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In 2019, nearly one-third of online consumers in the U.S. used the internet on a daily basis to search for local businesses. And as of 2021, Google had 86.6% of the market share of search engines — meaning, getting noticed on Google is an effective way to boost business volume and find new customers.

To help companies reach prospective consumers, Google introduced a feature called My Business Posts. It allows businesses to share relevant information that appears within Google Search and Maps results themselves, rather than taking users to a new webpage.

Despite their potential benefits, however, Google My Business Posts haven’t seen significant uptake from brands. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find a My Business Help page along with a host of questions like, “Do Google Posts work?” or “Do businesses really use Google Posts?”

In part, this lackluster uptake stems from the ubiquity of Google and our own familiarity with these posts — many businesses assume that Google’s algorithms will pick and place relevant data automatically. In actuality, companies need to create and schedule their own My Business Posts.

Here’s what you need to know about the best-kept secret of local SEO — and how to make My Business Posts work for your brand.

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When crafting your Google Posts, you’ll have ample opportunity to grab your audience’s attention. You can describe your offer, product, or event in up to 300 words, upload an image, video, or GIF, and add call-to-actions to prompt product purchases, reservations, and newsletter signups. Your audience can share your Google Posts on social media too.

To make sure your business is constantly publishing fresh content on their search results, Google sets a seven-day life span on each of your Google Posts. The only posts that won’t expire after seven days are ones promoting events, but they’ll disappear once the events end.

Google Posts also has an analytics feature, which shows you how many impressions and clicks your posts get. This might seem like a limited amount of metrics, but they ultimately provide enough information to help you grasp which Google Posts resonated with your audience and which ones did not.

It’s also worth noting that Google My Business listings are free to create, schedule, and post.

While it’s logical to assume that Google would try to monetize the surging popularity of local search by selling ad space on company listings, the search giant decided to do the opposite — they gave every company with a Google My Business account access to a tool that lets them advertise on their business listings for free. Posts created with Google My Business will appear both in Search and Maps results, making it easy for users to find what they’re looking for without being redirected.

How to Use Google My Business Posts to Get Customers

Originally launched as “Candidate Cards” in 2016, Google Posts would only show up in relevant search queries for political candidates who wanted to promote their brand on the search engine.

A few months later, Google decided to roll them out to a select group of small businesses. And by July 2017, the search engine made Google Posts available to every business with a Google My Business account.

Giving every business the opportunity to use Google Posts levels the playing field in the digital marketing space. SMBs without much SEO expertise are now able to leverage the massive reach of local search to grow their business. Consider that for the first six months of 2020, calls to businesses driven by data on My Business Posts rose 61% as customers grappling with pandemic pressures looked to verify if companies were open, closed, or somewhere in between.

Ready to try making a Google My Business Post? Here’s how.

Let’s break down each step in more detail.

1. Log into Google My Business.

Start by signing into your Google My Business account on your desktop or mobile device. If you have more than one location, select the location you’re creating the post for and then select “Posts”.

Worth noting? You can also create a post directly from Google Search. First, make sure you’re logged into your Google My Business account, then search for and select your business profile. Click “Promote” to get started.

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2. Choose the type of post you want to create.

Next, choose the type of post you want to create — Update, Event, Offer, or Product.

Now, you can add elements including photos, videos, texts or buttons. 2020 also saw the addition of COVID-19 Posts, which can be used to add temporary business hours, operating conditions, or safety and hygiene notices.

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3. Craft the post.

If your content isn’t engaging, regardless of the strength of your marketing strategy, it won’t produce results. Crafting captivating content is the only way you’ll attract your audience’s attention and gain their trust. To effectively connect with people and inspire action using Google Posts, here are three copywriting tips you can follow.

1. Create headlines that appeal to people’s self-interest or give news.

With only 58 characters to spare in your title, you must get to the point of your offer. But to get people to click, you also need to clearly communicate your offer’s value, benefits, and relevance. How do you grab someone’s attention with such little room to work with?

• Headlines that appeal to the audiences’ self-interest
• Headlines that provide news
• Headlines with attention-grabbing words and phrases
• Headlines that are clear, easy-to-read, and fluff-free

2. Publish Google Posts that are clear, concise, and compelling.

Even though you technically have up to 1,500 characters to describe your offer, only the first 100 characters show up in Google’s knowledge panel.

To immediately hook people and persuade them to click on your offer or read the rest of your description, try sticking to one message per Google Post. Spotlighting your offer’s main benefit or feature, especially in the first 100 characters, will make it easy for your customers to understand its value and increase the likelihood of their click-through.

Another way to boost your Google Post click-through rate is by leveraging scarcity. People value objects and experiences that are rare — having something that most people want but can’t have, boosts our self-worth and sense of power.

And since each Google Post has a seven-day lifespan, you can also align your offer’s deadline with your post’s expiration date and use words and phrases that evoke a sense of urgency, like “Exclusive offer” or “Limited availability”. These psychology-backed tactics will skyrocket your offer’s perceived scarcity and, in turn, its consumer demand.

3. Use a large, high-quality visual to make your Google Post stand out.

On a website that’s dominated by text, vivid visuals are refreshing and eye-catching. But supplementing your copy with a standard stock photo or amateur iPhone picture won’t grab anyone’s attention. Vibrant photos will make your Google Post stand out and grab the attention of your audience. So, make sure you take photos or record videos with good framing, lighting, and a decent camera.

You also want your visual to take up most of the space on your post, so make sure your photos have the minimum image resolution of 720 pixels by 520 pixels.

4. Publish your post.

When you’re ready to go live, click Publish. If you’d prefer to see what your post will look like before publishing, select Preview. Don’t like it? Click Back, then Edit to refine your My Business Post. Once live, your post will be visible on both Google Search and Maps results.

5. Check your post status.

If your post isn’t coming up on search results, head back to your My Business account to check the status. “Live” means it should be visible on both Search and Maps results, while “Pending” means it may be in the uploading stage, the processing stage, or is being verified by Google.

If the post status says “Not Approved”, it won’t show up on Maps or Search, but the question mark icon next to the post will show which content policies the post currently violates.

Google My Business Post Examples

Let’s take a look at a few engaging My Business Post Examples

1. Kate McElwee Photography

When you search “Boston wedding photographers, you’re shown a list of photographers in a list on the left-hand side of the page and their locations on the right-hand side of the page on a Google Map.

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2. Boston Yoga Union

When you Google “Boston Yoga Studio”, a number of options appear in a list on Google. You’ll see the results on the Google Map.

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If you click on one of the photographers in the list, you’re shown their contact information, hours, rating, and samples of their photography, all without ever having to leave the Google Search results page.

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3. Bostonia Public House

If you search “restaurants in Boston” on Google, you’ll be shown a long list of restaurants paired with a Google Map showing you where each restaurant is located.

If you click on a restaurant in the list, as I did with Bostonia Public House in the screenshot below, you’ll be able to “Reserve” your table without ever leaving Google. You also have access to the menu, reviews, images of the restaurant, and more all on this page.

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Use Google My Business Posts to Maximize Local SEO Marketing

As a free and easy tool for connecting with customers, Google My Business Posts offers massive potential for local SEO marketing. The caveat? While your posts will appear on both Maps and Search results, generic content won’t get noticed in an increasingly competitive marketing landscape.

In effect, Google provides the tools you need to get the job done — but it’s up to your business to create compelling, context-aware content that captures consumer attention.

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

 

This blog features research from NetLine’s annual State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report for Marketers. To learn more about the buying behaviors of B2B professionals, download the 2021 Content Consumption Report.

When we encounter the unknown, we usually do so very cautiously.

In March 2020, when “The Pause” came upon us, the expectation was that things would, “return to normal” within a few weeks, maybe a month or two at max. I don’t need to tell you how wrong we all were.

Putting all of the unknown COVID presented to us as a species aside, perhaps what impacted us the most was the sense of limbo we all felt in the early days of lockdown. For many, this period of purgatory extended into every aspect of their lives, allowing everything they experienced to be called into question.  

In the course of all this questioning, we realize how little trust we have in so much of what’s before us.

“In a post-Covid world…trust is everything.”

In her 85th edition of her brilliant fortnightly newsletter, Total Annarchy, my Instagram BFF Ann Handley wrote those words. While the context was different, the statement remains correct. 

