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I’ve worked in the B2B SaaS affiliate marketing space for 1.5 years and here’s my take on it: Affiliate marketing is not for the weak.

It demands a lot of time, effort, and dedication to succeed. But the challenge is what makes it rewarding.

The key to making it worthwhile? Using strategies to maximize your return on investment in your brand. Here are some core strategies we discuss with our affiliates that help them increase revenue.

Top 4 Affiliate Marketing Strategies to Maximize ROI

1. Humanize your brand.

Even though we work in the B2B space, we‘re still speaking to people — not businesses. Treating your audience as just another transaction isn’t going to set you apart from others.

People respond better to more personal and relatable interactions because those types of interactions tap into our innate desire for connection.

“Your audience is made up of individual people with their own interests and needs. By humanizing your brand and focusing on authentic, personal interactions, you can create meaningful connections that drive better results. says Lynsey Mc Hugh, Senior Affiliate Manager at HubSpot.

“Understanding your audience’s perspective and tailoring your approach to resonate with them on a more personal level can really make all the difference in maximizing your ROI.”

Let’s talk about how you can humanize your brand.

Use AI but don’t fully depend on it.

AI is one of the biggest tech advances we’ve seen in decades, which makes people feel a type of way. Some people are fascinated and excited, while others are apprehensive and skeptical. Many are both.

In a recent HubSpot study, 76% of business professionals suggested that, “People should use AI/automation in their role, but they should avoid becoming overly reliant on it.”

AI enables humans to do their work, no doubt. But it shouldn’t be used to do all of our work for us.

To be a successful affiliate marketer, your audience has to care about what you have to say. You can develop a loyal audience by engaging and connecting with them through your experience, wisdom, and creativity — all of which AI lacks.

Another consideration is that AI makes mistakes. It can output false information without you even knowing it. You’re playing a dangerous game if you rely solely on AI-generated content without verifying its accuracy.

So, how should you use AI in affiliate marketing? We encourage our affiliate partners to use AI for tasks like:

• Brainstorming
• Generating content outlines
• Writing catchy headlines
• Rewriting existing content for different platforms

AI can give you an extra boost when you’re hitting a wall, but it’s in your hands to create something that’s truly unique and valuable. All great things take time and AI simply helps us do our work faster.

Experiment with products and share your findings.

When you have personal experience with a product, it enhances your credibility and authenticity as an affiliate marketer.

Your recommendations carry more weight because your audience knows you have used and benefited from the product yourself.

This is why social proof like user reviews, case studies, customer testimonials, statistics and data-backed resources are so effective in the B2B SaaS market.

Social proof allows real users to share their stories, which can be incredibly persuasive when those stories reflect satisfaction with a company’s products.

We encourage our affiliate partners to test out the HubSpot customer platform and document their usage of our software. They may consider creating content that discusses:

• How I overcame this business challenge using HubSpot
• How I achieved all-time-high goals using HubSpot
• Why I like HubSpot more than a competitor’s solution

These prompts also support our affiliate partners’ E-E-A-T strategy (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust) which can impact how their content ranks in search.

The E-E-A-T principles are included in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which is a handbook used by Google to assess the quality of a website‘s content. It’s Google’s attempt to make sure your content is valuable and helpful to users.

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The “experience” element of the E-E-A-T guidelines highlights the importance of including relevant and personal experience in your content if you’re looking to drive more traffic to your website.

Dorissa Saint-Juste, Senior Affiliate Manager at HubSpot, likes to emphasize the significance of providing a unique perspective that differentiates your content from company websites, other marketers’ blogs, or typical reviews.

“What sets you apart? Sharing your own personal experience with a product is a ‌valuable approach. With prospects already leaning toward a product choice, they need less convincing compared to those searching broader terms, which makes your job a little easier,” Dorissa says.

Giving your content a human touch with anecdotal evidence will improve the discoverability of your content, build trust with your audience and compel them to buy the products you promote.

2. Optimize your website.

Not every B2B affiliate marketer has or needs a website, but most do because it serves as a central hub for their online presence and marketing efforts.

But simply having a website doesn’t do you any good if it’s not optimized for SEO and the user experience. Strategically organizing everything on your website makes sure that your content is easily accessible, coherent, and valuable for your audience.

“Imagine your website is a well-organized library. Tidy shelves, clear signage, and easy navigation make it enjoyable for visitors to find the information they need,” says Rex Gelb, Senior Director of Paid Acquisition and Affiliate Manager at HubSpot.

“Just like you wouldn‘t want to search for a specific book in a chaotic and disorganized library, users don’t want to navigate through a cluttered website. Keep your digital library in order for a seamless user experience.”

Website optimization through organization can be broken into two parts:

1. How your website’s content is interconnected
2. How the individual pieces of your content are created

Site Structure

At the macro level, organization refers to the structure of a website. By organizing your content in a logical manner, you provide a clear roadmap for visitors to enjoy exploring your site and find the information they need.

Plus, a well-organized website enhances your SEO, helping search engines index and rank your content.

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You’re doing yourself a major disservice if your website lacks thoughtful organization.

You might have the exact information that someone is looking for, but if they can’t find it quickly and easily, they’re going to leave your website without converting.

Whether you publish blog posts, videos, courses, or ebooks on your website as part of your content strategy, you should consider using categories.

What does this look like in real life? Let’s use this blog you’re on right now as an example.

HubSpot’s blog homepage provides a navigation menu that gives each type of content its own dropdown menu.

