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Whether or not you realize it, you judge every website by its visual appeal. And it only takes about 0.05 seconds to form an opinion. That means the hero image (the first photo, graphic, or video people see) has to be eye-catching enough to keep people scrolling the site.

High-quality hero images are the key to a great first impression. If done well, they represent the essence of your brand identity and the overall theme of your web page.

Yes, it’s a lot of weight for one piece of visual content. That’s why it’s the most heroic of all.

This guide will explain how to level up your website with the perfect hero image, from choosing a graphic inspired by the latest design trends to ensuring your image is the optimal size. We’ll also walk through hero image examples to spark ideas for your own website. Get ready for some design eye candy.

Hero Image In Web Design

If engaging visuals are the sprinkles on top of every great design system, a hero image is the shiny, red cherry. It draws your eye in and makes you want more.

In web design, a hero image is the first photo, graphic, illustration, or video people see on a web page. It typically incorporates both an image and text in order to convey a company’s core message. Hero images sit above the fold and often feature a call to action (CTA) that encourages people to dive deeper into the website. The goal of this image is to add energy and excitement to a page. You want it to show off your brand’s style, share the purpose of your site, and make people excited to explore.

A good hero image can elevate your traffic and conversions by making people want to interact with your site. Animation, carousels, and scroll-triggered effects are ways to flex your creativity beyond typical stock photography. But a bad image can bring down an otherwise great design. Off-brand visuals, large files that slow loading speed, and meaningless copy can ruin the user experience.

One common mistake when designing a hero image is getting the right file size. Too large, your loading speed plummets. Too small, everything looks pixelated. Let’s walk through the different hero image sizes so you can create a stunning image every time.

Hero Image Dimensions

Finding the right aspect ratio and cropping can get confusing when sizing a hero image. Banner hero images aren’t the same as full-screen images, and every image has to scale to fit the space. You also have to consider that no one browses in exactly the same way. Personally, my screen is usually zoomed in to 120%, but others may have dozens of tabs open that are all different sizes.

Some image cropping is bound to occur as your hero image scales to fit a variety of screens, so it’s best to think of the following dimensions as guidelines, not rigid rules.

1. Full-Screen and Banner Image Dimensions

The ideal size for a full-screen hero image is 1,200 pixels wide with a 16:9 aspect ratio. For a banner hero image, the ideal size is 1600 x 500 pixels.

If you need crystal-clear images, or your target audience browses on large screens, you may have to size up to 1,800 pixels. Keep in mind this can result in a large file size that slows down your site.

You can check your loading speed for desktop and mobile with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. It gives a comprehensive look at which site content loads first and where there’s room for improvement. Aim for a page load time of one to two seconds because you’ll likely lose people if it’s over five seconds.

2. Mobile Hero Image Dimensions

The ideal size for a mobile hero image is 800 x 1,200 pixels.

While it’s important to consider how your hero image looks on a desktop, you can’t ignore the mobile experience. Nearly 55% of global website traffic in 2021 is generated on a mobile phone.

Your hero image design must be responsive and fit a vertical (phone) and horizontal (tablet) orientation. Dynamic hero images, like videos, do well on a desktop, but they often have to be swapped out for a static image for mobile. Videos take more time to load, and no one wants to take a massive hit to their data plan just to see your site.

3. Hero Image Compression

You want to compress your hero image if you have a large file size (anything over 1MB is too big). You can use sites like TinyJPG, Compress JPG, or Adobe’s Photoshop Compressor to decrease the size without reducing quality. Just make sure to get the dimensions right beforehand or the image may appear blurred or stretched.

When sizing a hero image, check your Google analytics to see the typical screen resolution of your website visitors. Then, design with that target audience in mind. Just remember to test out your hero image on multiple browsers, screens, and phones to see how it scales. Once you have the dimensions right, it’s time to work it into your web page using HTML and CSS.

Hero Image HTML

HTML is a coding language made up of elements used to give structure to a web page. It creates order and lets you embed content (like hero images) into a site.

Creating a hero image with HTML ensures your visual appears on a web page, while CSS makes it look good on a screen. Both require coding skills, so you may need to brush up on your HTML and CSS knowledge or enlist the help of a developer.

The main things to keep in mind are:

• The hero image needs to be centered.
• The text needs to be easy to read.
• It has to look great on all screen sizes.
• The image should cover the entire viewport.

Follow these steps to set up an eye-catching hero image. Note: The examples below include HTML elements and CSS rules, but I’ll explain the difference between the two later on.

1. Create the structure.

Set up two containers for your hero image using the coding conventions of your website. For instance, the first example below uses .hero for the structure and .hero-content for the image, text, and button, while the second uses .image-container and .inner-container.

Image source

Image source

2. Add your content.

Once the structure is in place, it’s time to personalize your image. Add an image, choose a custom font, craft a header and subheader, and create a button with an enticing CTA. If you want to add a filter to your background image (without applying it to the text), DeveloperDrive recommends including the filter before your .hero-content code.

Image source

Notice how the width and height under the .hero section are set to 100vw and 100vh. This ensures the image fits the entire viewport, both vertically and horizontally, so it spans the whole screen.

No hero image is complete without a button that drives people to take action. Incorporate one into your image with the <button> element. Just make sure to include the font-family since the text doesn’t automatically translate from the .hero-content element.

3. Center the content.

Not all hero images have centered text, but most have a centered image. To align your background image, you can make a flex container by incorporating display, justify-content and align-items under your .hero element.

Image source

For centered text, include a .text-align: center rule under your core content element. In the following example, the text is nested under the .hero-content code.

Image source

4. Make it responsive.

You want your hero image to look good no matter the screen size. Setting media queries allows you to create parameters so your image is responsive at a particular screen width.

Image source

5. Test the view.

Congratulations, your HTML structure is set! Test out how the image, text, button, margins, padding, and centering look on different screen sizes. If something seems off, comb through your code to see if you can find issues. For detailed instructions on creating and troubleshooting with HTML, check out this article from DeveloperDrive. All look good? It’s time to add style with CSS.

Hero Image CSS

While HTML creates order, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) adds flair. It’s a rule-based language that complements the HTML elements by applying stylistic effects. For example, CSS lets you turn the text in a hero image header bright yellow so it pops against the purple background.

If you don’t include CSS within your hero image, the HTML elements default to the basic browser properties like the example below.

Image source

That’s not the most attractive web page, right?

By including CSS rules, you can develop an image that draws in visitors instead of scaring them away. The above HTML examples include CSS rules, but let’s walk through a basic design so you can work it into your own image.

The following template outlines the basic HTML and CSS needed to create a full-screen hero image. You can adjust the style by changing the rules under the .hero or .hero-text elements, like font-family, color, border, or padding-top.

Image source

For more information and inspiration on ways to use CSS for images, look to the hero-image forum on GitHub. Now, it’s time to check out what good hero image coding can do for a company’s web page.

Hero Image Examples

Like all creative mediums, hero images are influenced by trends. Remember when clipart was cool? How about when every news site hit you with a splash page?

To create a relevant hero image today, look to these design trends.

1. Parallax and Scrolling Animation

We experience parallax every day when watching cars pass by or walking down the street. It’s the optical illusion that makes objects close to us appear to move faster than objects farther away. In web design, parallax uses foreground and background to recreate this effect. The result seems like magic. Just make sure not to overwhelm visitors by incorporating too many moving elements. Simplicity is key here.

Scrolling animation makes participation the goal. A good scrolling animation encourages people to keep scrolling before offering up a unique, engaging experience. Scrolling animations come in a variety of packages and work well across a number of industries, like retail, creative services, news publications, education, and more.

2. Abstract Compositions

Circles, triangles, stripes, and color blocks are back in vogue. Instead of restricting space and making sure everything is in its place, abstract hero images evoke a sense of freedom and creativity. You can find this trend taking over tech companies and startups, like this example from Zendesk that incorporates video within an abstract semi-circle to keep the design playful.

3. Soft Color Schemes

The average adult spends nearly eight hours per day with digital media — and that can lead to a lot of eye strain. Web designers have taken note and are starting to lean toward hero images with neutral, pleasing color palettes. This trend is popping up on retail, wellness, and medical websites to offer a more comfortable experience that’s easy on the eyes.

Image source

4. Products as Design Elements

Products are the star of the show when it comes to hero images. Companies want to show their offerings and entice visitors to learn more about the features. For hero images, it’s common to see products being used as graphic elements or deconstructed so visitors can dig into the details. Tech and retail companies often use this type of hero image, but it can work for any brand looking to put its product at the forefront.

