers.
• Survey or email persona research: Aside from metrics you can gain from your email marketing platform, you can also leverage other strategies, like surveys or polls to learn more about your subscribers’ interests, what they’d like to see more of, and where you can improve your content.

On top of leveraging KPIs that are less impacted by Apple’s change, you can also use email tools or benchmark reports to see how your email rates compare to that of other brands in your industry.

For example, HubSpot users can leverage HubSpot’s Email Health Tool to compare your open, click-through, unsubscribe, and bounce rates against our benchmarks.

Evolving Your Content for a More Private World

Apple’s announcement is not the only privacy pivot that’s impacted digital marketers — and in 2021 — it certainly won’t be the last.

Although the world might be changing in a way that poses some challenges for digital and email marketers, that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to innovate your strategy to meet prospects or audiences where they are.

While open rates are certainly important, there are many other ways to get to know your email subscribers, learn from KPIs, and continue to create great content for them.