For example, the “Blogs” tab offers several categories to choose from. These categories group content related to the same topic into one bucket. Visitors can even explore more granular topics if they’re looking for something specific within a category.

It’s almost impossible to provide a positive user experience without easy navigation. As a matter of fact, when Clutch surveyed 612 people, 94% of them said easy navigation is the most important website feature.

Don’t underestimate logical categorization and intuitive user pathways when growing and managing your website’s content.

Content Structure

Organization matters at the micro level of content creation just as much as it does at the macro level.

How you organize your thoughts can determine whether visitors stay on your site or leave without ever looking back.

How can you make every piece of content a masterpiece, you may ask? By focusing on these three elements:

1. Skimmable: Make your content quick and easy to digest to adapt to people’s shorter attention spans.
2. Quotable: Provide valuable and memorable information that visitors will want to share with others.
3. Actionable: Define the next steps you want visitors to take after consuming your content.

Here’s how you can implement those three principles into your written content:

• Use subheadings, bulleted lists and bolded key phrases
• Add meaningful visuals like infographics and screenshots
• Keep your paragraphs short (4 sentences max)
• Take a thought leadership approach
• Incorporate reliable statistics
• Implement concise and impactful statements
• Provide clear call-to-actions

While these general ideas of optimizing content overlap across various forms such as video or digital courses, it’s crucial to know how audiences of different platforms and mediums prefer to engage and consume content.

3. Be smart with your links.

You put in so much effort into creating content and driving visitors to that content — all with the end goal of getting as many people to click on your affiliate link and convert.

“It’s crucial to be strategic with your link placements to drive conversions effectively. By being selective in your approach, you can create a more engaging and trustworthy experience for your audience, ultimately leading to better results,” says Nancy Harnett who leads the HubSpot affiliate program.

“Remember to track performance metrics and continuously experiment with new tactics to stay ahead in the dynamic world of affiliate marketing.”

Let’s get into how you can make the most of your hard work with your links.

Use the right links.

Oftentimes, affiliate programs will provide their partners with a default affiliate link which typically routes to a generic “get started with our main product” type of page.

But if you’re promoting a brand that offers more than one product and price plan, you should use product-specific landing pages depending on where your links are placed.

The reason we recommend that our affiliate partners use standalone product landing pages rather than linking to our website is because landing pages have a single objective — getting visitors to complete a desired action.

This focused approach increases the likelihood of conversions because there is no unrelated content or exit points to distract your leads.

For example, HubSpot’s customer platform has a plethora of tools: CRM, marketing automation, email marketing, sales, help desk, website builder, and more.

Let’s say a HubSpot affiliate writes a listicle for “The Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Businesses.” They should use our email marketing affiliate landing page rather than linking to our website’s email marketing product page or using the generic “get started with HubSpot” link.

Readers on that listicle are interested in buying email marketing tools, so using the corresponding landing page makes the most sense.

Disclose your links.

Always be transparent about your affiliate partnerships, not only to maintain legal compliance but to also build credibility with your audience.

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Endorsement Guidelines, you must “clearly and conspicuously” disclose your affiliate relationship with a brand when affiliate links are present in your content.

What does that really mean? Your readers shouldn’t have to search high and low to see it.

For example, placing your affiliate disclosure in your website footer or somewhere in your navigation menu meets the requirement of having one. However, those placements aren’t easy to see, so they don’t meet the requirement of being displayed clearly and conspicuously.

When in doubt, your best bet is to place your disclosure before your affiliate links at the beginning of your content or as near to the links as possible.

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Remember, you should be disclosing your affiliate links wherever they are present so that includes social media posts, too. Our affiliate partners like to do this by adding a hashtag to their post such as #HubSpotaffiliate or #ad.

Be selective and intentional.

If you provide too many links, it becomes harder for your audience to absorb your message.

To avoid overwhelming your audience, focus on relevant and contextual link placement. Place your affiliate links naturally within your content where they will be genuinely helpful.

Putting too much emphasis on your links can be off-putting and steer visitors away. Nobody likes anything spammy.

If all your content looks like this, then you might want to rethink your link placements:

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Track performance and try new things.

At the end of the day, successful affiliate marketing comes down to maximizing your outputs given your inputs (how much money you’re making from your promotional activities).

This is why analyzing performance metrics like your click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates (CVR), and traffic sources is so important. This data helps you identify which links and strategies are working well, so you can optimize your efforts for better results.

Have fun with it. Try testing out different types of content, calls-to-action, and promotion channels to see what works best.

4. Target high buyer intent keywords.

When someone enters a search query into a search engine, their intent can vary.

Some searches are purely informational, seeking general knowledge or answers to specific questions. These users aren’t actively looking to buy anything.

Other searches are driven by buyer intent. These users are actively looking to buy a specific product. They have a clear purpose and are more likely to convert.

Dorissa says, “Targeting high buyer intent keywords is a crucial strategy that every affiliate marketer should prioritize.”

She continues, “By customizing your content to meet the immediate needs of your audience and offering valuable insights and recommendations that align closely with their search intent, you can effectively capture their attention when they are ready to make a purchasing decision.”

You can attract users who are closer to making a purchase by identifying and targeting keywords with strong buyer intent. For B2B, these keywords usually include specific product names and terms like:

• Best
• Top
• Review
• Rating
• Comparison
• Vs
• Alternatives
• Demo
• Integration / works well with

The key to optimizing your content for high buyer intent searches is understanding who you’re trying to reach.