Regardless of whether your company is based on in-person foot traffic or a cloud-based service, everyone felt COVID’s impact. The behaviors of consumers and how they evolved during 2020 forced businesses back to the drawing board. As Jay Baer said last Summer, it was important for everyone to disclose the state of their operations. Questions as benign as, “Are you open?” became incredibly relevant to customers who genuinely didn’t know.

Research from McKinsey highlighted how consumer shopping behaviors changed during the height of The Pause. I wouldn’t be burying the lede to say that trust influenced quite a bit of these decisions.

While there was a considerable push to drive local economies during the Spring and early Summer of 2020, consumers eventually returned to big brands they knew and trusted in a big way. According to the article, “large consumer-goods manufacturers represented ~50% of sales in 2018, they accounted for only 16 percent of the growth in 2015–18, that share of growth rose to 39 percent in 2018–19 and reached 55 percent in the first three weeks of April 2020.”

McKinsey’s analysis projects that the scale of a brand will once matter again. “Big brands are again winning consumers’ trust.” The reason that big brands seem to be winning greater market share now is because what they deliver is often (or has a larger chance of being) more predictable. 

While this research only talks about B2C businesses, the same lessons can be applied to B2B organizations, too. 

Why Successful B2B Content Marketing Requires These 3 Elements 

In analyzing more than 40 Petabytes of B2B content information, our research surfaced three key elements that, when used correctly, give B2B Marketers the best opportunity to build tangible success through content. Naturally, there is connective tissue that binds all of these elements together: Trust.

While trust has always been a pillar of every business relationship, COVID revealed just how crucial it truly is. To achieve success moving forward, your Content Marketing must convey to prospects and clients that your business is not only a trustworthy partner but also reliable enough to depend on you. 

Security

COVID took everyone by surprise and impacted revenues across the board. Moving forward, businesses are going to do everything they can not be caught off guard again.

To do this, organizations will do their best to build strongholds, not only for themselves—like the increased interest seen in database management content—but as a means to identify and align with allies who can accommodate seamlessly without introducing any kind of doubt or volatility, within their own ecosystem. 

Predictability

While safety offers a degree of expectation, predictability raises these expectations. Sure predictable might sound boring, but in reality, after a year plus of, “who know what’s next,” certainty is sexy. 

To confirm this, we need look no further than the surge in consumption from professionals in the Legal, Insurance, and HR fields. Their desire to better protect and predict the hurdles their employees and employers/clients/businesses will encounter lead them to consume as much content associated with COVID, remote work, and every human resource implication imaginable as they could. These pros knew that they would be the ones expected to answer questions regarding these topics while simultaneously acting as a calming and reassuring presence. (No pressure, guys.)

Simplicity

Hundreds of thousands of businesses claim to cover ABC. Unfortunately, most of the time they can only handle R, K, and sometimes C. How on earth can prospects figure out what you do well if you’re not even sure?

The Pause gave companies a chance to reinforce what you offer customers starting from the ground up. Things like your FAQs, About section, and the homepage of your website (the cornerstones of your messaging) were easy candidates for pieces that needed a good hard look. Take a look at them now; is what you do to help businesses understood and expressed clearly and simply? If not, you’d be well-served to revisit this and try to boil it down into the simplest terms possible.

The basics are the basics for a reason. Businesses are looking for content that gives them a foundational path forward: “What do I need? What do I do?” Sweat the small stuff—because your potential customers are, too. This is especially true when their backs are against the wall.

Root Your Content in Trust

We all know that without trust, we have nothing. 

As we’ve highlighted through this blog, trust means way more today than it did just 15 months ago. If you’re able to convey why your business is an expert worthy of being trusted in your industry, you stand to outperform your competition.

By focusing on Simplicity, Predictability, and Security, you’ll better anticipate the needs of your clients and prospects and in turn have the opportunity to win something just as prized as their business: Their trust.

The full 2021 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report for Marketers is now available.

One of the first things I do every day is check my email. And I’m not the only one.

Did you know that roughly 80% of marketers have reported an increase in email engagement in 2020?

And that the number of global email users is set to grow to 4.48 billion users by 2024?

Additionally, email marketing has the highest return on investment for small businesses and is the second most effective medium for building brand awareness.

Wow. Those stats alone serve as a reminder that email marketing is not a thing of the past. It’s continuing to grow and is a major way that brands learn about and engage with their customers.

As the adage goes, email marketing is about sending the right message to the right people at the right time.

But, how do you do that?

In this post, let’s review the top strategies you can use to get to know your email subscribers according to research.

1. Use analytics.

A great way to learn about your current email subscribers is to dive into your analytics. Find out what emails perform best. Is there a pattern? What topics is your audience most interested in?

What emails do they engage with the most? What day/time are your open rates higher?

Analytics can help you figure all of this out so you can be in touch with and provide content that your audience wants.

Cynthia Price at Litmus says, “If emails could talk, you could learn a lot about your subscribers. Oh, wait. They do. Open rates, click-through rates, and other standard email metrics all give you signals. They’re interested. They’re not. They’re done.”

But how do you optimize other things like templates? Or apply what you learn in your email program to other channels?

Price explains, “With analytics that go beyond opens and clicks. When you know which email clients your subscribers use, you can optimize the experience for them. For example, what if the majority of your subscribers are on mobile and using Dark Mode? You’ll want to incorporate that into your design strategy and QA & testing process. Or let’s say you know an email has a high forward or print rate. You might have a possible viral piece of content on your hands. Don’t miss out on insights like these—see what your subscribers are telling you.”

Ultimately, monitoring your metrics will help you identify what your audience is interested in.

2. Participate in social media listening.

Did you know that 37% of consumers find purchase inspiration from their social media channels?

Paying attention to what your audience is doing on social media will help you learn more about your consumers so you can understand the content that they want to see.

Think, “What are they interacting with on social media? What type of information are they looking for?”

With this information, you can learn what content your audience really enjoys.

3. Send polls.

This might seem a little too straightforward, but honestly, the best way to learn about someone is to ask them questions.

Send out polls in your emails and learn about your audience.

For HubSpot’s Service Blog, the daily email newsletter includes a question of the day. This helps us learn more about our audience on a regular basis.

4. Conduct A/B testing.

A/B testing is one of the most reliable ways to learn what type of email content your email subscribers react well to.

In fact, companies that A/B test every email see email marketing returns that are 37% higher than those of brands that never include A/B tests.

You can use A/B testing to see what types of subject lines work best, what type of email copy, and more.

Price says, “You can optimize content by A/B testing like 90% of marketers. Or personalize to deepen engagement. Birthday emails are said to get 3.42 times the revenue of a standard promotional email.”

5. Segment your lists.

Segmenting your email list when you learn more information about your audience will help you send better, personalized emails.

Emails that have personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened and marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns.

Essentially, email segmentation can help you increase open rates and improve click-through rates.

When you go to segment your list, segment by how people found your page. What were they signing up for? For instance, someone who purchased a product and someone who downloaded a specific lead magnet will be interested in different email newsletters.

You might segment your list by people who want to learn about blog posts and those who are interested in sales information.

Additionally, you can segment by location. Or maybe even open rate — send emails to your most engaged subscribers.

This will help you send the right emails to the right people.

6. Do buyer persona research.

If you don’t have a buyer persona, you might consider creating one. This will help you understand your subscriber’s problems, goals, challenges, values, demographic information, and more.

Conducting buyer persona research will mean that you’ll interview customers and learn about their preferences. Then, create a fictionalized version of your customers based on real data. This is another reason why it’s so important to use your analytics to learn more about your subscribers.

7. Try new things.

Getting to know your email subscribers can be a fun way to experiment with email marketing. Try new things and see what your audience responds to. You can try different types of content, different rich media, or different subject lines.

With email marketing on the rise, it’s important to optimize your strategies. You need to really know your email subscribers to reap the benefits of email marketing.

If you’re a decent human being, you always honor a pinky promise.

For the uninitiated, a pinky promise is usually between two people and it holds more weight than a spit shake, legal contract, verbal agreement, and “I swear on my [insert family member]” statements combined. It’s part of our social contract – once it’s been agreed upon, it cannot be broken.

A brand promise is the scaled, commercial version of the pinky promise, with the brand holding up one finger and its target audience holding up the other.