Image source

Image source

5. Lifelike Color

So long flat colors, hello fine 3-D shading. This trend in hero image web design is all about making people feel like they’re inside the screen. Designers create these realistic experiences using gradients, shadows, and blended colors. While this trend will likely stay in tech and apps, it’s great for pulling people into the world of your website.

Image source

6. Videos

Research by Wyzowl found that 84% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. This makes video the perfect visual content for an attention-grabbing hero image. If you decide to use a video, it’s best to keep it under 30 seconds long and on a loop. As mentioned above, you’ll want to switch out the video for a static hero image for your mobile site so it doesn’t eat up data or take long to load.

 

Hero Image Best Practices

Trends are only one part of creating a great hero image. The rest of the magic relies on tried-and-true design standards. Even if you’re not a trained designer, you can follow these best practices for a hero image that hits home with your audience.

1. Size

We already talked about the best dimensions for hero images above (1,200 pixels and a 16:9 aspect ratio), so consider this a reminder of how important it is to have the right size. You don’t want the browsers to resize an image for you or you might wind up with a funky, stretched visual that puts off visitors.

Pro tip: Experiment with PNG and JPG files to figure out which results in a faster page loading speed.

2. Harmony

People are instantly distracted by bad design and will click off your site if your hero image doesn’t harmonize with the rest of your layout. Keep your aesthetic in sync by carefully selecting the fonts, sizes, colors, navigation, visuals, and copy.

It’s helpful to reference your brand identity and guidelines when coming up with a hero image concept. You don’t want people to lose interest before getting to the good stuff.

3. Organization

Part of creating a harmonious design is having excellent organization. Your hero image content should have a logical hierarchy and flow, so every piece builds on what came before. This is incredibly important for pairing images with copy.

When a relevant image is paired with information, people can remember 65% of the information three days later. But only 10% is remembered from information alone. Make sure your message is clear and connects with your visuals. It’s helpful to set up a simple wireframe for how your hero image will be organized on the page.

4. Originality

Stock photos are a core part of content marketing, but they may be hurting more than helping when it comes to hero images. While 40% of content marketers said original graphics helped them reach their marketing goals, only 13% of content marketers said the same thing about stock photos.

You can flex your creativity by creating original hero images with Canva or get inspiration from Behance. Lacking quality photos? Browse Unsplash or Pexels for a variety of high-quality photos that can be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes.

5. Consistency

The biggest struggle to create engaging visuals? 43% of marketers say it’s producing them consistently. To get on a set schedule, set aside the time and resources you need to create visuals — even add it to your marketing budget.

If you’re crunched for time, consider revamping your old graphics. It’s a smart way to save time, and 51% of companies have found it’s efficient and effective.

There’s nothing worse than landing on a web page that looks like it was made in the dotcom bubble. It looks sketchy, and you’re afraid to click on anything in case it redirects you to some kind of virus. On the other hand, being greeted by a beautiful hero image makes you want to stay and explore the page.

As the first touchpoint people have with your brand, hero images have a major impact on your brand perception, website traffic, and conversion. So it’s time to put your newfound knowledge into practice and design one that draws people in from the first look.

For the last year and a half, many of us have gotten used to doing everything — including shopping — from home.

Now, it seems full reopenings are closer than ever in the U.S. as the CDC now says that fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks or social distance unless there is a federal, state, local, workplace, or tribal mandate requiring them to.

But as cities, offices, stores, and restaurants reopen to full capacity, many of us are beginning to think about how life will be after the global pandemic ends.

As an individual, a post-pandemic world might be quite exciting to think about. But, as a marketer, entrepreneur, or manager, you might be wondering, “Will shopping go back to normal after reopenings?”

To help brands in the U.S. navigate and plan for reopenings, we used Lucid to ask more than 300 North American consumers, “Which best describes how you’ll shop once businesses fully reopen after COVID-19 shutdowns?”

The results might or might not surprise you.

Data Source

Just over one-third, or 35% of respondents say they’ll “shop almost completely online.” Meanwhile, 21% predict they’ll do an even mix of online and in-store shopping, while 18% will primarily shop online but go to stores when they’re convenient.  

If you’ve built a strong brick-and-mortar brand, don’t panic. First of all, this is just one general consumer survey with a small pool of respondents. Additionally, aside from the respondents who plan to do a mix of online and in-store shopping, 21% of respondents plan to shop primarily or completely in physical stores after economies fully reopen. Had we asked about specific products or polled people in another country, the results might have been different. 

While this is just one data point to think about, it’s worth noting because it shows that there will likely be a strong interest in online shopping — even when every physical store re-opens to full capacity.

So, how can you navigate changing future shopping behaviors? Whether you run or work for an online or physical business, here are a few tactics to embrace.

How to Reach Shoppers After Reopenings

1. Launch or expand on your website.

Even if you can’t launch a robust online store yet, a basic website can allow potential customers to discover you online, learn more about your business, and find your contact information.

Once you have a basic website that explains what your brand does, how they can reach you, and where you’re located, you can continue to optimize it for audiences by adding:

• Pricing pages that explain the price range for each of your services or higher-priced products.
• Images or videos of your team providing a service, your store, new products people can find there, or customers who consent to be featured on your site.
• A few blog posts that give more information about your brand, topics related to your brand, or tips related to your industry. For example, if you sell construction products, your blogs could give people tips for simple fixes they can make at home without needing to hire a professional.
• A landing page or contact form where people can contact you for more information, a product demo, or to schedule a service.

For more about what audiences look for when they visit a business’s website, check out this data-filled blog post.

2. Consider adding online shopping or ordering options.

Not a tech-savvy web expert who can create their own online store quickly? That’s okay, If you’d like to explore selling products online, there are still tools that can help you,

During COVID-19, many online shopping platforms emerged to help brands sell products or services online. While many restaurants began to leverage delivery or pick-up order apps, small stores and boutiques could build stores with tools like Shopify, Facebook Shops, and Instagram Shops.

But, although having an online store might be a great idea, it does pose its challenges. For example, you’ll want to make sure your shipping and delivery strategy is ready for online orders so you don’t sell out if a product or service is very popular. You’ll also still need to spend some time putting product shots, descriptions, and your store’s basic design together.

If you’re not ready for an online store or service just yet and want to continue to vet the idea, you can keep reading for other tips that don’t require a full ecommerce experience. If you’re ready to launch your first online store, check out our Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce.

3. Embrace online marketing.

Even if you don’t have an online store, you should still consider leveraging social media, review sites, and email marketing to spread the word about your business online.  

If you’re completely new to the world of web marketing, a great place to start is by setting up a free Google My Business profile. This will allow your business’s name, address, details, website, and reviews to show up when people are looking for products or services you sell in your area.

From there, you can also consider venturing on to review sites like Yelp, while encouraging happy customers to give you reviews there.

If you’ve already taken the steps above, the next places to embrace will likely be social media and email marketing. Through these channels, you can let customers know about sales or new offerings, send them helpful content related to your brand, or share happy customer stories. This way, even if you don’t have an online store, people will be able to gain awareness for your brand on the web.

4. Immerse your audience in virtual experiences.

During the early days of shutdowns, we saw a handful of physical brands come up with ways to bring virtual experiences or product offerings to their audiences and customers.

For example, Planet Fitness offered gym members videos from personal trainers, hair studios guided customers as they gave themselves haircuts over video calls, and petting zoo patrons could pay for animals to attend their conference calls.

There are plenty of creative ways to bring virtual experiences to your audiences. And, while you can’t always charge for them, they could certainly grow your online awareness and help more prospective customers learn about your brand and physical store.

5. Prepare your physical business for new shopping behaviors.

Although we’d love to imagine the world going completely “back to normal” overnight, this will still take time. People will likely continue to remain cautious even if they’re vaccinated and their state is loosening regulations.

For example, customers will likely still want to see that businesses are making efforts to keep them safe. In 2020, a McKinsey Report suggests just this as many consumers said they’re more likely to buy from companies that show care for their customers.

With data like McKinsey’s, you’ll still want to take some precautions by following the most updated CDC guidelines — which can be found here.

Aside from getting your business ready for health-conscious customers, you’ll also want to zone into strategies you can use to make it convenient for customers.

As we saw in our consumer poll above, 18% — or almost one-fifth of our survey pool — said “I’ll primarily shop online but will shop in stores if they’re more convenient.” This means that if you have products or services that aren’t easily accessible or often sold out online, you might earn customers that would have otherwise shopped on the web.

The data above could be good to consider as you determine which services, products, or sales you’ll market when you fully reopen. If there’s something shoppers can get in-store that they couldn’t get online — like a product, in-person testing, or another interesting experience, be sure to tell your audiences that.