“Tailoring your content specifically to different customer segments can significantly improve engagement and drive conversions. Through this strategy, you can attract better qualified leads and achieve higher conversion rates, ultimately maximizing your earning potential,” Dorissa says.

The Search Engine Journal outlines just how to execute this strategy with the following tips:

• Use empathy to identify the paint points, needs, and preferences of potential customers.
• Find out which search queries are currently driving traffic to your site and resulting in conversions.
• Investigate the search queries people make within your target market.
• Lean on your sales and customer service teams’ expertise (if you have them).
• Read comments on relevant YouTube videos, online forums, and social media posts to learn more about your target audience’s motivations and challenges.

Once you gain insight into the intent behind search queries and optimize your content accordingly, you’ll be on your way to driving more conversions.

The Power of The Helpful Approach

What is the common theme among all four strategies we discussed?

They put your audience first.

As an affiliate marketer, you must take a value-first approach rather than a sales-first approach. Being helpful by educating, inspiring and building trust with others is a proven recipe for maximizing ROI.

I’ve never been more nervous about writing a job application email than when applying for my first marketing internship. I felt like everyone could tell I had no experience and was utterly desperate for that to change. 

The jitters are normal, and I’ll help make it easier today by showing you exactly how to write an internship email.

Landing your dream internship requires a solid first impression, and your internship application email is the place to make this happen.

First, we‘ll look at 10 internship email examples from ChatGPT, examining what bopped and flopped. Then, I’ll write an email replying to one of the internship opportunities (and you can steal it as a personal template).

Table of Contents

• How to Write an Internship Application Email
• 10 Internship Email Examples From ChatGPT
• Writing My Internship Application Email
• 6 Other Internship Emails To Send

How to Write an Internship Application Email

Potential employers want to see professional, competent communication skills. Here are some best practices to put those qualities on display in your email outreach.

Customize your email to each company.

No one likes to feel like they aren‘t unique enough to warrant a little time and thought. That’s how receiving a copy/pasted internship inquiry email makes potential employers feel.

You must tailor every email to the specific internship position and company you’re applying to. Every email should contain a few basic customizations:

1. Company name
2. Hiring manager’s name (if you have it)
3. Internship opportunity name
4. How did you discover the position

Even if you’re applying to similar internship opportunities, make sure that you customize each email sufficiently.

Use a professional email address.

While this may seem trivial, other students vying for the same internship opportunities use professional email addresses. If you slide into someone’s inbox with “[email protected],” you will be remembered for the wrong reasons.

A professional email address can be your school email account or a variation of [email protected].

Avoid cliché or vague language.

Sometimes creativity is an asset, and sometimes it muddies your message.

For example, to ensure that someone opens your email, you could write an attention-grabbing subject line like “You dropped your wallet!” and immediately pivot into “Now that I have your attention…”

Unless your potential employer is Michael Scott at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, funny subject lines won’t leave the right impression. Also, avoid vague, cliché language like “esteemed organization.”

Make it highly relevant.

“It’s important to tailor your resume and email to address the specific needs in the job posting. Consider what skills and/or majors they are looking for and address them right away,” shared Lauren McGoodwin, author of the career book Power Moves and founder and CEO of Career Contessa.

“Follow the job application process and try to find the hiring manager or recruiter to send your resume and email of interest directly to.”

Lauren explained that there are two ways to reach out about an internship:

1. Warm outreach (responding to a job posting)
2. Cold outreach (internship request/asking for an internship)

“If you’re pitching yourself for a role, you have to do a bit more work to identify a need the company has and your unique ability to help,” she says.

She explains, “For example, you would love to create Instagram Reels, and the company isn’t currently creating that content. Pitch them on being a social media intern focused on Instagram Reels.”

She also says, “Share why this matters to the company, plus examples of your creative work and details of what you can offer (i.e., number of weeks, paid or unpaid, etc).”

Lauren shared that this is precisely how her company, Career Contessa, hired a social media intern in 2020— a perfect cold pitch with examples of how she could design Instagram infographics for the brand.

Mention previous internship experience.

If you had a previous internship, mention this in your outreach email. Having relevant experience isn‘t required, but it can show that you’ve already been vetted and committed with another organization.

Show potential.

“Prior to sending your internship email, really reflect on your top areas of strength and what successes you’ve had in and out of the classroom that showcases skills that could be used in the internship,” shared Brad W. Minton, certified career counselor and founder of Mint To Be Career.

“Too often, students want to write about themselves and the company but don’t adequately connect the dots between the two. It’s important to discuss your value add and connect that to what you know the role would require.”

Mention mutual contacts (if you have any).

Do you know someone who works for the company already? Casually mention this mutual contact – this can feel like an extension of your research on your company.

Here’s an example of how to mention this in your internship email:

“I’ve been aware of [company name] since my fellow [school name] student Cindy Smith interned with your organization last year. She raved about the workplace culture and the learning experience, so I sought out your internship program.”

Make it grammatically perfect.

Nothing will send your email to the trash faster than a typo. More than 50 percent of resumes contain typos, and that‘s a document that’s given a much heavier editing eye than a standard email.

“Proofread the email to ensure it is free from grammatical errors, which can undermine your credibility and attention to detail,” shared LinkedIn and CV expert Winston Macharia.

“Read the email aloud to catch any awkward phrasing or wordy sentences that could distract the reader,” Macharia says. Pretend you are the hiring manager and view your email through their eyes – would you be compelled to offer an interview? If not, put on your editor’s hat and trim and tighten your content.”