Except, in this case, breaking it won’t just ruin your reputation, it can impact your revenue.

Let’s talk about how to create a brand promise and see examples from popular brands.

What is a brand promise?

A brand promise reveals what consumers can expect from a brand across all touchpoints. It serves as a company’s foundational value and informs every aspect of the company, from its messaging to its customer service.

Your brand promise should be central to your company, something that remains constant as it grows and evolves.

Not every brand promise is explicit. In many cases, it’s more of an internal mantra that’s shared with employees, investors, and partners. However, when you have built a strong brand identity and clear messaging, your brand promise can be assumed by your target audience.

There’s often some confusion between a brand promise and a tagline, so let’s break it down.

While it can be just as short as a tagline, a brand promise tells consumers, “Hey, this is what you’ll find every time you interact with our brand.”

So, why have one? Well, a brand promise:

• Helps internal and external stakeholders know what to expect from you.
• Gains consumer trust.
• Serves as the foundation from which you build out how your company operates from a consumer interaction perspective.

One thing to note about a brand promise, it is a promise after all. So when you break it, it can affect your reputation and your revenue.

For instance, let’s say your brand promise is something like “Innovation at every turn,” and your company hasn’t come out with something new and fresh in the last five years, that can deter potential consumers.

Here are the most common types of brand promises:

• Emotional: A promise appealing to emotion.
• Action-based: A promise tied to a specific action.
• Social: A promise based on ethical or social responsibility.

How to Build a Brand Promise

1. Focus on your audience.

Your brand promise outlines your commitment to your audience. So, to figure out what your promise should be, your first step is determining what your audience wants from you.

It goes beyond a specific product or service, it’s more specific to the experience you’re providing.

For instance, Planet Fitness‘s brand promise is based on people’s reluctance to join the gym for fear of judgment and embarrassment. The brand, in response, promises to create an environment that encourages people at all fitness levels to go to the gym and feel comfortable working out.

Another goal of your brand promise is to set you apart from your competitors. What makes you unique, is it your customer service, your product, your mission, your values? Use that to offer a promise that’s distinctive.

In Planet Fitness’ case, the brand did something no one else had done: Address the problem with the gym environment, not its users.

2. Think about your customer touchpoints.

With your brand promise, you’re guaranteeing something to your customers.

As such, place yourself in the shoes of your consumers and envision how you want those interactions to go. Is there a specific feeling involved? What do they have to gain?

Once you put those into words, you’ll be able to craft a brand promise that reflects the experience you want to promote.

3. Keep it simple, unique, and inspiring.

Your brand promise should be clear and to the point, something you can say in one sentence. It won’t necessarily be as fun as a tagline, but it should definitely inspire trust and confidence.

If you can’t articulate your promise in this way, perhaps you haven’t fully fleshed out your brand’s purpose. If that’s the case, start by asking yourself these questions:

• What should my customers expect from me?
• What does my company stand for?
• What makes us unique?

Brand Promise Examples

Keep in mind that some of these examples of brand promises are assumed and some have been shared by the companies. Use them as inspiration when crafting your own.

• HubSpot – Help millions of companies grow better.
• Nike – Inspire every athlete in the world.
• Apple – Think differently.
• Starbucks – To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, one neighborhood at a time.
• Coca-Cola – Refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, and inspire moments of optimism.
• Anima Iris – Feel empowered and emboldened.
• Telfar – Redefine luxury as accessible and inclusive.
• Tru Colour – Celebrate our differences.
• Noirbnb – Create a safe space for POC to travel and discover new adventures.
• Pur Home Clean – Change the way you think about cleaning.

What’s common across all of these promises is that they never refer to a particular offering or numerical goal. Instead, they are statements that encompass the brand’s broader purpose.

Brand Promise Template

There isn’t an exact formula to create your brand promise. However, we have mentioned that it is a blend of a few things that make up your company. So here’s a formula you can use to create your promise:

Positioning + Vision + Value Proposition = Your Brand Promise

Write your answers down and start blending these concepts together into one succinct idea.

Crafting your brand promise should be a top priority when developing your identity. Without this core message, you will likely struggle to develop your brand identity and strong messaging to connect with your target audience.

As with everything, expect to have a few iterations. You won’t always have the answer right away.

It may take a few sessions to flesh it out and that’s OK. Because once you have it, it will become ingrained both internally and externally as your company grows.

Following the success of Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, Snapchat, and now LinkedIn Stories, Twitter has finally launched its own story feature.

It’s called Twitter Fleets.

Before rolling out the program to audiences and marketers worldwide, Twitter ran a pilot program in Brazil beginning in March 2020. Over the course of the year, more locations were added, and the feature went live for American users in November 2020.

But what exactly are Twitter Fleets and how can brands leverage this feature across their social marketing strategies? In this piece, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about Twitter Fleets, including how they work, how to create your own Fleet, and how these Fleets can help jumpstart marketing efforts.

The Motivation Behind Twitter Fleets

Because Fleets disappear after 24 hours, just like Instagram Stories, Twitter says it’s aiming to see if its ephemeral content will promote deeper and more personal conversations on the platform.

To make Fleets even more “personal,” other users can’t retweet or share the link to them. Twitter users can only reply to Fleets via direct message.

When Twitter started its Fleets pilot, the company surveyed some of the first beta testers. As expected, most who used Fleets said they felt more comfortable publishing personal thoughts or opinions than they did when publishing standard tweets. This was because the users knew that this content would eventually disappear.

“We hope that those people who are not usually comfortable with Tweeting use Fleets to talk about the reflections that come to their head,” said Mo Al Adham, a Twitter product manager explained, in Twitter’s announcement.

Twitter Fleets also signifies yet another move social media platforms are making towards embracing ephemeral content.

While disappearing video, text, and Stories might’ve sounded like gimmicks back in the earlier days of social media, ephemeral content features are increasingly common in today’s online landscape.

Now that we’ve explained why Twitter created Fleets, let’s dive into exactly what they are and how to create them. 

Fleets, or fleeting tweets, are similar to Instagram Stories. Like Instagram’s layout, Twitter users who have Fleets will see a bar with circular Story icons from each account above their Twitter feed.

From their homepage, a user can tap on a circular Fleet icon to see what an account posted in their Fleet’s area.

Unlike tweets, the text, video, or photo published shows up in a vertical format, similar to Instagram Stories. But, if you like the Tweet format, you can also share one in a Fleet to draw more attention to it, as McDonald’s does below:

How to Create a Twitter Fleet

1. Log into your Twitter account on mobile.

First up? Log into your Twitter account on an iOS or Android device. Here’s why: Fleets aren’t supported on desktop devices. Just like Instagram and Facebook stories, this content is designed for mobile users and is published from mobile devices.

2. Locate your avatar in the top left-hand corner.

Next, locate your avatar — the picture of yourself or image you’ve chosen to represent yourself on Twitter. You’ll find this on the top, left-hand side of your Twitter feed.

3. Select the “Add” option.

Now click on the Add button to the left of the users you follow to get to the Fleets creation screen.

4. Create your content. 

How to Delete a Fleet

To delete a Fleet before, start with the process listed above: Log into Twitter and then locate your avatar. All of your published Fleets should be located just to the right. 

Then, find the Fleet you want to delete and select it, then tap on the downward arrow in the top right to access the popup menu. Lastly, select Delete Fleet to remove your Fleet.

How to Reply to a Fleet

Replying to a Fleet requires the use of direct messages — users can select your Fleets and send you DMs, or you can do the same for other Twitter Fleets.

How to Use Twitter Fleets for Business

1. Publishing Limited-Time Offers

Want to sell a lot of one product quickly? Or, offer a promotion to your most engaged Twitter followers? One great way to do both of these things could be using Fleets to promote temporary sales, offers, or coupon codes.

Since Fleets only last for 24 hours, users won’t be able to find the codes or promotions forever. That could mean that these audiences might feel a sense of urgency to make a purchase, use a given coupon code, or just visit your website to learn more about your product.

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2. Hosting Daily Giveaways

Along with posting about short-term sales and coupon codes, Fleets — and other Story platforms — could be great places to promote giveaways. With a Story-like platform, you can include more text, video, and photos about the products you’re giving away and explain the rules of your giveaway within multiple pages.