Diving into Digital Transformation

Because the global pandemic has accelerated many digital transformations that were already underway, it’s essential to embrace at least some digital strategies when running or marketing a brand — even if it is brick-and-mortar.

Luckily, because so many businesses are pivoting to digital tactics, there are plenty of free or affordable tools that can help you embrace online marketing.

Aside from tools, HubSpot also offers a handful of free downloadable templates and resources for marketers or entrepreneurs at every level, like the one featured below.

If you’ve been a marketing professional for years now, learning about the four Ps of marketing might seem like a throwback to you.

However, for those of us who work in the industry but didn’t study marketing in college, it’s entirely possible you haven’t heard of the marketing mix.

Below, let’s learn about the four Ps of marketing and how they’re still relevant in today’s marketing landscape.

The four Ps are meant to help marketers consider everything about a product or service when they’re deciding how to market it for their business. Framing your marketing around the four Ps will help you learn what the competition is doing and what customers want from you.

You can use the four Ps to answer questions about the product, price, place, and promotion of your product or service.

For example, you can ask yourself:

• Product: How does your product meet your customer’s needs?
• Price: What is the value of your product?
• Place: Where are customers looking for your product?
• Promotion: How can you differentiate your product from competitors?

Thinking about your marketing in terms of the four Ps will help you strategize how to reach your customers. The four Ps of marketing are also known as the marketing mix.

To develop a marketing mix, you’ll need to think about how you can uniquely position your brand amongst the competition. The most important part of thinking about the marketing mix — or the four Ps of marketing — is to understand the customer, the competition, and your company. You’ll evaluate your product and how to promote it.

But getting started isn’t easy. That’s why we’ve created the ultimate collection of marketing mix templates you can use to visualize your marketing mix and share it with your employees or investors. Use the templates to organize your initiatives and activities by the right section.

Featured Resource: Marketing Mix Templates

Click here to download the templates for free.

Use the template to follow along with the 4 Ps of marketing below.

The 4 Ps of Marketing (Example)

1. The First P of Marketing: Product

When you think about your product, consider exactly what you’re selling. Is it a specific product? Or is it a service? Your product can be a physical product, an online app, or a service such as house cleaning. Really, anything that you’re selling is the product.

Then, think of your brand messaging, the services you offer, and even packaging. When you define your product, think about what problem your product solves for your customers. Consider how your product is different from competing products. What features are unique to your product?

It’s important to know your product intimately so you can market it.

Product Example

We’ll use Marketing Hub as an example.

What is it? “Marketing automation software to help you attract the right audience, convert more visitors into customers, and run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale — all on one powerful, easy-to-use platform.”

Who is it for? Modern marketers who juggle too much data and who are stuck with impossible-to-use software solutions that make their job harder, not easier.

Which features does it have? Marketing Hub offers blogging, SEO, social media management, email marketing, and ad tracking tools in a single, intuitive platform.

What problem does it solve? Marketing Hub simplifies the marketing automation process for busy marketers by bringing all data and tools under one roof.

2. The Second P of Marketing: Price

When it comes to price, you have to consider how much you’re going to charge customers for your products or services. Of course, you need to make a profit.

When coming up with your pricing strategy, you also need to think about what competitors are charging for the same product or service and how much customers are willing to pay. You can also think about what discounts or offers you can use in your marketing.

When you decide on a price, you want to think about perception. Do you want to be known as a cost-effective option in your industry? Or perhaps you’re a luxury brand and the price is slightly higher than competition on the market. Keep in mind that pricing SaaS products is a little different than pricing physical products.

Either way, the language you use to market your product will be greatly impacted by the price of your product.

Download a sales pricing calculator for free.

Price Example

Marketing Hub is priced to grow with you as you grow.

We offer the following subscription tiers:

• $0/month (Free)

• $45/month (Starter)

• $800/month (Professional)

• $3,200/month (Enterprise)

3. The Third P of Marketing: Place

When it comes to place, this might mean the physical location of your company, but it could also be defined as anywhere you sell your product, which might be online.

The place is where you market and distribute your product.

Remember that not every place makes sense for every product. For example, if your target market is seniors, then it won’t make sense to market on TikTok. It’s important to choose the right places to market your product and meet your customers where they’re at.

Think about possible distribution channels and outlets you could use to sell your product. Be sure to take into account whether your business is B2B or B2C.

At this point, you’ll need to think about how to market your product on all the various channels that make sense for your company.

Place Example

As a provider of a SaaS product, we offer Marketing Hub directly on our website.

Marketers can sign up for Marketing Hub by creating an account directly on our platform. We’ve created a convenient sign-up page for free subscriptions — or they can request a demo from our friendly sales team.

4. The Fourth P of Marketing: Promotion

Promotion is the bread and butter of marketing. This is when you’ll think about how to publicize and advertise your product.

Additionally, you’ll discuss brand messaging, brand awareness, and lead generation strategies.

When it comes to promotion, keeping communication in mind is of the utmost importance. What messages will resonate with your target market? How can you best promote your product to them?

Think about where, when, and how you’ll promote your brand.

Promotion Example

We want to be where marketers are. Most importantly, we want to help them grow in their careers — as well as grow their businesses.

Our inbound marketing strategy will focus primarily on organic acquisition. We’ll promote Marketing Hub over the following channels:

• The HubSpot Marketing Blog

• HubSpot Academy

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Instagram

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

Use the 4 Ps of Marketing to Create a Winning Marketing Strategy

Even though marketing has changed since the four Ps were developed, the foundational elements of the industry haven’t. You can apply the concepts of the marketing mix to create winning marketing strategies that help you profitably launch and promote your company’s products.

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

It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.

You’ve spent weeks perfecting your resume and crafting the perfect cover letter, and you’re finally ready to submit your application for your dream job.

But when you scan the company’s careers page, panic starts pouring over you. The job you wanted to apply for is no longer open. It’s gone. And as you stare at your laptop screen in shock, you can’t help but think you’ll never be able to join your dream company.

What should you do in this situation? You can’t just put your job search on pause until the company opens the position again. How do you express interest in joining a company when the position you want isn’t currently available?

One of the most effective ways to grab a hiring manager’s attention and get your foot in the door is by writing a letter of interest to the company.

What is a letter of interest?

A letter of interest lets a company know that you want to work for them in a role for which they’re currently not hiring, or haven’t actively posted about on a careers page.

In hopes that the company will contact you when they do open this position or another relevant position, your letter of interest focuses on how your skills can benefit the company, not how the company can benefit you. You can send a letter of interest at any time, regardless of whether the company is actively hiring.

Sending a letter of interest is a great way to introduce yourself to a company, and it shows them you’re willing to take the initiative to proactively reach out.

This can keep you top-of-mind when the company starts recruiting for the job you inquired about. If hiring managers are particularly impressed, they might even create a position just for you.

Other times, sending a letter of interest can lead to a coffee chat or an informational interview with the hiring manager of the team for which you want to work.

Writing a letter of interest sounds like an easy way to get your foot in the door at any company, but it’ll only pique a hiring manager’s interest and elicit a response if it actually resonates with her.

To do so, we recommend following a formula called problem-agitate-solve. It’s modeled after an old copywriting framework and has helped one job seeker skyrocket her cover letter response rate from 0% to 55%. We’ll flesh it out below.

How to Write a Letter of Interest

To compel a hiring manager to read your letter, respond to it, and consider you for a job, there are four crucial elements you need to include in your letter of interest. 

Featured Resource: 5 Professional Cover Letter Templates

Download These Templates for Free

1. Hook the hiring manager with proof that you understand her problem.

Hiring managers don’t hire people just to be nice. They hire people to help them run their team better. To immediately grab a hiring manager’s attention, you should show how you understand the problems she’s trying to solve, like the hook below:

“As a two-year blogging veteran in the marketing technology industry at companies like Return Path and SlideBatch, I know how hard it is to write well. I also know how challenging it is to get found on Google.”

By describing a similar experience you’ve had at your current or prior job, you can relate to her on a deep level, which will engage and prompt her to read the rest of the letter.

The hardest part of this step is discovering the hiring manager’s problems. One way to figure it out is by listing off the job’s responsibilities and asking yourself why these tasks are important to her team. If you keep analyzing until you reach a dead end, you’ll usually find her needs there.

2. Highlight the problem to remind the hiring manager she needs a solution.

How do you make a hiring manager realize how valuable a solution could be? You remind her just how painful her problems are. And to make her visualize her dreaded problem as vividly as possible, you need to be specific, just like the example below:

“According to HubSpot’s careers page, you’re not currently hiring, but, in the future, if you’re looking for someone who can not only engage an audience with clear, concise, and compelling blog posts, but also optimize them for search engines, while hitting every deadline, you can count on me.”