Use tools like Grammarly to catch mistakes as you write:

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“Grab a second set of eyes, perhaps a career counselor or trusted friend. Having a proofreader spot-check your email can reveal lapses you may be too close to the content to catch yourself,” Winston added.

10 Internship Email Examples From ChatGPT

I found 10 marketing internship opportunities on LinkedIn, and I will use ChatGPT to write an internship email for each position. Here‘s the internship email prompt that I’m using:

You are a college student seeking a marketing internship to supplement your education with real-world experience. Write an internship application email replying to the following marketing internship position you found on LinkedIn. U

se professional language and show your keen interest in the position and company. Limit the email to about 150 words. [copy/paste information from job listing]

How well can ChatGPT write an internship email? Let‘s look at what worked, what didn’t, and how these can be improved to be worthy of hitting send.

Note: ChatGPT initially wrote over 150 words for these emails. For every example, I re-prompted ChatGPT to shorten the email.

Jump ahead:

• Digital Marketing Study and Internship
• Marketing Intern (Summer 2024)
• Marketing Intern (Regional)
• Digital Marketing Intern
• Content Marketing Intern (Remote)
• Social Media Intern (Steelers)
• Marketing Intern (Cognizant)
• Social Media Intern (IIN)
• Marketing Intern (HireIO)
• Marketing Client Services Intern (Summer 2024)

1. Digital Marketing Study and Internship

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: Reiterating points of the job description and aligning them with career goals.

What didn’t: Too many points start with “I am.” At a glance, it looks like this email is more about the interns’ needs than the internship position itself.

I’d improve the skills more specifically in how they relate to this position.

2. Marketing Intern (Summer 2024)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: Reiterating the internship qualifications and showing that you’ve thoroughly reviewed and met the position requirements.

What didn’t: It didn‘t convert the intern’s skills to this position in a specific or impactful way.

What I’d improve: This email mentions content creation and social media – a broad term. I would dive into the specifics of platforms, types of content, etc., to bring this to life.

3. Marketing Intern (Regional)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: This email expresses genuine interest in the learning opportunity and relates it to the intern’s career goals.

What didn’t: Some words stand out as being over the top; for example, it‘s not natural to say you’re “captivated” by the company’s approach. It feels cheesy.

What I’d improve: I would add a sentence or two about the day-to-day responsibilities of this role to make it less generic and translate your enthusiasm to the specifics of this role.

4. Digital Marketing Intern

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: This internship email reiterates points about the company and the role naturally, making it clear that this isn‘t a generic email you’re sending to everyone.

What didn’t: The first paragraph must address the company‘s needs and how you’d like to contribute to its overall goals.

What I’d improve: This internship position is in the music industry; instead of telling them you’re passionate about music, include nods to favorite artists or trends to show industry understanding.

5. Content Marketing Intern (Remote)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: The intern was highly interested in the position, and understanding the roles and responsibilities was clear.

What didn’t: The company isn’t centered enough in this email. Specifically, the second paragraph is all about the intern, when it needs to be all about how the organization can benefit from this intern.

What I’d improve: Reframe this application to the organization’s specific goals, your experience, and how you can help contribute to those goals.

6. Social Media Intern (Steelers)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: The experience referenced here is thorough and speaks well to the internship position, even though the position was extensive.

What didn’t: Too many sentences start with “I,” and enthusiasm (or even a basic understanding of football) doesn’t come through in this email.

What I’d improve: Don‘t just say that you’re sincerely interested in this football position; show it with specific references to the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

This is the perfect place to mention a hobby, personal blog, or extracurricular activities related to this organization’s audience.

7. Marketing Intern (Cognizant)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: This internship position listed particular requirements, and this email shows that you read these thoroughly and are qualified.

The second paragraph also speaks directly to the company’s markets and makes this email feel well-researched.

What didn’t: The second sentence in the first paragraph is confusing – the introduction doesn‘t have anything to do with the second half of the sentence.

“As a dedicated college student…” and “Cognizant’s commitment inspires me…” aren’t related and can give the impression of poor writing skills.

What I’d improve: Make sure that no part of your email is filled with fluff, clichés, or empty platitudes. Pull the sentiments about being a dedicated student and the company’s mission into two unique sentences and complete the thoughts.

8. Social Media Intern (IIN)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: Social media marketing is a role with a lot of independent work, and the final paragraph of this email leaves the impression of a very confident and keen student who’s excited to dive in and deliver.

What didn’t: The phrases “social video content” and “aesthetic imagery” are vague and leave the reader with many follow-up questions.

What I’d improve: I would get particular with your examples when you’re referencing your experience and include links to your portfolio with examples of your work so that your skills can be demonstrated.

9. Marketing Intern (HireIO)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: Creativity is an essential marketing skill, so mentioning soft skills such as a “creative mindset” is a positive signal for the marketing manager.

What didn’t: This email communicates apparent enthusiasm for the role‘s responsibilities, but it sounds like it’s just listing the entire job description.

What I’d improve: It‘s good to mention the broad responsibilities of the role but get specific about what you’re genuinely most interested in to make it feel more authentic and action-oriented.

What project would you pick first if you were to start working there today?

10. Marketing Client Services Intern (Summer 2024)

See the position on LinkedIn.

What worked: The specific details about the company, clients, and internship role make this email feel thoroughly researched.

What didn’t: This email references why the intern would be excited to work with big brands, but it should also express why brands would be excited to work with the intern.

Interns are typically young and from a different generation than most of the workforce, and that’s an asset to the marketing team.