While you can announce a giveaway in standard tweets, all of this information might have to be published in multiple posts or a thread due to Twitter’s character count limitations. And, because Twitter’s feed is so fast-paced, you’ll likely need to post more than once to get a large number of contest entries in a limited time.

With a platform like Fleets, you’ll not only be able to post multiple pages of tweets in the same Fleet story, but your content will also appear in the Fleets area above a user’s feed. This means that there’s less risk of your contest announcement being buried by tweets from other accounts.

Additionally, because Fleets and Stories only last for 24 hours, viewers might feel a sense of urgency. Like with coupons or sales, audiences might want to enter your contest, view your entire Story, or go to your website before the Fleet disappears.

To give you some added inspiration, here’s an example of a contest that a brand once ran on Instagram Stories:

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3. Embracing Live Events on Social Media

Want to leverage live events or short-term news in your social media marketing strategy without it clogging up your Twitter profile? Consider covering the event with ephemeral content. That way, when the event is over, users focus back on your overall brand and business.

In this example below, the NBA’s Instagram Story featured coverage of the Toronto Raptors parade in Ontario, Canada. At this point in the Story, a Raptors team member took selfies with the rapper, Drake.

4. Interacting With Loyal Fans

While Twitter’s highly public platform already allows brands many opportunities to find and interact directly with fans, Fleets could also be a helpful tool for this.

On Instagram and Facebook Stories, you might regularly see content where brands ask users to DM them questions or content. Then, a brand might create a Story with user-generated quotes, images, or videos. This tactic makes users who participated feel like the brand cares about their thoughts. Meanwhile, an interactive Story like this allows other audiences to see that the brand appreciates its most engaged followers.

Aside from question-and-answer interactions, you could also go one step further by publishing Fleets with user-generated content from customers or fans. One brand that frequently does this on Instagram Stories and Facebook is Planet Fitness. In the story below, it highlights fitness journey photos sent to it by its actual customers:

Not only does this Story allow loyal Planet Fitness fans to contribute to the brand’s social media content, but it also allows prospects to see how real people have benefited from the gym’s services.

5. Offering Behind-the-Scenes Content

Most of us know that people love seeing behind-the-scenes content from celebrities, athletes, and influencers onInstagram Stories, Facebook Stories, and Snapchat. But, research shows that consumers also enjoy behind-the-scenes material from brands.

While tweets offer brands a platform to create quick well-worded posts or publish heavy-lift content, Fleets allow brands to show audiences behind-the-scenes content or insights that make them look more authentic and relatable. This is something we’ve seen brands frequently do on their temporary Instagram Stories.

In the Story below, the New England-based Caffe Nero highlights a Barista of the Year competition that it holds with its staff every year. The Story highlights how Caffe Nero baristas are dedicated to serving customers and it shows off an authentic piece of the restaurant’s company culture that many customers might not know about.

5. Informing Audiences About Complex Industry Topics

When you craft a tweet, you need to sum up your message in 280 characters or start a thread. But with Fleets or other social media Stories, you can add further information or insight with photos, videos, or multiple pages of text.

This could allow brands to offer Twitter users a stronger variation of valuable, easy-to-create content that isn’t limited to tiny tweets, pricey marketing videos, or time-consuming live streams.

Here’s an example of how HubSpot discusses more complex industry topics via Instagram Stories. While you might not be able to add the same level of imagery to Fleets content, you could potentially leverage multiple pages of text in a similar way.

Navigating Ephemeral Content

Can content that disappears really leave an impression? Well, if Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have taught us anything — the answer to that question is, “Yes!”

While ephemeral content — like Fleets — is a new and exciting opportunity, it does take creativity and brainstorming to create content that will grab your audience in a memorable way.

To get better acquainted with key ephemeral content tips and strategies, check out this introduction to the content type. Then, learn more about how major brands are leveraging current ephemeral platforms like Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, and Snapchat.

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published to cover the Twitter Fleets pilot in May 2020, but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.

A few weeks ago, I planned a trip to Charlotte. I booked my flights, and the day before I was supposed to leave, I tried to find my confirmation email.

I couldn’t find it anywhere. Panicking, I called the airline. “Ma’am, your payment was denied. We emailed you about this.”

Very quickly, I learned the importance of email whitelists.

Fortunately, I was able to book another flight. However, this didn’t save me from the stress or frustration I felt at the airline for being unable to contact me any other way.

At the end of the day, you don’t want a similar experience to happen to your customers. And, as a marketer, nothing is more frustrating than realizing your email marketing tactics, meant to engage and delight new prospects, aren’t working simply because they aren’t being delivered to your prospects’ inboxes.

Here, we’ll explain what email whitelists are, and how you can ensure your company is on the whitelists of your email recipients.

How To Get On Your Email Subscribers’ Whitelists

To get on your email subscribers’ whitelists, you can ask your subscribers to whitelist your email address. Consider using simple language that frames the extra step as a benefit to the recipient:

“To be sure our emails always make it to your inbox, please add us to your email whitelist.”

Ideally, you’d include this message in the first email you send new subscribers to improve email deliverability at the onset of a new relationship.

You might use your own flair and brand voice to craft a compelling email message. HubSpot Agency Partner Yokel Local does this well in their re-engagement campaign aimed at reconnecting with customers who may not be opening their emails:

While the email above is serving a specific function in an email marketing campaign, you can also include a more general whitelist reminder in the footer of all your communications like so:

Keep in mind that not all of your recipients may know what a whitelist is, so you might also want to incorporate steps they need to take. To make the process simple, you can include links to the instructions for the most common web clients like this:

“To be sure our emails always make it to your inbox, please add us as a contact or put us on your whitelist. If you have a Gmail account, follow these instructions. Alternatively, if you use Outlook, click here.”

Just be sure that you accommodate the typical email clients your recipients use, which could even include Apple Mail, Yahoo, and more.

If you want to provide more specific instructions in your email, or if you ever have a need to walk someone through the process, here are the steps for whitelisting and email in the two most common email clients, Gmail and Outlook:

1. Click the gear icon in Gmail and select “See all settings” from the Quick settings menu.

In your Gmail inbox, there is a gear icon in the top right corner. When you select it, you’ll either get a “Quick settings” menu (see below) or a drop-down with several options to choose from.

If you get the “Quick settings” menu, you’ll select See all settings. Otherwise, navigate to the Settings option.

2. Navigate to “Filters and Blocked Addresses” in the top menu.

Once you’re in your expanded settings area, you’ll want to click Filters and Blocked Addresses in the top menu. You’ll end up on a page that looks like this:

3. Select “Create a new filter.”

In Gmail, whitelisting an email actually involves creating a filter.

4. Add a specific email or a whole domain in the “From” field.

The “From” field is where you’ll specify what’s getting whitelisted. In Gmail, you can specify either a specific email address (e.g. [email protected]), or you can whitelist a whole domain by omitting everything before the at symbol (e.g. @domain.com). The former will whitelist one specific email address while the latter whitelists anyone who is sending email from that domain.

5. Click “Create filter.”

From there, you don’t need to input any additional information. Simply click the Create filter button at the bottom of the window (next to the blue Search button).

6. Check “Never send it to Spam” in the checkbox.

Clicking the button brings up a new window. Here’s where you’ll actually specify that what you’re doing is whitelisting. In Gmail, you do this by checking the Never send it to spam box. Doing so will ensure that emails that meet the criteria you specified never end up in Spam or Trash (unless you do so manually).

7. Click “Create filter.”

Once this information is specified, you click the “Create filter” button again, and this creates the whitelist within Gmail.

1. Click the gear icon in Outlook and select “View all Outlook settings.”

Sign in to the web version of Outlook. There will be a gear icon in the top-right corner.

When you select it, a drop-down menu will appear. At the bottom of the drop-down menu, you’ll choose View all Outlook settings.

2. Select “Mail” from the settings menu.

Once you have the Settings page expanded, you’ll want to select Mail from the menu on the right-hand side of the page.

3. Choose “Junk email” from the submenu.

Clicking on Mail gives you access to an expanded submenu where you’ll have the option to click Junk email.

6. Click “Add” under “Safe senders and domains.”

In the “Junk email” window is an option for adding safe senders and domains. Underneath this heading is the word Add with a plus sign next to it. Click this.

7. Enter the email address that you want whitelisted.

This is where you’ll specify what’s getting whitelisted.