When she realizes how much pain she’s actually in, she’ll have more of a sense of urgency to resolve it. And this’ll push her to respond to you because you might be her fastest route to a solution.

3. Prove that you’re the solution with an example of your skills and experience.

If you’re really the solution to her problems, you must prove to the hiring manager how you’ve used your skills to solve similar paint points in previous experiences. Then, you should describe how you’ll be able to use those learnings to help solve her current problems. Check out the example below:

“Last year, at Return Path, I was the top performing blogger, writing weekly posts that averaged 7,500 views, 1,000 social shares, and 35 new blog subscribers gained. The year before, at SlideBatch, I devised and implemented a new keyword strategy that increased organic page views for our Visual Marketing 101 blog series by 15%.

I’ve read HubSpot’s blog every day since I started my content marketing career, and I’m inbound, content, and email marketing certified, so I strongly believe I’ll be able to hit the ground running if I were to work on HubSpot’s blog team one day.”

By quantifying your accomplishments and researching the company’s pain points, you’re proving your worth. But if you just list your skills and work experience, you’re only proving to the hiring manager that you’ve failed to make an impact.

4. Confidently request to move on to the next step.

At the end of your letter, you should express your interest in exploring upcoming opportunities or ask her to keep you top of mind when an opportunity opens up, like the call to action below:

“I’d love to learn about any upcoming roles on your team or be considered for a position later down the road. My resume is attached, and my contact details are listed in my email signature below. Thank you for your time! It was a pleasure connecting.”

These call-to-actions are crucial because they tell her how to get the ball rolling. If you don’t tell the hiring manager what to do next, then nothing will happen.

Letter of Interest Samples

All together, a successful letter of interest might look like this:

Google Doc Version

Letter of Interest Template

Hi [Hiring Manager’s First Name],

As a [X]-year [Your Profession] veteran in the [Space You Work In] industry at [Most Prominent Companies You’ve Worked For], I know how hard it is to [Pain Point #1]. I also know how challenging it is to [Pain Point #2].

According to [Company] careers page, you’re currently not hiring, but, in the future, if you’re looking for someone who can not only [Solution for Pain Point #1], but also [Solution for Pain Point #2], you can count on me.

Last [Specific Timeframe], at [Current or Old Company], I was the best performing [Your Profession], [List Your Responsibilities and Describe the Impact You Made]. The [Specific Timeframe] before, at [Current or Old Company], I [List Your Responsibilities and Describe the Impact You Made].

[Show Hiring Manager that You’re a Voracious Learner and You Regularly Keep Up with Company News], so I strongly believe I’ll be able to hit the ground running if I were to work on [Company] team one day.

Whether I’d be [What the Team is Working on Now], I’m confident my skills and experience can help your team crush their goals.

I’d love to learn about any upcoming roles on your team or be considered for a role later down the road. My resume is attached, and my contact details are listed in my email signature below. Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure connecting!

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Steps to Take Before You Send Your Letter of Interest

After you finish writing your letter of interest, you need to make sure the company will actually open it. So before you send your letter, it’d be ideal if someone on the team personally knows who you are.

To do so, ask your connections or alumni that work at the company to introduce you to the team’s hiring manager. If you can’t do that, you could add the hiring manager on LinkedIn, tell her why you want to connect, and send her your letter of interest.

Getting your foot in the door will ultimately help you stand out from the crowd of job seekers who are all sending the same “hire me” pitch to her.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2018 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Some companies and brands use Domain Authority (DA) to study and evaluate the results of their digital strategies.

But what does this metric really mean? Should we really strive to improve it? Will a high domain authority help us rank better on Google? 

Domain authority can be a very useful metric to know the status of a website in relation to similar competitors, but we must emphasize that it is not a ranking factor for Google. 

In this post, we’re going to define what domain authority is — and what it isn’t — and what you’ll want to take into account to optimize it. 

What is domain authority?

It is really important to define what domain authority is and what isn’t in order to point your digital strategy in the right direction. 

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric first developed by Moz that predicts how likely a domain is to appear in the SERPs compared to its competitors:

It’s important to highlight that Google doesn’t use Domain Authority as a ranking factor to decide how to rank websites. So it isn’t a metric that will improve your ranking in the search engine results page (SERPs). However, domain authority is a good indicator that will help you assess the performance of your website in relation to competitors.

Nowadays, this metric is not only used by Moz. Different SEO tools such as SEMrush have developed their own Authority metric — which is an algorithm that uses data from backlinks, referring domains, or search traffic, among others, to decide the Authority score. So, although it isn’t an official ranking factor used by Google, it’s a useful metric to know your site health in relation to your competitors. 

What’s a good domain authority score?

Moz’s Domain Authority search engine ranking score ranks from 1 to 100, with the higher numbers meaning probability of better results in the SERPs. To define this metric, the SEO tool takes into account both the quantity and quality of links that a webpage receives. 

If a page has backlinks from pages with a high authority — such as Google, Wikipedia, governmental pages, renowned newspapers or magazines — it will have a higher probability of having a better score. 

Depending on the type of industry or the characteristics of the website, it will be more likely — and more useful — to get some backlinks over others.

For instance, a training center may seek links from national newspapers, universities, and academic articles or government sites. A local business website, on the other hand, likely prefers being linked to by regional newspapers or industry magazines, since those backlinks are more valuable to the business’ target audience, even if they don’t have the highest domain authorities.

Determining good domain authority, then, is different for each business. Ultimately, it’s important you analyze your top competitors and draw conclusions tailored to your own website, based on your ranking as well as the rankings of your competitors. 

How can I check my Domain Authority?

On Moz, you can check your website’s Domain Authority for free through Link Explorer. You just need to enter your domain’s root URL (like HubSpot.com) and your webpage’s Domain Authority score will appear automatically.

The digital tool provides other features, as well — such as the number of unique external linking domains (Linking Domains), the number of unique pages linking to a page (Inbound Links), and the total number of keywords for which this website is ranking within the top 50 positions on Google (Ranking Keywords), among other metrics. 

Domain Authority vs. Page Authority

While Domain Authority measures the probability of an entire web domain to rank in the SERPs, Page Authority focuses specifically on the probability of ranking each of the pages of the website individually. 

This enables you to determine the performance of individual pages — such as blog posts or product pages — to analyze which ones might need some fine-tuning to obtain a higher score. 

The Page Authority indicator can help you prioritize and define the next actions to develop within your digital strategy based on the pages with the most scope for improvement. 

How to Build Domain Authority

Now, let’s take this into practice: how can you build domain authority and rank better than your competitors?

As Google points out, It isn’t just about the total number of links to your site or the total number of domain links, but the quality of those links, the ones that are relevant to understand what your website is about. 

To build Domain Authority, here are a few tips to keep in-mind: 

• Quality, before quantity. Prioritize relevant backlinks, before thousands that aren’t significant. 
• Analyze your backlinks, and make sure that all the interesting sites with backlinks have a do-follow. 
• Create quality content, which makes it easier for you to get natural backlinks.
• Generate content focused on your core audience, which can be attractive to them and go viral.
• Update your older content. Go through those pages with unindexed content or with a low page authority score and add new information of interest for the user.
• Identify your competitors and compare yourself to them. Analyze things that you do and don’t do that can help you increase your website’s visibility.
• Study where your main competitors get the backlinks from. Can you get similar ones, too?
• Spread your web content, in an original and unique way, through other channels such as social media or newsletter.

Building your Domain Authority is a long-term strategy — it takes time and you don’t see immediate results. However, following these practices will help you increase your website visibility on SERPs with the aim of increasing traffic to your site.

Work on these actions to focus on increasing the quality and quantity of leads rather than just your Domain Authority score.

Whoever said “All publicity is good publicity” lied.

The only truth in it is that bad publicity can bring attention to your brand and expand your reach.

However, first impressions (and every impression) after that can last.

So, if your brand is associated with negative traits and concepts, it can be difficult to change that perception.

Learn what makes up a brand association and how to build a positive one.

Several factors influence brand association, including:

• Brand identity and messaging
• Brand assets, such as logo and colors
• Customer experience
• Product and service quality
• Word of mouth
• Reputation
• Advertisements
• Social media presence

You’ll notice that most of these factors are controlled by the brand itself, which is good news. This means that brands play a key role in how consumers perceive them.

It also signifies that if the association with your brand isn’t particularly positive, you have the potential to change it.

Brand Association Examples

Here are a few common brand association examples.