What I’d improve: Youth can be indirectly leveraged with nods to understanding social media platforms and trends that the rest of the marketing team might not be in touch with. Point out opportunities that you see that others may not.

Writing My Internship Application Email

Here’s how these tips look in action. See below for a checklist to use when you write.

Important reminder: if you’re applying for a specific internship position listed online, follow the application process strictly. Failure to attach your internship resume, cover letter, or share essential details will be costly.

Subject line: Marketing Internship Application

Email body: Hello Nadine,

My name is Kayla Schilthuis-Ihrig.

I’m a public relations major at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and like to apply for the marketing internship position at Awesome Marketing Agency.

Your organization is known for its creative ad campaigns, memorable content marketing, and quality workplace culture, so I am interested in your internship position.

Your last holiday TikTok campaign was so engaging that we analyzed it in one of my classes.

As a final-year public relations student, I’ve been closely studying the digital media landscape and developing content creation skills.

Some of my previous projects have included developing public awareness campaigns for a similar company. An example of that campaign is linked below:

• Portfolio of work [hyperlinked]

Inside that Google Drive folder, you’ll also find my resume and cover letter.

While my professional hands-on experience is limited, I‘ve worked extensively on projects overseen by professors and have references that speak to the valuable contribution I can make to your organization.

After three years of developing skills and gathering academic knowledge, I’m incredibly enthusiastic to learn on my feet, create content, monitor the success of projects, and continually improve to see campaigns reach their potential.

I would be honored to be considered for the opportunity to work with Awesome Marketing Agency.

Are you still vetting candidates for your marketing internship?

I’m reachable anytime by email ([email protected]) and phone (123-456-7890).

Thank you, Nadine!

Best regards,

Kayla

Email footer: Kayla Schilthuis-Ihrig
Journalism major
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
[email protected]
123-456-7890
Let’s connect on LinkedIn

Internship Email Template

Ready to write your email? Use this as your internship email template:

1. Subject line: Quickly identify your email as an application and state which position it’s for.
2. Recipient’s name: Personalize all internship emails with a specific person’s name if you have it, this sounds better than “dear hiring manager.”
3. Company name: Always mention the company‘s name right away to show that this isn’t a duplicate copy-paste email that you send to everyone.
4. Who you are: Your name, what you’re studying and where.
5. Intention: Why are you emailing them? People‘s inboxes are overflowing with messages; don’t beat around the bush.
6. Differentiators: What do you like about the company? Be specific: creativity, reputation for excellence, workplace culture, etc.
7. Specifics: Reference to the specific internship position and why you think it would be a good fit with your specific skills.
8. Your potential: What value will you add to their organization? Mention your relevant skills and experiences and how they can benefit.
9. Question: Ask a question to prompt a response from them.
10. Pleasantries: While many people include pleasantries at the beginning of their email, you can start your email directly and include these at the end.
11. Contact details: Include your email address and phone number to make follow-up contact easy.
12. Professional footer: Add your full name, school, major and LinkedIn profile to your email footer to have a polished, professional look.

How long should an internship email be? There‘s no hard word count limit for your internship email, but effective, succinct communication shows good soft skill skills and respect for the recipient’s time.

6 Other Internship Emails To Send

From writing an internship follow-up email to an internship request, there are multiple other types of internship emails that you might need to write during the hiring process.

Use these tips to help you communicate effectively while writing all of your internship emails.

Jump ahead:

• Internship Request Email
• No Response Follow-Up Email
• Interview Confirmation Email
• Interview Opportunity Thank-You Email
• Internship Offer Response
• Internship Opportunity Thank-You Email

1. Internship Request Email

The ChatGPT internship email examples above were all written in response to a job listing, but what about when you want to cold pitch yourself to intern with an organization? Here’s how to cold email for an internship opportunity:

• Define the internship role that you’d like (ex: content marketing intern).
• Set basic parameters, like how many hours a week you’re available.
• List some specifics of the job description that you’d like to deliver and your relevant skills.
• Offer examples of your work.

As you’re writing your internship request email, remember to make it about them and not about you. An internship is a job, and organizations need to understand how they’ll benefit from hiring you.

2. No Response Follow-Up Email

If you don’t get a response to your internship application, send a follow-up internship email after about a week.

Don‘t worry – you’re not bothering people when you follow up. Most companies get a lot of internship applications for each role, and your follow-up emails express continued interest.

Be very polite and keep your message short. In your follow-up email, you can:

• Inquire if they still have available internship positions.
• Ask if there’s someone better to speak to about the internship.
• Inquire if there’s a better contact method, like a phone call.

Make sure that you reply to your previous email instead of sending a new one so that the recipient has all of the information about your inquiry without having to dig through their inbox.

3. Interview Confirmation Email

The moment has come, you’ve been invited to interview for an internship opportunity! Once they provide the details of your interview, send a brief follow-up email that checks these boxes:

• Thank them for the opportunity.
• Repeat the time and place (“I look forward to speaking Friday, March 3rd at 1 p.m. at your downtown office”).
• Let them know what you‘ll bring (portfolio, references, etc.) and request that they let you know if there’s anything additional that you can provide.

This is a step that a lot of interns will skip, and it shows great communication skills to send a follow-up email.

4. Interview Opportunity Thank-You Email

It’s important to send a thank-you email after every interview that you have in your career.

You can write a foundation of this email before your internship interview, but be sure to mention specifics from your conversation to show good listening skills.