8. Choose “Save.”

This will save your whitelist preferences and ensure that emails that fit the criteria don’t make it to your junk email folder in Outlook.

Whitelisting as a Best Practice

Encouraging your email recipients to whitelist your email or domain from the outset of the relationship is an email marketing best practice that can help you improve the deliverability of your messaging. After all, your prospects and customers will likely not take this action on their own unless they are reminded.

However, whitelisting is not the only factor that can help you increase deliverability. You can help mitigate the possibility that your recipients’ email providers mistake your emails as spam by following email marketing best practices, such as:

• Using inbound methods to populate your database rather than buying email lists and sending spam email
• Segmenting your email database to ensure you’re always sending the right email to the right recipients
• Keeping your contact information clean and removing defunct or nonresponsive emails

All of this is so important in ensuring that your message is heard by your prospects and customers so that you stay top of mind and grow your business.

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

In marketing, it seems like the word “brand” is used a lot — the leading brand, off-brand, personal brand … you get the picture.

But there’s often confusion around its meaning in business. What does it entail? Should you hire an expert? Most of all — branding is expensive, right? Not exactly.

As it turns out, there are some creative ways to brand your business effectively without a ton of cash. While it does require time, the ROI won’t go unnoticed — in some cases, it can actually help you save money, while also growing your business.

Building your brand is a crucial part of developing your business. It’s the foundation that will give your organization a voice, identity, value, and awareness among consumers.

Thanks to the plentiful number of resources, tools, and platforms available today, brand building might not be as burdensome (or costly) as you may think.

Read on to learn what makes up a brand and how to develop one on a budget.

How to Brand Your Business

A brand is made up of tangible and intangible elements. For instance, your logo is a visual representation of your company. It evokes emotion and speaks to your brand’s personality. Your identity, on the other hand, isn’t something concrete but it is integral to building a connection with your audience.

These elements work together to create consumers’ perception of your company. So, you must take time crafting each element to ensure your business resonates with your ideal customer.

Don’t know where to start? Alicia Collins, brands campaign manager and copywriter at HubSpot, has a few tips.

She recommends developing a brand playbook that includes:

• Your brand story and positioning
• Your company tagline
• Your company mission statement and key values
• Your target audience
• Information on the voice and tone you want to use when communicating with customers
• High-level copy your team can use in assets

“This playbook will help your team talk about your company clearly and consistently,” said Collins.

Once you know your identity, build strategic messaging to appeal to your audience. Your messaging should convey what makes your brand unique, what you offer, and why consumers should want your products or services. It should also reflect the attributes your target audience wants to see.

Take Oatly, the oat milk brand known for its witty, self-referential marketing campaigns.

The brand’s identity is rooted in ethical food production and sustainability without taking itself too seriously. Oatly reinforces these ideas in its product packaging, social media, and interactions with consumers.

Is this business advice from ‘The Richest man in the world’!? We’re oat’ver the moon to hear you drink so much oat drink, but not everyone wants to consume 2-3 litres within a 5 day window pal. And the last thing we want is to create food waste. Love, Oatly

— Oatly (@oatly)
April 23, 2021

Next up: your brand assets, such as your logo, typography, packaging, colors, visual designs, and content.

A 2019 survey by Promotique found that even if consumers hear positive things about a brand, three out of five won’t use the company if they think its brand image is terrible. The study also revealed that most consumers believe the look and feel of a logo can make or break the brand.

This shows just how important your assets are to brand perception.

“The aim is to use visuals that reflect your brand in a way that also tells your audience what you’re about,” said Harriet Van Tongeren, Canva’s Creative Lead for Nonprofits. “Having timeless but memorable brand livery helps retain awareness of your brand, and consistency helps to develop trust.”

So, don’t skimp on your creative assets. They are an investment that will contribute to the longevity and growth of your brand.

“A great way to ensure consistency on a budget is by developing Canva templates,” said Collins. “With Canva, your team can create beautiful graphics quickly using pre-approved layouts.”

She adds that your team should use the same Hex color codes in your designs, to ensure a consistent visual identity.

Lastly, build a photo library to have images ready to use for your marketing efforts. Once you edit them, use the same editing style to create a cohesive library. 

A theme you may have noticed in this article by now is the importance of consistency.

Van Tongeren says forgetting about this key element is the biggest mistake brands can make. 

“Everything that comes from your brand should be cohesive and feel like part of one family – the language, the tone, everything,” said Van Tongeren.

“The best way to think about this,” she adds, “is by asking whether your audience would be able to tell the material is coming from your brand, even if the logo was removed.”

According to a 2019 State of Brand Consistency study by Lucidpress, brands estimate that their revenue would increase by 33% if they maintained brand consistency across all platforms. 

Having consistent branding helps consumers recognize and identify with your brand. Another way to solidify your brand is by building a community. This can look like:

• Setting up a platform where your audience can meet and interact with you and others in the community, such as a Facebook Group or Slack channel.
• Engaging your audience on social media, through comment sections, polls, and surveys.
• Organizing events, such as webinars and meet-ups.
• Involving your followers in your process behind the scenes.

And as you build your brand, remember that it’s not solely a marketing play.

“Brand extends beyond marketing,” said Collins, “so make sure your brand strategy style aligns with your product strategy, sales strategy, service strategy, and more.”

7 Steps to Market Your Brand on a Budget

You don’t have to break the bank to grow and maintain a brand. In fact, you can complete most of these tips without spending money.

Two things to always remember: Keep your customers in mind and deliver messages that support your company’s mission.

Below, let’s discuss a budget-friendly way to grow better on a budget.

1. Create a persona to understand your audience.

You’ve probably heard that knowing your audience is the key to creating marketing messages that appeal to them. A great way to get to know them? Create a buyer persona: a semi-fictionalized representation of your ideal customer’s values and characteristics.

“The job of the brand assets or ‘livery’ is to visually communicate what each brand wants to tell its audience,” said Van Tongeren. “Before you even think about the visual component, you need to know who your audience is and how you want to be perceived by them.”

Personas also outline your customer’s challenges and where your business fits into solving them.

Below is an example of a buyer persona, Marketing Macy. Notice how my persona lists demographics, like age and education, as well as tools needed for their day-to-day responsibilities, like a CRM.

The needs, goals, and behavior of your potential customers dictate how you convey your product or service. So for Macy, I want to focus on a B2B strategy that caters to her goals of lead generation and brand building.

Understanding those goals helps you determine what kind of media your personas are consuming, what motivates them, and where they “live” online. With this information, you can also develop a compelling, effective brand that reaches the right people.

Make your own buyer persona with HubSpot’s free MakeMyPersona tool, which guides you through a series of questions about your ideal customer.

The tool is fun, interactive, and gets you thinking critically about who you want to reach with your brand and how you want to reach them.

2. Develop an identity and voice for your brand.

Once you’ve identified your buyer personas, your brand can start to take shape.

Create a brand identity — what makes your brand, your brand — and its voice, which is the tone you use in any marketing copy or public communication.

Developing a brand voice and identity is similar to constructing your personas.

But instead of answering questions about your target audience, you’re answering questions that are more introspective to your brand: What are your company’s values, what do they represent, and how do you want people to talk about you?

“The most important part of developing a brand is prework discovery,” said Van Tongeren. “If you’ve done the work and deep-dived into who you are as a brand, figured out what you want to be known for and what your brand personifies then you’re in a great spot to start.”

When you answer these questions, focus on creating content that supports them. Craft compelling emails, blogs, social posts, and multimedia that reflect your company’s mission, values, and how you want to appear to customers.

For example, if one of your values is to be accessible to customers, make your contact information available to users, engage them regularly, and answer their service questions in comment sections.

Developing your voice comes through in the copy of that content. Are you going to use conversational language that relates to customers? Or will it be more beneficial to reach your audience from a technical standpoint?

For example, a lifestyle company with a great understanding of brand identity is Fanm Djanm.

When you navigate to the brand’s website and social channels, what you’ll see is consistency in their branding. Warm and vibrant colors, powerful images of women, and copy that creates a sense of community.

It’s a direct reflection of the brand name, which translates to “strong women” and its celebration of sisterhood and self-love.

Even if you’re not starting from scratch, establishing a strong(er) brand voice can be valuable.