Charmin – Bears, soft, toilet paper

Google – Search, answers, information

Wikipedia – Information, biography

Anima Iris – Luxury, black excellence

Canva – Graphic design, easy, templates

Rhum Barbancourt – Quality, Haïti, classic

As you can see, most of the associations are a mix of services or products the company may provide along with certain traits and concepts. The hope is that the associations made with your brand are both accurate and positive.

If you find that it’s not, you may need to conduct some consumer research and work to create stronger messaging around your brand.

Brand Association Map

A brand association map is a visual representation of the attributes and concepts associated with your brand. You can also use it to identify threats and opportunities, as well as how you fare against competitors.

Image Source

With a brand association map, you can quickly identify the words tied with your brands and which are the closest, based on proximity to the inner circle.

For instance, the above picture features Nike at the center. It shows that the two biggest associations with the brand are: “Adidas,” a competitor, and “shoes.”

You then have the term “comfortable” which is more closely associated with Nike than the word “long-lasting.”

This can be a great start to identifying where your brand currently stands in consumers’ eyes, and start making changes in your branding and marketing strategy.

If Nike wants consumers to view it as a long-lasting brand rather than one that creates comfortable clothing and shoes, it can take this information to create messaging surrounding this concept along with targeted campaigns.

If it’s unclear what consumers associate with your brand, run a survey.

First, you’ll need a pool of respondents who are familiar with your brand. This can include consumers at every stage of the buyer’s journey from a lead to a customer.

Then, ask your respondents to provide the terms they associate with your brand. You can gather these answers through open-ended questions as well as list questions. You can then ask your respondents to rank the terms by closeness to your brand.

Alternatively, if you already have a list of positive, neutral, and negative attributes relating to your brand, you can use them to craft your survey questions and include your competitors.

Once you gather, clean, and analyze your data, you can produce a brand association map to visually represent your associations.

1. Have a robust branding strategy.

Your branding strategy is a key pillar in building a positive brand association.

For starters, you want to have a strong brand identity. This means knowing your mission, values, personality, unique brand positioning, and voice. If there isn’t much clarity on these, you may leave consumers to make their own guesses, which may not be accurate or favorable.

Your brand identity will then impact your brand assets, namely your logo and brand colors, which tell a story about your brand.

Then, you have your messaging, which highlights the value you offer, communicates the benefits of your brand, and should differentiate you from your competitors.

In addition, you have your brand voice, which is how you communicate with your audience and the impression you leave. This is one of the more concrete factors impacting your brand association.

If your brand voice is friendly, warm, and young, this will translate to the concepts, feelings, and traits your audience ties to your company.

2. Review all customer touchpoints.

Think about how you interact with your target audience.

Online, this includes social media, your website, email, chat, and even on business review sites.

How you nurture your community can play a big role in how they view you. The same goes for how you address unsatisfied customers who voice their concerns on social media, or those who ask questions.

Offline, this looks like phone conversations, in-person meetings, and in-store interactions.

To ensure your brand is putting its best foot forward, make sure you have proper training surrounding customer interactions.

The better your customer service and relationship management, the better reputation you will leave – this then translates to positive brand associations.

3. Consider your partnerships.

The brands and influencers you partner with are also reflections of your brand.

Nowadays, consumers expect brands to be more vocal about social and political issues. This also means being vocal when staff or external partners exhibit behaviors deemed socially unacceptable.

It’s why we often see brands sever ties with celebrities and known figures with whom they had ongoing marketing campaigns.

As such, be selective about who you collaborate with.

4. Identify threats to your brand.

After strengthening your brand strategy, there’s still more work to be done.

You have to be proactive about identifying and neutralizing threats to your brand. This can happen on both small- and large-scale.

On a small scale, this can look like responding to a negative review on Yelp. On a big scale, this can be responding to reports of discrimination within your business.

Social monitoring and listening will be instrumental in keeping your eye on the ball and making sure that you have a plan in place when a threat to your brand shows up.

5. Have a crisis management plan.

You’ve identified a threat to your brand. Now what?

If it’s a big threat, you’ll likely need to refer to your crisis management plan.

When a crisis happens, every minute counts. You want to control the narrative to ensure that your brand isn’t gravely damaged and doesn’t face long-term backlash.

With this in mind, devise a plan early on with actionable steps to address the issues, resolve them quickly, and repair relationships.

Building a positive brand association is a never-ending process as your company grows and evolves. The great news is, the biggest factor influencing your brand association is you.

Creating connections with potential customers is essential when it comes to driving interest and boosting sales. Making these connections can sometimes be difficult, though, as it’s one thing to want to create them and another to figure out how to establish them.

However, one of the great ways to establish these connections is through copywriting, where you use words to speak to consumer emotions and try to entice them to take action after reading your words.

While it may seem simple to write something that you think will resonate with your audience, there are essential principles to follow to ensure that you can effectively convince them. In this post, learn what SEO copywriting is and discover best practices for the process that will help you draw in customers, convert leads, and drive more sales.

SEO copywriting differs from other SEO content writing you may be familiar with, like blogging, as the end goal is to convert leads rather than generate organic traffic. In addition, SEO copywriting is shorter; where a blog post may have almost a thousand words, copywriting content may have less than half of that.

However, the two can go hand in hand. You might create a blog post that includes a CTA created with SEO copywriting principles in mind, and the words entice users to click on what you’re offering to learn more, like downloading a free ebook or another related source.

Here are some examples of content types that may be created with SEO copywriting principles in mind:

• Final checkout screens
• Product descriptions
• On-site navigation instructions
• Advertising content
• Website copy
• Brand messaging
• CTA buttons
• Landing pages

As with all types of SEO, it’s important to understand best practices.

SEO Copywriting Tips and Best Practices

Strong copywriting is a combination of a variety of factors, which we’ll discuss below.

Know your audience.

The first step to successful copywriting is knowing your audience. Without this information, it will be impossible to compel them with your writing as you don’t know who they are or how to appeal to them.

Finding your audience for SEO copywriting follows the same processes you would when creating a targeted marketing campaign, or any type of content you would create for your business: buyer persona research.

Buyer personas are fictional representations of what your ideal customer looks like based on market research and your existing business data and customer profiles. HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool can help with this, as it will guide you through a step-by-step process of outlining who they are, discovering their main pain points, and the solutions they look for based on their needs.

Conduct keyword research.

Keyword research is a critical component of any SEO strategy.

As a refresher, keyword research is the process of uncovering the words your target audience uses when searching for products and services similar to what you offer, and using the keywords in your content to attract those same users to your site.

For copywriting, this research is essential because it helps you uncover user intent behind the keywords your audience searches for so you can write copy that resonates with their needs.

Write for your audience.

The goal of copywriting is to entice your audience to take action. So, as mentioned above, it’s important to always write with your audience in mind. Your buyers are looking for solutions, so you’re writing to tell them why you’re a solution.

For example, say you offer an all-in-one marketing tool. Your persona and keyword research lets you know that your target audience often queries “easy-to-use marketing tools.” You’d want to incorporate that search term into your copy to speak directly to user intent in the hopes that they’ll follow through with the desired action (purchasing your product) because you’ve convinced them that you’re the best fit solution to their needs.

Use intent-relevant action words.

Just as it’s essential to write for your audience’s intent, it’s also important to use intent-relevant action words. You want your copy to let them know why what you have to offer is the best solution, and then lead them to the action you want them to take.

This simply means that you want your copy to draw your audience to make a final decision, maybe by saying something like “Buy Now” or “Sign Up Here,” at the end of your product descriptions.  

Be concise and straightforward.

The harder your copy is to read, the less likely it is that you’ll achieve your ultimate goal of converting users. If they have to put in a significant amount of effort to understand what you have to offer, you’ll likely lose them along the way.

This means avoiding jargon and wordiness and only including what is most relevant to what you’re creating copy for. This can be a difficult skill to develop, so it can be helpful to consider what you would and wouldn’t like to see when browsing for solutions to your pain points and model your strategy off of that.

If I were to take this tip to mind and listen to my own advice while writing this section, I would simply say this: leave no room for confusion or misunderstandings; be straightforward.

Continuous testing.

Something that you may have thought would perform well may not be as aligned with audience intent as you thought, and continuous testing allows you to iterate on what you create to ensure that you satisfy consumer needs.

Testing also  ensures that you’re maximizing your effectiveness. Your copy should help your audience seamlessly come to the solutions you’re providing without putting in extra effort because your copy already explains it all.

An example of continuous testing can be creating multiple versions of CTA’s, each with different copy, that you place on different website pages to see which drives better results.

All-in-all, SEO copywriting comes together like this: the SEO aspect are the keywords you know align with your audience user intent and already have high traffic, and the copywriting element is writing for the user intent behind the keywords that have traffic.