Easy tip: Send this email from your car or the bus immediately after you leave your interview. Sending a detailed thank-you email so quickly will offer a very positive impression of your organization skills!

5. Internship Offer Response

When you get the lucky email that you‘ve been offered an internship position, it’s time to write a professional confirmation email. In this email, you should:

• Express your gratitude and enthusiasm.
• Accept the position.
• Confirm any requests that they had. For example, if they asked you to fill out your tax paperwork within a week, confirm that you will do so by the deadline.
• Ask any questions that you have.

6. Internship Opportunity Thank-You Email

You should send a thank-you email to every single person that you got to know during your internship. The emails will fall into one of three categories:

1. “Let’s keep in touch.” Send this email to everyone that you worked with and follow up by connecting with them on LinkedIn.
2. “I may reach out in the future.” Anyone at your internship who tells you “If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out!” should be sent a special thank-you email. Let them know that you appreciate them telling you this, and you may reach out in the future to take them up on this offer.
3. “Can you recommend me on LinkedIn?” Anyone who you directly reported to is a great person to recommend you on LinkedIn.

Email #2 is exactly how I landed my corporate job when I was 23.

I started a spreadsheet where I recorded everyone who made me a blanket “let me know if you ever need anything!” offer, along with their contact information and a few details about our work together.

One man named Bob made this offer to me, and two years after our work together, I saw that his company was hiring new marketing staff. I reached out to him and asked if he had any insights on applying to the company.

He replied, “I’ve just called the hiring manager and told her to make sure she offers you an interview.”

After two interviews I was offered the job, and my manager said that she only offered me an interview because of this email from Bob. Never pass up someone’s offer to keep in touch and lend a helping hand.

Conclusion: Sending Your Application

Whether you‘re applying for available internship positions or you’re drafting an internship request, ChatGPT can make your job easier.

… but it can’t automate the WHOLE email writing process.

Don’t leave your internship inquiry entirely email up to AI. Let ChatGPT reiterate the needs of the role and company, and then bring it to life with specifics about your skills, experience, and passion. Who knows where it will take you.

The promise of inbound marketing is a lure that attracts businesses of all kinds, but many don’t understand the effort it takes to be successful.

After a few blog posts, many people flame out and grumble, “We tried content marketing, but it didn’t work for us.” As a content marketer, I see the same content marketing mistakes made across all platforms and industries. After reading, you’ll start noticing these mistakes, too.

There’s an epidemic of half-hearted content marketing out there that’s giving the whole inbound philosophy a bad name. While the content you see online may look effortless and natural, there’s more strategy, experimentation, and skill behind high-quality content.

From identifying your target audience to executing the perfect content marketing strategy, there are 11 common mistakes that digital marketers see again and again.

Table of Contents

• Content Marketing Mindset

• 11 Common Content Marketing Mistakes

• Invest In Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content Marketing Mindset

Content marketing is not new. The ideas have been around for decades. At this point, no business professional is unfamiliar with a blog, search engine traffic, or social media.

The problem, it seems to me, is that too many people have misunderstood the true purpose of content marketing — and so have missed the mark in their past efforts.

Go to most companies’ blogs, and you’ll often find fluffy, self-serving content: Pictures from their clean-up day at the local park, press release-style articles about promotions, and employee-of-the-month winners.

Or, it’s filled with content that feels derivative and identical to a thousand other articles on the internet.

It is no surprise to me that this kind of content has failed to bring in customers.

Unremarkable effort, unremarkable results.

With most things in life, your results match your efforts. As the saying goes, “You get out of it what you put into it.” Same thing here.

When companies tell me about their forays into content marketing in the past, I’m not surprised it didn’t work for them.

“We tried a content strategy…”

If you’re one of those businesses that “tried” content marketing, only to see sub-par results, something missed the mark:

• Your content.
• Your understanding of how to use the different social media channels.
• Your expectations.

This happens for a few all too common reasons, and I’ll share the specific marketing mistakes to avoid in a moment.

“… But it didn’t work for us.”

There’s something to unpack here, too. What do you mean it didn’t work for you? How did you plan on measuring success?

Any marketing initiative needs to be measured to be evaluated, and those measurements need context to have meaning. It’s possible you need to unlearn what you think you know about inbound marketing.

11 Common Content Marketing Mistakes

Is your online content marketing strategy destined to fail? Check to see if you’re making any of these common content marketing mistakes.

1. Focusing on the wrong metrics.

The inbound funnel is a compelling idea: If you get enough traffic to your site, a percentage of that traffic will turn into leads, and a percentage of those leads will turn into sales.

So, people mistakenly assume more traffic will equal more sales. This is not necessarily correct.

While organic traffic is important, it can also be a vanity metric that distracts you from the most important business goals.

Imagine this content scenario:

• Article A gets 10,000 views each month and brings in 10 customers.
• Article B gets 2,000 views each month and brings in 20 customers.
• Article C gets 500 views per month and brings in 50 customers.

Too often, companies chase Article A, putting their effort into high-trafficked content that doesn’t end up converting visitors into customers. A successful content marketing strategy is based on understanding the hierarchy of metrics.

This leads us to our second mistake.

2. Not getting sales involved.

The inbound approach is not just a marketing one. In fact, if you limit it to just marketing, you undercut your content marketing results. Inbound is as much about sales as it is about marketing.

If you don’t get your sales team involved with your content marketing, you’re more likely to produce a library of Article A–type content. Marketers love to brag about reach, and what’s more encouraging than thousands of site visitors?