Just take operating system software service Android, for instance. Their 2019 rebrand was a logo re-up, making the design cleaner and modern:

Image Source

The logo came from a need to speak to a shift in audience. Initially, Android’s target audience was the developer, but instead, the company has become more consumer-facing. The change was bred from this analysis.

3. Map out a consistent social media presence.

So, we know who your personas are. And now, we have an idea of what and how to create messaging that connects with them. But where are they?

There’s a good chance you’ll find them on social media, and that’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss. We’ve talked about how effective it is to reach people where they’re already present, and that includes their online behavior.

A 2020 Sprout Social Index report found that 89% of consumers will purchase from the brands they follow on social media. The study also shows that social media users want to learn about brands’ new products and services. In fact, 57% of respondents said it’s the top reason they follow companies on social media.

Now that you have a clear picture of what your audience is interested in, the next step is figuring out where they’re spending the most time on social media.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to play Inspector Gadget to figure this out. Check out competitors — see where they’re most active (and how their language may or may not connect to audiences).

Additionally, look at each social platform’s demographic breakdown to better understand who you’re targeting and where.

For instance, the highest percentage of U.S. men and women who use Facebook are between the ages of 24 and 35. TikTok, on the other hand, tends to have a younger audience, with many users falling in the Gen Z population.

If you find the majority of your audience prioritizes one social network, you’ll have an idea of where to allocate your resources.

However, don’t ignore other sites. When you build a presence on multiple social media platforms, you’ll have an opportunity to diversify how you reach audiences.

Diversifying the methods and channels you use for obtaining new leads helps you to connect with as many potential customers as possible.

Maintaining a presence is just as important as building one — for example, have you ever gone to a brand’s Facebook page, only to find that nothing has been posted in the past three months? Chances are, it didn’t have a positive impact on your perception.

That can be avoided by planning and scheduling social media posts like you would with any marketing calendar. This free Social Media Content Calendar can help.

It’s also important to think ahead of time about the content you’ll be posting on social media and the interactions you want to have with your followers.

One of the top reasons why consumers unfollow brands on social media is irrelevant content and too many ads, according to the Sprout Social Index report.

If you’re wondering what they’re looking for, the survey respondents said it’s engagement first, followed by memorable content and compelling storytelling.

4. Start a company blog.

We’ve covered the importance of blogging before, and it can’t be emphasized enough. It’s a core part of the inbound marketing flywheel, especially the “attract” stage, which turns website browsers from strangers to visitors.

Image Source

Starting a blog is a fundamental step of inbound marketing. It helps you reach qualified customers, like your personas, by creating content that matches what they’re searching for. That’s why it’s so important to make blog posts relevant to audiences (and optimize them for search engines — here’s how).

“HubSpot’s success has been a direct result of our blog. In fact, we had a blog before we even had a product,” said Lisa Toner, director of content at HubSpot.

“Dharmesh and Brian always had the belief that in order to build a remarkable brand, you have to create remarkable content, and we’ve done that consistently on our blog ever since we started out in 2006.”

Senior Team Manager of the HubSpot Blogs Karla Cook adds that our blog is a big discoverability point for our target audience.

“It’s the very first interaction many people have with our brand – even before they learn about our products – and it helps us start that relationship off in a positive way,” she said.

Customers are looking for the information you’re able to provide. Plus, that content can serve as material to populate your social media networks.

To find what your audience is searching for, conduct keyword research, which will tell you what the most important topics for your audience are via search engines.

While blogging can be inexpensive, it does take time.

The inbound marketing version of that question would ask, “Would you rather blog for one hour each day and promote content created by and for your company, or several hours a day sourcing content for your ideal customer from your competitors?”

An editorial calendar is also helpful in maintaining consistent timing and fresh content on your blog. That’s why we put together a free blog editorial calendar template, complete with instructions and content management tips.

5. Make customer service a priority.

When we hear the name “Zappos,” most of us immediately think, “Unparalleled customer service.” The online apparel retailer built this level of service into its core approach to doing business.

Why is that so important? For Zappos, making excellent customer service the cornerstone of its brand actually saved money on marketing and advertising. That’s because it created word-of-mouth among existing and potential customers.

This is called earned media: The recognition that your brand has earned, not paid for, from people talking about something you did that was remarkable.

For example, when I’m shopping on a new website, the first thing I do is read reviews. If I see reviews that mention speedy shipping, friendly customer service, and high-quality products, I’m more inclined to purchase.

And I’m not alone. A 2020 Zendesk Customer Experience Trends study found that customer service is a top consideration for consumers when deciding whether to purchase from a brand – more than the product or service itself and convenience.

It only takes one bad experience to potentially lose a customer, with the report revealing that about half of consumers will switch over to a competitor after just one negative experience.

This revisits the importance of your identity and voice. As you go through these brand-building steps, think about the values that you want your audience to experience, like excellent service. Those values are what shape the brand’s culture, and that influence the voice you project to an audience.

Wondering what actionable steps you can take? Here are research-backed ways to improve your customer experience:

• Resolve consumers’ issues quickly, offer 24/7 customer support, and have friendly agents.
• Be proactive in engaging customers with notifications.
• Respond to customer service questions and complaints on social media.
• Allow consumers to call in for customer support, as it is still consumers’ preferred support channel.

6. Take advantage of co-branding.

I’ll never forget what my colleague, Lisa Toner, says about negotiating co-branding agreements.

“Larger companies may have a large reach,” she explains, “But what do they not have?”

When you’re just starting to build a brand, you might not have the reach that Toner’s talking about. You can take the steps to build it, but that takes time. Until then, one way to get your name in front of a broader audience is to partner with a brand that does have that reach.

“Working with a co-marketing partner (an external brand) can be a really valuable way of growing your audience while building a beneficial relationship with a partner,” said Margot Mazur, principal marketing manager of strategic partnerships at HubSpot.

“You don’t have to have a huge budget,” she adds. “Working with a partner means that you can split up the marketing duties.”

Let’s say you’re working with a partner on a lead generation campaign, such as a gated e-book, Mazur explains that one partner can take on copywriting duties and the other can take on design, or vice-versa depending on your resources.

“This way, you can save money on any freelance costs by working together on a project. Ideally, both you and your partner distribute the content piece to your audiences, driving visibility to an audience you may not have had access to,” she said.

“That saves you advertising costs and exposes you to a new set of people interested in your content.”

But don’t just pick any brand for a partnership. Make sure it’s one that’s aligned with yours, so it makes sense in the minds of your audience. Here are the questions we recommend asking when seeking a co-branding partner:

1. Will your partner’s audience be interested in your brand? Is this audience difficult for you to reach without this partnership?
2. Will your audience trust your co-brand? That’s crucial to getting them to listen to you, so make sure your partner reaches the audience in a way that instills confidence.
3. Do you have something to offer your co-brand? Just like Toner asks, “What do they not have?” The experience should be a win-win-win: For you, your co-brand, and the consumer. As an example, if you have an international audience that your partnering brand doesn’t, consider pointing to that when discussing the partnership.

Building a brand might seem like a huge undertaking, especially when resources are limited. However, there are plenty of economic ways to get started and continue the momentum.

A great starting point that’s both affordable and offers high ROI is video. Wondering how you can pull it off? Just use an iPhone or a smartphone with high camera capabilities and use free video editing software like iMovie.

Mazur explains that you can then script your video internally, share it on YouTube and promote it across all digital channels.

“Video marketing is incredibly effective – videos can go on your product pages, help pages, blog posts, social media posts, Product Hunt pages, etc.,” said Mazur.

She continues, “Work with your partner to split up the recording duties, as well as splitting distribution. You’ll get access to a whole new audience and have an engaging piece of content you can use across your channels.”

And don’t forget to have fun with the process.

Of course, there has to be a degree of strategy and logic involved — that’s why there are tools to help you determine the different pieces of your brand. But it’s a creative exercise, so keep that in mind if you get bogged down in technicalities.

7. Host a masterclass or webinar.

What are some of the talents the minds at your company display daily? Are they masters of email marketing? Do they excel at coding? Do you earn a “World’s Best Brand Strategist” superlative every year?

A fantastic way to grow your brand – and earn leads – is to leverage these talents into a masterclass or webinar, and promote them online.

By optimizing your class with hashtags and witty captions, you’ll find audiences who are interested in the talents for which you’re offering lessons. These masterclasses can be 45- to 60-minute sessions that provide an overview of your special expertise and showcase how to do it right.