When you utilize this strategy, you’re directly showing your audience how you’ll solve their pain points and entice them to become a customer.

While it can be difficult to define the traits of a good employee, it’s easy to describe the perks.

A good employee, for instance, gets raises, promotions, and praise from managers. She is often a role model for her peers, gets selected for unique projects, and makes the whole work thing look easy.

But what does it mean to be a good employee? And what skills can you work on developing to ensure you’re considered a good — or even great — employee at your own company?

Here, I spoke with HubSpot employees and managers to determine the soft skills required to be a good employee in any role, to ensure you’re earning some of those perks we discussed earlier. Let’s dive in.

1. A growth mindset and willingness to learn.

One of the biggest strengths of any good employee is an eagerness to learn and a growth mindset.

A growth mindset, a term first coined by Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, means you believe you can develop and refine skills and become better at something over time. A fixed mindset, on the other hand, means you feel that your intelligence and skills are inherent and unchangeable.

In the workplace, a marketer with a growth mindset might decide to take a few analytics courses to develop skills related to data, even if her background is more creative in nature. Alternatively, a marketer with a fixed mindset would avoid those courses, claiming “I was never good at math. It’s just not something I can do.”

A growth mindset can influence an employee’s motivation, work ethic, and how well she responds to constructive feedback. As Dweck writes, “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

Ultimately, a good employee is someone who is eager to try new things, adopt new skills, and grow.

As HubSpot’s Marketing Manager of the Website Blog, Anna Fitzgerald, says, “A good employee is someone who can notice opportunities where it would make sense for your manager to delegate a task or project to you. It’s a win, win. You take something off your manager’s plate, and the new responsibility helps you grow and develop new skills.”  

2. A positive and solutions-focused attitude.

Employees enjoy working around people who are positive and solutions-focused when challenges arise.

It can be stressful to work around someone who focuses on the negative, or demotivates the rest of the team. For instance, at a previous company I used to work with someone who didn’t feel fulfilled in his role. As a result, he often expressed his criticisms for the company to the rest of our team — which wasn’t a great motivator for anyone.

A positive attitude can inspire your peers to work harder, and lift your team’s spirits when you’re confronted with a frustrating obstacle. Plus, happiness is correlated with greater success. In fact, one study found happy employees are up to 20% more productive than unhappy employees, and happy salespeople produce 37% more sales than their unhappy counterparts.

A positive mindset also helps you shift more quickly into a solutions-focused attitude. For instance, negativity might cause you to feel frustrated when a roadblock presents itself. You might resort to self-blame, criticism, or simply a lack of motivation to alter your strategy.

A positive attitude, however, can help you remain confident, calm, and level-headed when a challenge arises. Positivity can help you reframe the problem in your mind, so you’re able to say, “This challenge is actually an opportunity for us to rethink our strategy and create a better solution as a result.”

Of course, everyone is allowed to have bad days, but the sign of a good employee is someone who doesn’t let that bad mood get in the way of problem-solving or building strong team morale.

3. Empathy and emotional intelligence.

HubSpot’s Marketing Manager Kristen Baker told me she feels that empathy is a critical trait for becoming a good employee.

She says, “A good employee demonstrates empathy when engaging with both colleagues and customers. Additionally, a good employee shows she cares about the impact her work has on those around her.”

Baker adds, “Empathy can help you put yourself in your customers’ shoes, which can increase motivation and purpose. When I understand our customers’ challenges better, I see how much my own role can help serve those needs, and that motivates me to work harder.”

Additionally, emotional intelligence is a vital skill for employees and leaders to hone. The ability to regulate your own emotions — as well as the emotions of others’ — has proven invaluable in the workplace.

To increase your emotional intelligence, try taking an EI quiz to determine how emotionally intelligent you are, and then identify areas for improvement. (HubSpot even offers one!)

To practice empathy in the workplace, consider asking colleagues how they’re doing, and practice active listening skills to develop rapport over time. For instance, if a coworker mentions he’s celebrating his birthday this weekend, remember to follow-up and ask how it went.

Additionally, take the time to understand how your products or services meet your customers’ needs. Put yourself in their shoes. Listen to customer interviews or read survey responses to better understand your customers’ challenges, which will naturally enable you to feel more empathy towards your customers.

4. Accountability.

Being accountable simply means taking responsibility for your actions, and this is an incredibly important skill in the workplace.

People mess up every day — it’s how you handle your mistakes that matters. Go directly to your boss, outline the issue at-hand, and explain how you might’ve created or contributed to the problem.

Showing you’re not afraid to admit when you’re wrong is a sign of a good (and honest) employee. It doesn’t help anyone when you try to hide problems or point fingers.

Additionally, it’s impressive if you take the time to self-reflect and consider how you might change your approach so you meet your goals next time.

For instance, if you’re responsible for getting 12 posts published per month and you only manage to get 10 completed, you’ll want to figure out what prevented you from meeting goal.

Then, when you approach your manager, you can say something like, “I had a difficult time with the last two pieces because I didn’t accurately account for how long each piece would take, particularly the pieces that require external quotes. Now that I’ve reflected, I’ve recognized that I’ll need to write three pieces per week, and give myself an extra couple days to conduct outreach and collect quotes before I begin writing my quote pieces.”

5. Critical, big-picture thinking.

A good employee takes the time to pause in his day-to-day and assess bigger-picture goals, always ensuring his work aligns with the company’s goals and has a positive impact on the company’s bottom-line.

Even if you’ve just started at a new company, it’s never too early to ask questions and take an interest in the larger organization. Strategic, big-picture thinking is a sign of a good employee, and your boss will take notice if you take the time to think critically about the problems or tasks at-hand and how they fit into your company’s overarching strategy.

6. Ambition.

Charlene Strain, a HubSpot Associate Marketing Manager for Global Co-Marketing Acquisition & Partnerships, considers ambition to be a vital trait for any good employee.

Ambition can look differently for everyone, but in this case, we’re talking about ambition as it relates to scalability.

As Strain notes, “To be a good (and even great) employee, you have to look for scalability in every aspect of your role. Find ways to make a process smoother, or implement processes where there isn’t one.”

Strain adds, “If you move up or out to a different role, think about if someone else could fulfill your day-to-day duties easily and grow the role and program. If not, think about ways to lessen this friction.”

A good employee considers how she can make her role more efficient for the company at-large. She also considers how she might create new processes to make her whole team’s outputs easier.

For instance, I’ve seen colleagues clean up outdated filing systems and create new, streamlined Google Drive folders for easy access to critical information. I’ve also seen colleagues re-shape how they tackle their own daily tasks for more efficiency, which has then been used at-scale to rework how HubSpot writers create content.

When you’re in a new role, take the time to consider inefficiencies or small details that could lead to problems as you scale. Those issues could become growth opportunities.

7. Good communication skills.

Finally, a good employee is clear and direct with colleagues. She practices good communication skills — including active listening, setting clear expectations, asking questions, and showing interest in what the other person is saying.

We’ve all worked with colleagues who don’t seem to listen when we speak, or don’t follow-up on something they said they’d do. It’s frustrating, and can reduce trust. A good employee practices strong communication skills every day — both in-person, and online.

A good employee is also able to articulate when she can, and can’t, take on additional projects. This is part of setting clear expectations.

As Jen Stefancik, HubSpot’s Team Manager of Channel Promotions, tells me, “You can say ‘no’ and still be helpful. For example, you shouldn’t take on work you cannot or should not prioritize, but you can still put in the extra effort to suggest other avenues, resources, or advice to the person asking for help.”

It’s important to note — becoming a good employee takes time, and there will be setbacks.

As Clint Fontanella, Manager on HubSpot’s Blog team, puts it, “Most people want to get ahead fast. They want to make more money, get a better job or promotion, and they start to measure themselves on that, rather than day-to-day performance. You’re going to have bad days. There are people who are going to get promotions before you do. Your friend might land a new job and make more money.”

“All you can do is focus on you and be as consistent as possible — both in your work and in your attitude — and good things will happen.”

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a new blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of Black business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.

The support for Black-owned businesses has increased drastically over the past year due to the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the influence of the Black Lives Matter protests that took place last summer to combat racial injustices in the nation.

Consumers have been actively seeking to buy from Black-owned businesses to help them stay open and increase the economic advancement of Black Americans.

As a result, the search for Black-owned businesses increased by 7,043% on Yelp, and the search term for “Black owned” on Google reached a value of 100 last summer.

Since then, Black-owned businesses have been proactive in increasing their visibility and accessibility through marketing strategies to optimize their outreach.

I spoke with Dana James Mwangi, the founder of Cheers Creative LLC and a Grow with Google Digital Coach, to learn about effective marketing strategies, tools, and approaches Black business owners can use to promote their businesses.