The sales team will bring your marketing team back down to earth. Because your sales reps hear from actual customers each day, they know the questions your prospects are asking. They know why Article C is the better investment of your team’s time.

Generating your content marketing strategy with input from both the marketing and sales teams will help you avoid the next mistake.

3. Making irrelevant content.

If you can’t draw a clear line between the content you create and one of your paid products, then your content marketing efforts will be wasted. Or, at a minimum, they won’t reach their potential.

After analyzing hundreds of blog posts from brands, I’ve observed that many businesses treat their website content like a parking garage for random content ideas:

• Miscellaneous business updates that aren’t important to viewers.
• Bragging about company culture or philanthropic work.
• Random promotional content and sale announcements.

When you’re creating content, every single piece of content needs to lead directly back to:

1. Email opt-ins and free products.
2. Industry thought leadership.
3. Products and services.
4. Lead generation.

Here’s an example from my website. In my digital shop, I sell a search engine optimization (SEO) checklist for the software Keysearch. So, I wrote a blog post that’s a beginner’s guide to Keysearch:

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One of these content types is often overlooked, so let’s zoom in on point two on that list: thought leadership.

4. Overlooking thought leadership.

“Content marketing is not just about generating short-term sales, important as those are. It is also an opportunity for you to establish your brand as a thought leader in your space,” said Sally Percy, an author and business journalist who writes thought leadership content on behalf of executives and senior leaders.

Percy elaborated that thought leadership comes when you share insights, data, and expert analysis that give your customers a fresh perspective on pertinent issues and challenges they may be facing, as well as useful strategies that they can apply in practice.

“Establishing your brand as a thought leader through content marketing is critical to building trust with your customer base,” shared Percy.

Here’s an example of Percy’s thought leadership content marketing that promotes her book, 21st Century Business Icons:

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5. Always playing it safe.

Content marketing is about educating your customers, building trust, and being transparent so that your potential buyers can access the information they need to become customers.

You have to offer honesty instead of a sales pitch, which means you need to sometimes address thorny subjects and answer hard questions.

Hiding things like the prices or drawbacks of your product will make it impossible for customers to have total clarity before purchasing. Your target audience is asking these questions, so it’s productive to create content with the answers.

Good content marketing helps viewers self-select if your product can help them, which means content that helps people opt in and opt out of your offer.

6. Prioritizing quantity over quality content.

“Many people prioritize the sheer volume of content produced rather than focusing on creating high-quality, valuable content,” shared Yogesh Kumar, a digital marketing manager.

While publishing heaps of content may feel productive, Kumar warned that creating low-quality content can harm a brand’s reputation.

“Focusing on generating a large quantity of articles, blog posts, social media updates, videos, or other forms of content won’t work. In place of large quantity, you should focus on quality and ensure that each content piece meets a certain standard of excellence,” Kumar advises. 

Creating exceptional content is easier for companies to achieve when there’s clear ownership of the content marketing efforts.

7. No clear ownership.

If content marketing is something that gets tacked onto other responsibilities, it’s going to fall by the wayside. A dedicated content marketer needs to be leading the charge to create content that’s going to get results.

It’s unrealistic and unfair to ask someone who already has a full-time job to also produce and implement a full content marketing strategy. That in itself is a full-time job, and it’s a mistake to see it as an “add-on” to an existing role.

I know that people power is stretched thin, and there are some common ways to save time, such as publishing user-generated content, but all of the shortcuts in the world can’t compete with an actual content marketer.

That being said, make sure that you hire thoughtfully. This leads us to the next content marketing mistake.

8. Outsourcing mistakes.

The reason I’ve seen many content marketing initiatives fail is that businesses hire ill-prepared agencies or freelancers to do it for them. This sounds like a good idea at first, but the help you hire needs to deeply understand your brand.

Otherwise, they’ll produce the same bland, derivative content that sounds like everyone else in your industry — but it doesn’t sound like you. Or, even worse: You hire the cheapest freelancer to produce content for platforms that they aren’t actually specialized in. This is a content marketing mistake I’ve seen many, many times.

As a Pinterest marketer, I’ve personally seen countless accounts get suspended or flagged as spam because of outsourcing mistakes. Pinterest isn’t a social media platform, as many people assume; it’s a search engine, and it has special needs.

I’ve received emails from many desperate brand owners asking me to help resuscitate their accounts after they’ve assigned their Pinterest account to a virtual assistant or general marketing staff member. The mistakes are very predictable: Newbies immediately start keyword stuffing (adding too many keywords to be natural) and repeatedly publishing pins for the same URL. These accounts are quickly flagged as spam.

These content marketing mistakes can be avoided by hiring specialized help or investing in your team’s education.

9. No content framework.

Without a plan, your content strategy probably isn’t going to get very far. A good content marketing framework gives you:

1. Goals.
2. Structure.
3. Benchmarks.

Without it, you’ve got guesswork and inconsistency — which can quickly lead to frustration. Learn how to build a content creation framework in HubSpot Academy.

10. Focusing solely on short-term content.

One of the biggest content marketing mistakes that I see with content creation is brands only focusing on short-term content. What’s the difference between short-term and long-term content?

• Short-term content is distributed based on when it was posted (think: your Instagram feed).
• Long-term content is distributed based on search terms (think: your Google search results).

Some content falls into both of these categories. For example, TikTok has a “for you” page where you’re shown content that the algorithm thinks you’ll enjoy. However, the search function of TikTok works as a search engine. Other types of search-based content include:

• YouTube videos.
• Pinterest pins.
• Blog posts.