For example, if I were to offer a webinar, it would highlight the art of using emojis for business, an experiment I’m passionate about. I would start by describing why engaging copy is important for attracting customers.

Then, I’d explain the pros and cons of emoji usage. Finally, I’d share the right and wrong times to include emojis in marketing messages.

After that, I would present an experiment and report on my findings. Whether the experiment supports or negates my thesis always leaves room for fruitful discussion — leading to the last portion, questions.

Voila – an outline for a masterclass that uses my talents to back up the credibility of a business that focuses on, let’s say, marketing or social media.

Running experiments doesn’t have to cost a dime, and hosting a webinar takes only about an hour of your day.

The result, however, is spreading the word about the value of a company, providing data that supports credibility, and promoting company values like delighting customers and giving helpful, educational content to your audience.

Branding on a budget? Absolutely possible. What counts, when you’re brainstorming ways to brand effectively, is how to use the resources you have to the best of your ability.

Keeping your audience in mind is the first step — after that, it’s about thinking of creative ways to engage those target customers.

Have fun building your brand. After all, this is a creative process and while every experiment may not work, you can always learn to improve. Good luck, and happy branding.

Does your professional bio make a statement?

In this article, we have great professional bio examples you should compare yours to — and a series of free bio templates you can use to make it perfect.

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t think about your professional bio until you’re suddenly asked to “shoot one over via email.” You have approximately one afternoon to come up with it, and that’s when you scramble, and the bio ends up reading like this:

“Rodney Erickson is a content marketing professional at HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. Previously, Rodney worked as a marketing manager for a tech software startup. He graduated with honors from Columbia University with a dual degree in Business Administration and Creative Writing.”

Woof, that was dull. Are you still with me? I swear, not even adding a tidbit about his cats would liven that bio up.

To be fair, in certain contexts, your professional bio does need to be more formal, like Mr. Erickson’s up there. But in many cases, writing a readable bio — even conversational — is a really good thing. That means dropping that traditional format of listing your accomplishments like a robot and cramming as much professional-sounding jargon in there as you can.

Here, let’s dive into how you can create your own professional bio (with templates for both long and short bios). Then we’ll dive into the best professional bio examples we’ve ever seen. 

Skip to one of these sections if you know what you’re looking for: 

• Professional Bio Templates
• How to Write a Professional Bio
• Best Professional Bio Examples
• Short Bio Examples
• How to Write a Short Bio

When YouTube first launched, I was in 6th grade and all my friends were creating funny videos to upload.

See, back in the day, YouTube was mainly used for teens to upload funny, entertaining videos. Anyone else remember Smosh and Fred?

I’m aging myself, but I digress.

Back then, using YouTube for business and marketing was a new concept. Now, more than 15 years later, it’s entirely different. Brands and businesses use Youtube to engage and connect with their audience.

For marketers, this means your YouTube strategy needs to have evolved from the beginning days of the social platform. If you haven’t and are still using old YouTube strategies, you won’t benefit from having a channel.

Let’s review the top outdated YouTube strategies that you need to abandon and what you should do instead.

1. Focusing on selling products rather than helping your audience.

While YouTube might have been a place for entertainment before, it’s now also a place for people to learn new skills and conduct research.

Nelson Chacon, the principal marketing manager of YouTube at HubSpot, says, “Don’t sell, help. Users on YouTube like to be educated and not sold to.”

When businesses first started using social media sites, one of the older marketing tactics was to sell, sell, sell.

But users don’t want to be sold to. They want help. If they go to your business’s YouTube, they probably want information too.

The best way to abandon this strategy is to know what your audience needs help with. Think to yourself, “What does my audience want to learn from me?”

Then, create content that provides value.

Chacon explains, “Having a strategy to educate, empower, and provide some assistance can go a long way.”

2. Being robotic instead of human.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen a lot of businesses put out content that sounds robotic. It doesn’t sound human and it’s hard to pay attention to. In fact, I’d even say it’s not interesting and it’s not apparent why it’s useful to me.

That’s why Chacon recommends being human in your videos instead. He says, “YouTube is a very organic platform where people like and trust creators even more than corporations. This can be reflected in the content you make and the interactions you have with your audience.”

All the content you create for your marketing team should be helpful, human, and provide value to your audience.

3. Neglecting your audience.

Another outdated YouTube strategy is to neglect your audience. Some businesses have a bad habit of just putting out video content and not responding to comments or engaging with their viewers.

Additionally, many businesses don’t use social listening to understand what content their audience wants to see or what they’re paying attention to.

This isn’t going to help marketers.

Instead, Chacon recommends engaging and interacting with your audience. He says, “Users on YouTube like interacting with creators. Keeping up with your social listening and monitoring is vital for success.”

4. Not optimizing your videos.

When YouTube was created, SEO and optimization were fairly new concepts. Additionally, the industry (as is still true today) was constantly evolving.

That’s why many creators and businesses didn’t know they should optimize their videos. Nowadays, to optimize your videos you should pay attention to what your audience is searching for and add those keywords in your title and description.

Additionally, mentioning keywords in the video and adding CTAs are two great ways to keep your audience engaged with your content.

To up-level your YouTube channel, you should dive in and understand how you can optimize your videos for success on YouTube.

5. Not using influencers.

Am I the only one who remembers a time before influencers?

While the job of social media content creator was new back in the day, it’s not anymore and it’s not going anywhere.

That’s why companies should lean into it and use influencers that have a similar audience. On YouTube, a great way to use influencers is to find other content creators, collaborate on videos, and engage with them on their channels.

6. Not being consistent.

A great piece of general life advice is to be consistent. With marketing and YouTube strategy, it’s no different.

Being consistent is how your audience will build a relationship with your brand. Without consistency, then the relationship will be stilted and it won’t feel organic or natural.

Posting consistent content and engaging with your audience is the best way to find success on YouTube.

7. Relying on solely organic rather than promotion as well.

Of course, organic traffic and views are very important to your YouTube strategy. However, it’s important to use multiple channels to direct traffic to your channel.

A great way to do this is to cross-promote content to help your audience find your videos. However, this doesn’t mean you should just post a link on your Facebook or Instagram page.

Users don’t like when they see a social media page that’s sole purpose is to promote other content. Plus, this content gets little engagement.

What you should do is naturally find ways to cross-promote content. For instance, you could conduct a poll on your Instagram stories, and then include a swipe-up link to your YouTube video.

8. Not using analytics.

Not using analytics is one of the biggest outdated strategies that you need to drop. It’s vital to keep track of your success and measure what videos perform well and which ones don’t.

With analytics, you can find out when your audience is online, what they’re interested in, how long they watch your videos, etc.

Finding the “best time” to post shouldn’t be the goal anymore. Now the goal is finding the best time for your audience specifically.

9. Faking likes and comments.

I’m not sure if people still do this, but I remember this being a big strategy that companies were doing when I was younger.

So much so that most people in my generation don’t trust likes, comments, or even followers/subscriber counts.

Any younger generation that has grown up with social media, like millennials and Gen Z, will notice and quickly unfollow or unsubscribe if they notice these strategies.

That’s why you shouldn’t use auto-engagement bots, mass follow accounts only to unfollow the next day, or mass comment on videos asking for a follow.

This will hurt your reputation, could get you banned from social media sites, and your analytics won’t be trustworthy.

Plus, you won’t be building a relationship with your audience, which is the point. The point in these sites is to build a relationship so people are encouraged to purchase from you. If you don’t build a relationship with your audience, your vanity metrics don’t mean anything.

Instead, you should only follow legitimate accounts that are relevant to your brand. This way, you can actually increase brand awareness, build trust with your audience, and eventually generate revenue.

10. Using the wrong social media sites to promote your videos.

While it’s important to cross-promote your content, it doesn’t help to promote on a social media site that your audience isn’t on.

For instance, if your primary audience isn’t on Snapchat or Instagram, cross-promoting there won’t help build your traffic.

That’s why your social media strategy and YouTube strategy need to be reviewed every year. It’s important to align your strategy with the sites that your audience is active on.

While Gen Z and millennials turn to Instagram, only millennials or older generations really use Facebook as their main social media site. Older generations tend not to be on other sites like Snapchat.