Marketing Strategies for Black-Owned Businesses

1. Use social media platforms to connect directly with your consumers.

Social media is one of the top tools businesses use to promote their services or products. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have unique features. Black business owners can use these networks to connect directly to their customers, and to the broader community.

Although some businesses want to have a strong presence everywhere, Mwangi suggests entrepreneurs focus on one platform where they receive the most visibility, instead of trying to be present on all of them at once.  

“You want to use social media to get people to your website,” Mwangi said. “You can also use it to get people to sign up for your email list, or both.”

For instance, check out how Rihanna promotes her Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin and Savage X Fenty brands on Instagram with catchy captions and visually appealing posts. Her content is not only relatable, but inclusive to people of all backgrounds.

This tactic can help you secure a potential sale and maintain continuous, effective engagement with your audience. It also enables you to expand your brand reach.

2. Create targeted ads for high-converting audiences.

Social media platforms and search engines like Google offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to create ads that show up on their targeted audience’s timelines or feeds. Mwangi says ads are a great way to market yourself to receive a faster return.

One benefit of using ads is it allows you to choose what audience you want to target. Facebook and Instagram, in particular, offer the option to market to people who follow your brand, or you can customize your targeting preferences by choosing specific details, including age, location, and search behavior.

This gives you more control over who sees your ads, so you can ensure you’re only serving your ads to those most likely to purchase your product or service.

3. Generate an email list, and send out unique case studies or behind-the-scenes information.

Email lists have plenty of benefits for businesses — ultimately, email is one of the strongest opportunities for lead generation and nurturing.

Once you’ve begun growing your email list, consider sending emails with exclusive information, such as your business’ story, or what your company stands for and what matters most to your employees.

Mwangi also recommends companies provide case studies, advice for email subscribers, or sneak peeks of products and services ahead of launches.

Alternatively, you might consider highlighting a consumers’ story to demonstrate the impact your business can have on your email subscribers’ if they choose to purchase.

4. Become a thought leader in your space.

Another way businesses can market themselves is by participating in public speaking, podcasts, or blogging engagements. Although this form of marketing has a slower return to influence sales, Mwangi says it leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for people to reach out online.

This strategy also gives potential collaborators or customers the chance to warm up to the company because they’ve already gained some value from the brand.

For example, take a look at how Tiffany Aliche, the founder of “The Budgetnista”, has been able to use speaking engagements to promote her company and teach women how to properly handle their finances.

Aliche has spoken at 300 events across the country and over 1,000 globally, including EssenceFest and multiple hospitals and colleges.

5. Have an effective, well-designed website.

Once you’ve used the strategies listed above to drive traffic to your website, you want that traffic to feel delighted by what they find. It’s critical, then, that you pay as much attention to the design of your website and its usability as you would to a physical storefront.

A few Black-owned businesses that have aesthetically pleasing websites are Teflar, Pyer Moss, and Bevel.

All three websites incorporate attention-grabbing visuals and videos that immediately catches visitors’ attention once they visit the site. Business owners should not be afraid to stand out when it comes to securing a sale on their webpage.

If you already have a website but don’t feel it’s doing the job, take a look at The Ultimate Guide to Building a Website Redesign Strategy.

6. Use Google My Business and Google Analytics.

Google My Business is a helpful tool for business owners to create custom content to advertise to their target audience. Owners can also use the service in collaboration with Google Analytics to track data and see where people are accessing content.

For instance, Mwangi says that Google Analytics has helped her learn that people come to her website based on the content she posts on her Instagram Stories.

Not only is it showing her that people love her storytelling from this specific feature, but she’s also able to share certain links and information. Google Analytics is a beneficial service to collect data and figure out what’s the best platform for your brand to use.

Black-Owned Business Tips to Keep in Mind

Mwangi emphasizes that the marketing strategies listed above are all valuable pieces of the pie. Still, there are also specific approaches business owners must keep consistent across-the-board to promote company growth.

Let’s dive into those, now. 

7. Be authentic.

Authenticity is an integral approach to ensuring a company’s success. Mwangi says a benefit in garnering customers is a company informing its audience on where it stands.

An example of a Black-owned business that consistently leverages this approach is Black-owned, plant-based feminine care product line, The Honey Pot Company. The Honey Pot Company has always been transparent about where they stand and who they make their products for, which has helped them maintain loyal customers over time.

Black women, in particular, stood in solidarity with the company’s owner, Bea Dixon, when she received bad reviews from predominantly white buyers after Target featured her in a Black History Month commercial.

While people were trying to sabotage her brand, Black women not only took the initiative to combat the company’s rating with positive reviews, but they also spread the word on social media. Although the events that occurred were unfortunate, the publicity ended up working in the company’s favor because people became more aware of the company’s purpose and knew what Dixon stood for.

“Her brand values saved the day for her because her customers knew what she stood for,” Mwangi said. As a result, they supported her and bought out the shelves.

8. Define your target audience.

When entrepreneurs first launch their business, they have the goal to serve everyone, but Mwangi states that “if you’re trying to talk to everyone, then you are talking to no one.”

It’s okay for a business to choose a specific community it wants to advertise to and be unapologetic about it. The benefit of being an entrepreneur is that it guarantees a person the freedom to choose who they want to serve.

“You get the liberty to be as specific as you want and be niched as you want,” Mwangi expressed. “There is still a lane for you to make incredible amounts of profit.”

9. Speak your customers’ language.

The language of your business is also crucial, especially now. With all of the events currently taking place, Mwangi proposes that business owners need to be aware of what’s going on within the community and market accordingly.

Despite current events, business owners should keep in mind that their language should cater to their customers’ identity.

For example, the Black-owned cosmetics line, The Lip Bar, uses its platform to dispel mainstream standards of beauty.

Mwangi highlights how the brand is unapologetic about its purpose, and it takes pride in catering to customers who like to be bold with their makeup and define their beauty standards.

10. Start by marketing one (or a few) products.

Additionally, marketing one product rather than multiple products at once has proven to be effective. Mwangi recommends that customers sell one product in different ways or colors to avoid spreading marketing dollars and gain fast momentum.

Mwangi also used the founder of The Lip Bar, Melissa Butler, as an example of this approach. Butler first sold lipstick in different shades, then expanded her product line to lip liners, foundations, tinted moisturizers, eyeshadows, and more.

Another Black-owned business that used this approach is mesh body exfoliator product, Luv Scrub, founded by entrepreneur Caroline Owusu-Ansah. Owusu-Ansah sells cloths in a variety of colors.

“This marketing strategy is also an offering strategy or a product strategy,” Mwangi said. “You don’t have to give people all of these choices when you say that you can fix a problem. You can have one great product that fixes the problem and when you have that, what that means is now your marketing is super concentrated on that product.”

11. Maintain engagement with your community.

An essential factor for staying in business is maintaining customers and keeping them coming back for your product or service. One way to keep people buzzing about a company’s brand is by promoting various offers such as giveaways, contests, hosting Q&As, and doing customer features. Business owners can conduct these offers via social media and newsletters or their website to garner participation.

“Not only are you getting people engaged, but you’re also getting ideas on how to refine [your product or service],” Mwangi said. “They’re literally telling you what they want, how to refine your current products, and what they want out of the next product from you. If you look at it, the people will tell you what they want. You don’t have to make stabs in the dark.”

“Interacting with your customers is good because it’s showing people that you care,” she added. “It also helps you to get information on what your customer is thinking. Now you know even more about what they talk like, what they sound like, and you can make your website talk directly to them because you’ve been talking to them all this time. And listening and asking them questions.”

Overall, when it comes down to marketing, customer service is also needed to cater to customers fully.

Mwangi notes that customer relationship management software helps with this effort.

“Marketing is how you deliver that story, and customer relationship management software helps you back up who you say you are with excellent customer service,” she said.

The above marketing advice, branding, and customer service helps business owners develop successful business strategies and keep up with the demands of the business to attract customers.  

Writing a cover letter can feel like a daunting task, particularly if you don’t have a lot of real-world experience. Fortunately, a cover letter is actually a chance to explain how your extracurriculars and classes have taught you exceptional leadership and time management skills.

To really stand out, it’s important to personalize your cover letter for each internship application you plan to submit. Your cover letter isn’t an opportunity to reiterate your whole resume, though. This is your chance to pick out a few accomplishments from the position description and dive into examples showing how you’ve exhibited these skills.

We’ve created an internship cover letter template to provide some initial structure and inspiration, but we don’t expect this template to be one-size-fits-all. Ideally, you’ll supplement our template with your own creativity and flair.