Ultimately, YouTube is an amazing platform to use to connect with your audience. And it’s still growing in popularity. That’s why it’s important to update your YouTube strategies and drop the outdated techniques above.

As a Millennial, my experience with email has been quite interesting.

For a while, it’s where I received chain mail that I was forced to forward unless I wanted something terrible to happen to me or my family. Then, it was where I sent junk emails from brands I didn’t care about.

Today, I look forward to checking my email and hearing from my favorite brands on everything from the news and the marketing world to product launches and sales.

As this marketing channel continues to evolve, one thing users are looking for is interactivity. It makes emails more fun to read, and on the brand side, is a great way to convert users.

Let’s dive into how to use interactive elements in your emails and examples of brands getting it right.

So, why the push for interactive emails? Ashley Riordan, growth marketing manager at HubSpot says nowadays, users expect more.

“When you think about your own inbox – work or personal – the amount of emails we get in a day is a lot,” said Riordan. “Interactive emails, whether it’s a personalized element or multimedia feature, help attract readers’ attention, set your email out from the crowd, and cut through that noise.”

She suggests calling this era: email 2.0. Interesting email content isn’t enough – now it’s about taking it one step further to involve your audience in the emails they receive.

Studies show that consumers are welcoming this change, it’s marketers who are reluctant.

“91% of consumers want interactive content, but only 17% of marketers provide it,” said Megan Moller, director of content marketing at Litmus. “That could be a missed opportunity as competition for subscribers’ attention is at an all-time high, and marketers report seeing a 200% improvement in click-through rates when using interactivity.”

The possibilities are not exactly endless, but they’re pretty extensive. You can add interactivity in email by adding a form, faux video, embedded video, animated GIFs, or carousel.

However, Moller adds that you have to make sure these elements will work for your audience.

“Don’t just add them for interactivity’s sake. Not all email clients support interactivity – though there is growing support of AMP for email,” she added. “Discover what environments (email clients, devices, and more) your subscribers are on with a tool like Litmus Email Analytics, so you can know which interactive strategies are possible with your subscribers.”

3 Reasons to Create an Interactive Email Newsletter

We know interactive elements make emails more engaging and can increase your conversions. But when do you usually use them? Technically, you can implement them anytime but here are some of the most popular ways to leverage interactive elements.

1. Highlight new product features.

Want to announce updates to your products or tease upcoming products? Why talk about it when you can just show it.

Look at this example from Canva.

The graphic design platform regularly sends out emails to subscribers to share new features. By adding a simple GIF like this, users can quickly understand the new feature and get excited about what they could create on the platform.

Here’s another great example from Later.

2. Tease an upcoming event or announcement.

Let’s say you’re preparing for a big sale or upcoming event, you can use interactive elements to create some buzz and anticipation around your offers.

Adidas created an awesome GIF in honor of Mother’s Day, which shows a woman running with her two children in some Adidas gear.

It’s a great illustration of how to use GIFs in emails to pull the reader in while staying within your brand’s visual identity.

3. Increase your email engagement.

Sometimes, you may not have anything special to promote, but you want to improve your metrics.

Perhaps your clickthrough or open rate is low, and you want to encourage your subscribers to participate. That’s a great reason to add some interactivity to your newsletter.

Take The Daily Carnage, a daily newsletter that covers all things marketing.

With every newsletter comes a question of the day that relates to a topic covered in the email. Once you submit your answers, you can see how other subscribers answered the question.

This accomplishes two things: It gets users engaged and excited about the content and it helps the team at Carney learn more about their audience.

Interactive Email Examples

GIFs

GIFS are the perfect middle point between images and videos.

A video can weigh down your email and make your loading speed slow. If you want to add some movement to your email but don’t want to go as far as embedding a video, GIFs are the way to go. Plus, they’re attention-grabby.

“Compared to a static image, GIFs are more eye-catching and therefore more click-catching,” said Riordan.

At HubSpot, we’ve had great success using them.

When sending out welcome messages for new contacts, we’ve found that emails featuring GIFs have a clickthrough rate that’s twice as high as emails without.

In addition to capturing subscribers’ attention, they also convert.

Quizzes

As we covered in the previous section with The Daily Canage, you can increase your newsletter’s engagement rate by including quizzes and polls.

At HubSpot, we saw a 5% increase in open rate and a jump in unique clicks after adding a “Question of The Day” poll to one of our newsletters.

Here’s how it works: Users have to answer today’s “Question of the Day” to see the poll results from yesterday’s question. This approach, says Marketing Manager at HubSpot Clint Fontanella, creates this cliffhanger effect that keeps users engaged.

“This was our most successful test because it gave readers something in exchange for nothing. It gave them information and a little excitement and competition, in exchange for them visiting our blog,” said Fontanella, who used to manage the Service Blog newsletter. “It also gave them a reason to come back every day. By participating in today’s question, they could see yesterday’s results.”

Countdown Timers

Want to get your audience excited about an upcoming event or sale? Consider countdown timers.

Image Source

A countdown timer is a great way to create a sense of urgency and build anticipation. While this may require some HTML knowledge, it can be well worth the time.

In 2020, Riordan wanted to boost registrations and build some buzz around a webinar series. She ran a 50/50 test variation with one email including a countdown timer in the header image and another without.

The version with the countdown timer drove 30% more registrations.

A timer isn’t only useful for upcoming events or sales, you can use them for:

• Product or website launches
• Free trial notifications
• Milestone celebrations

Personalized Calculators

When we think of personalization in email, we usually think of adding the subscriber’s name in the subject line and email body. However, there are ways to take it one step further.

This website grader by HubSpot, for instance, is an interactive tool that sends prospects a customized report of their website performance along with specific recommendations and resources for improvements.

This is a great lead generation tool that can bring you one step closer to turning a subscriber into a customer.

Interactive Email Design Dos and Don’ts

Do keep it to one interactive element per email.

While it may be tempting, make sure you don’t overdo it with your interactive elements. A good rule of thumb is one per email.

“Your email recipients will likely be drawn to the interactive element which is the goal, but also means that other parts of your email might be overlooked,” said Riordan. “Try to center your email around one interactive factor, whether that be a poll, video, or GIF.”

She adds, “You don’t want to compete for attention in your own email – the interactive part should be the main message.”

Don’t be afraid to experiment.

With any new strategy you implement, there will be a learning curve.

You may have to try out a few interactive elements before you figure out what works best. And even when you determine the right strategy, it may change depending on the type of email you’re sending and the goals you want to achieve.

For instance, let’s say you want to generate more sales for a product. You’ve tried embedding videos of satisfied customers and adding photos of positive reviews but it doesn’t yield positive results. Then, you find that creating lifestyle GIFs of the product increase conversions by 10%. You use that strategy from then on.

However, as your goals change, so will the methods you try. Be flexible and always be willing to test out various strategies.

Do prioritize accessibility.

As you incorporate interactivity into your email, don’t forget to keep accessibility in mind. This ensures that visually impaired, deaf, and hard-of-hearing users can enjoy your emails without any trouble.

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Include descriptive alt text in every image, GIF, or any interactive element.
• Use colors that contrast well. Use this tool to check if you’re on the right track.
• Design your email with “Dark Mode” in mind.
• Add captions and transcripts to your videos.

Interactive Email Templates

1. Litmus

Litmus makes email marketing easy.

The platform offers a ton of interactive features and tools that you can customize based on the viewport (i.e. device) and email service. This includes hover effects, animated PNGs, and dark mode targeting.

In addition, the platform works for small to midsize businesses as well as enterprise-level companies. Pricing ranges from $99/month to $199/month, with custom pricing available for larger-scale organizations.

2. MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the top email marketing platforms on the market, known for its user-friendly interface.

On the platform, you can find over 100 campaign templates designed by professionals. All you have to do is fill in the gaps and hit “send.”

You can use the drag-and-drop feature to add interactive elements anywhere in your email and even import custom HTML templates.

MailChimp offers a free version for those who are just getting started with email marketing and goes all the way up to $299/month.

3. Stripo

If you want to skip coding when creating your email newsletter, find the templates you need at Stripo.

All you have to do is head to the website, find a template you like and customize it. It integrates with over 60 email service providers, making it easy for you to transfer your design.

You can start using Stripo for free. To take advantage of their premium features, you must subscribe to a monthly or yearly plan for $10/month to $34/month.