There are different formats you can use when writing internship cover letters, but you can’t go wrong with the traditional business letter format. Business professionals use this template style to apply for full-time roles, so your cover letter will stand out above the rest. Remember to proofread, use formal terms such as “Dear” and “Sincerely,” and lean towards a professional tone in your body copy.

1. Include your name, date, location, and contact information.

Although some companies are firmly against using applicant tracking systems, chances are many of the companies you apply to will screen your resume and cover letter using one. That means you’ll need to stand out to both an automated system and human recruiters.

Have you ever heard the myth that you’d get credit for writing your name on the SAT exam? The same applies to adding contact information to your cover letter, but it’s 100% true. Make it easy for the recruiter to get in touch with you by providing an up-to-date phone number and email address.

In the past, it was common for job and internship seekers to include their exact address on their cover letter as they’d mail them directly to the hiring managers. In today’s digital world, most hiring teams won’t need to know your exact home address to extend an internship offer, so feel free to leave it off. Simply include your city and state to give the team an idea of your proximity to the office.

Your Name

Your Address

Your City, State, Zip Code

Cell: 555-555-5555

Email: [email protected]

Date

2. Include the company, department, and company address.

If you’re writing a cover letter for several internship opportunities, you’ll find it helpful to search the full name, department, and headquarters address of each company. Doing this as a separate step will help you copy the information accurately in your cover letter. Remember, you don’t want any typos or mistakes in your cover letter, especially when it comes to information that can be easily found on the internet.

Finding the department name may not be as simple, so you can leave that out if you’re unsure. If your company has several campuses or operates in different cities, use the address of the location where the internship will be performed or the office location where your hiring manager works. If your internship will be remote, use the company’s general headquarters address.

Department

Company

Street

City, State Zip

3. Address the hiring manager.

As a student looking for an internship, you’ll definitely set yourself apart from other applicants by being resourceful. You can show your resourcefulness by searching for the hiring manager’s name to properly address them in your cover letter. Occasionally, their title is stated in the role description. You can then search for the role on LinkedIn to identify their name. If you can’t find a name, you can instead address them by title only. Other times, though, finding the name of the hiring manager could be more difficult. If a Google search doesn’t return a first and last name, your best bet is to leave the name out. Sacrificing a bit of personalization is much better than addressing the wrong person in your cover letter.

Dear X, (try to find the hiring manager’s name… if you can’t, you can put “Dear [Company A] Hiring Committee”)

4. Set the context for your application.

In the first paragraph, explain how you heard about the company or position, and if you know anyone at the company, mention them here. Next, express your own interest in the company or position and explain briefly how it relates to your own passions. Don’t forget to introduce yourself in this paragraph, writing your name, your education level, your major, and your interests.

You may opt for a creative first line to capture the reader’s attention. One that worked for me early in my career went something like this:

“Can I tell you a secret? I’ve been telling stories since I was five years old. No, not fibbing — real storytelling…”

This is where you’ll benefit from researching the company’s culture. While this opening statement worked well for startups and more laid-back companies, a big accounting firm might find it culturally off-beat.

5. Sell your experience.

Scan the internship position description and pick out a few qualities you think apply to you — just don’t choose all the descriptors mentioned as it could appear disingenuous and make your cover letter too long. For instance, if I see a company is looking for someone who’s “outgoing, organized, hardworking, and willing to take criticism,” I would pick those that describe me best and focus on providing examples in the body of my cover letter.

Mentioning the traits directly in your cover letter shows you’ve read the position description, and makes your cover letter more scannable. If the hiring manager is looking for someone with content skills, she might scan your cover letter looking for the words that indicate experience with content.

Finally, brainstorm a few compelling examples to show how you embody the most important characteristics. Don’t just write, “I have excellent customer service skills.” You want to prove it. Support your claim by writing something like,

“Last summer, I worked as an orientation leader at my college, serving as a resource for incoming students and their parents. This experience strengthened my customer service skills.”

Even if you don’t have a lot of (or any) job experience, think about highlighting skills you’ve gained from extracurriculars, volunteer experience, or even passion projects:

“My passion for dance led me to become a volunteer dance teacher which helped me develop as a leader.”

6. Close the letter with grace and a call to action.

If the internship application does not explicitly state “please do not contact,” you might choose to conclude by specifying how you will follow up, such as, “I will call next week to see if my qualifications are a match,” or, “I am eager to meet with you to discuss this opportunity, and am available for an interview at a mutually convenient time.” Conclude by thanking the hiring manager for taking the time to consider you, and end on a positive, confident note, such as, “I look forward to speaking with you soon.”

You may even go a step further and give the hiring manager a call to action. Include a link to your online portfolio, a website, or even a YouTube channel where you display your work and personality. To see how often hiring managers are viewing these additional items, include tracking to your link using a URL tracker like Bitly to capture that data.

Sample Internship Cover Letter

Featured Resource: 5 Free Cover Letter Templates

Event Planning Internship Cover Letter

Your Name

1 Hireme Road

Boston, MA, 20813

Cell: 555-555-5555

Email: [email protected]

May 20, 2021

 

Event Planning Department — Internship Program

Company A

35 Recruiting St.

Boston, MA, 29174

 

Dear Internship Coordinator,

At the suggestion of John Smith, a senior marketer at Company A, I am submitting my resume for the Event Coordinator internship position. I am a junior at Elon University, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Sport and Event Management, and am passionate about event planning. I am thrilled to hear about Company A’s Event Coordinator internship program and feel my experiences and skills would be an excellent match for your organization.

As an executive member of the Student Union Board at Elon, I am in charge of organizing, promoting, and implementing multiple school-related social activities per week, while being challenged to design new events. I work cohesively with a diverse team made up of students and faculty, and I also foster relationships with novelty companies.

My experience as an Orientation Leader has further prepared me for this internship. It was essential that I remain positive, outgoing, and energized during move-in day and act as a liaison between new students, families, and faculty in a fast-paced and demanding environment. I was expected to maintain a highly professional customer service ethic while interacting with families and new students.

My Elon University experiences, executive board membership, and orientation leadership role have prepared me to be successful in the Event Coordinator internship program. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss how I can add value to Company A.

Sincerely,

(handwritten signature)

Your Name

Marketing Internship Cover Letter Template

Your Name

1 Hireme Road

Boston, MA, 20813

Cell: 555-555-5555

Email: [email protected]

May 20, 2021

 

Marketing Department — Internship Program

Company A

35 Recruiting St.

Boston, MA, 29174

 

Dear Internship Coordinator,

I am a passionate, creative, and driven Elon University student with leadership and event planning experience, as well as strong communication skills. I am seeking opportunities to showcase my writing abilities in a challenging and stimulating environment. My skills and experiences will enable me to deliver successful results as a digital marketing intern for Company B.

Please allow me to highlight my key skills:

• Prior experience writing blog posts and press releases for marketing objectives
• Strong communication skills and ability to adopt voice for diverse audiences and varying purposes
• Efficient in managing multiple projects with fast-moving deadlines through organization and time-management skills
• A firm understanding of grammar rules and how to write effectively
• Experience in leadership positions, both as Student Union Board executive leader and as an Elon Orientation Leader
• Proven ability to form positive relationships with people from around the globe, exhibited by my internship experience in China last summer
• Experience organizing, promoting, and implementing social events
• Proficient in Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, and Premiere), and social media platforms

In closing, I look forward to the opportunity to discuss how I can be an asset to Company B. I will call next week to see if you agree that my qualifications are a match for the position. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

(handwritten signature)

Your Name

Internship Cover Letter Templates

Standard Internship Cover Letter Template

Use this cover letter template as a foundation for your cover letter. You can customize it to fit your experience and the companies you’ll be applying to.

Download this cover letter template

Data-Driven Internship Cover Letter Template

If your major is data-driven like STEM, marketing, or accounting, this is the internship cover letter template for you. With this template, you can include the data highlights of your class projects and assignments to show the hiring manager that you can support your experience with credible facts.

Download this cover letter template

Entry-level Cover Letter Template

As you approach your senior year of college, you may be looking for entry-level roles rather than internships. Cover letters are just as important for full-time roles as they are for internships, so use this template to make the transition in your job search.

Download this cover letter template

Wrapping Up Your Letter of Recommendation

A resume isn’t always enough to make an impression. Including a cover letter in your internship application is the first step to setting yourself apart from other applicants. Study and apply the six steps for writing a professional internship cover letter and use one of these samples or templates to customize it. Your resume gives the highlights of your time in college while your cover letter tells the story of how those experiences will serve you as an intern with your future employer. Use it to your advantage to land the first role in your career as you navigate college and beyond.

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