Research has shown that 93% of all online user experiences begin with a search. Content marketers who ignore searchable content are leaving a lot of money on the table.

The type of searchable content with the longest lifespan is a blog post. The goal is to write a blog post that shows up in search engine results pages (SERPs, AKA the first page of Google).

Only blog posts that are optimized will be widely circulated by search engines, so there’s a learning curve when learning how to write a blog post. Thankfully, well-written articles can be updated and displayed by search engines for years.

Since a blog post has an extremely long lifespan, it’s okay if this content takes longer to create.

Only creating content that lives for a few hours or a day on viewers’ newsfeeds makes content marketing feel like a hamster wheel.

11. Unrealistic expectations.

This final content marketing mistake is the most fatal. Even if you do everything else correctly, your content strategy will fail if you don’t give it enough time to take root. The time investment is significant, even for professional content creators.

“Over the last four years, The Mindful Mocktail has grown to more than 300K followers on Instagram and 122K on TikTok. I’m closing in on 20K email subscribers, and I had almost 2 million visitors to my website last year, but it took me almost four years to get here,” said recipe creator Natalie Battaglia.

She admits that for the first two years, she wasn’t making anywhere near a full-time wage, and only in the last 12 months has she been able to sit back a little and watch all the hard work from her first three years come to fruition. 

“In my experience, there is no such thing as quick or overnight success if you want to build a long-term, sustainable business,” Battaglia shared.

Invest in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Ready to increase brand awareness, reach more potential customers, and maximize your content marketing efforts? Here’s a blueprint for your content strategy:

1. Define your target audience.
2. Choose your marketing channels.
3. Start posting content.
4. Measure progress.
5. Review the analytics.
6. Double down on what’s getting results.
7. Continue creating the most compelling content that you can.

Learn more in our Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.

The Promise of Content Marketing

Which content marketing mistake surprised you the most? These are the biggest mistakes that I see brands making with their content marketing. Pay attention the next time you open a promotional email or scroll on social media, and I bet you’ll start to see these mistakes out in the wild, too.

Brands get started in content marketing for a variety of reasons, but in most cases, the goal is to drive revenue. Brand recognition is great, but it needs to translate into sales at the other end of the funnel.

In order to get content marketing right, we need to re-acquaint ourselves with the real objectives that matter, train our employees for excellence — and be ready for a long-term commitment.

I’m a content writer by night and a Head of Partnerships by day, and in my world, being productive is everything.

No scheduling or a lack of project management leads to overdue articles, failed partnership opportunities, high pressure, and stress. We’ve all been there, recovering from zero productivity.

Productivity systems help develop a sustainable work-life balance and prepare for working sprints when needed.

In this post, I’m sharing the seven best productivity systems that have become part of my routine, turning the daily grind into an efficient workday. You’ll find their pros and cons and different use cases.

 

What are productivity systems?

Productivity systems are methods and tools that assist you in getting things done efficiently. They don’t do the work for you, but they help you organize and prioritize tasks and your well-being, resulting in more productivity at a given time.

For instance, productivity systems help you with:

• Breaking down projects into smaller, manageable steps.
• Focusing and avoiding distractions.
• Goal setting.
• Organization and workflow.

Let’s explore the seven productivity systems I use and how they help me.

7 Productivity Systems to Simplify Your Workflow

1. The Pomodoro Technique

I’m simply in love with this method for supercharging my productivity when I struggle to pull myself together and get things done. It instantly activates my focus mode, and I become so in the zone that nothing can distract me.

How does it work?

The Pomodoro Technique breaks your work into short, focused intervals (typically 25 minutes) followed by breaks. It helps you stay sharp and motivated because 25-minute chunks are easily digestible by your brain.

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Also, seeing a timer counting down in your toolbar reinforces your willingness to complete a task during this time. It’s like your inner voice says, “Com’on, man, you can work for 25 minutes without scrolling your Instagram.”

I use the Marinara: Pomodoro Assistant Chrome extension to make the Pomodoro technique easily accessible. 30-minute timers with a 5-minute rest — that’s my rule.

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But often, I don’t take breaks and simply continue working on my task until it’s done. And when the timer rings, I set another one to stay focused.

I also use Pomodoro for time-tracking when I work on a specific task to understand my workload and time spent on task X.

It aids immensely in proper time estimation and project management.

Pros:

• Helps you focus when it’s hard to start working.
• Reduces procrastination.
• Less back pain and fatigue.
• Better planning for weeks and quarters.
• More accountability for tasks.
• Fewer distractions — better time management.
• Consistent motivation throughout tasks.

Cons:

• None. I’ve been using this method for ages, and it’s always helpful.

Best for: Anyone who wants to manage time better and get more done in less time.

My Verdict

At first, it was hard for me to accept the breaks. I was feeling like I was wasting time during those periods. But then I realized their power — those breaks literally recharge me.

2. Bullet Journaling

A bullet journal, or so-called BuJo, is like an advanced diary that includes writing and drawing. It’s organized with sections for daily tasks, calendars, notes, health tracking, and goal setting.

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I’ve recently stumbled upon great research exploring how bullet journaling impacts creativity and productivity. The conclusion is that it doesn’t just help with staying organized but also with reflecting on what’s really important.

I also love the piece by a teacher who shared how bullet journaling helped her overcome perfectionism. So, if you’re chasing that elusive perfection, take a read. 🙂

From time to time, I use bullet journaling for planning my days, understanding how packed I am, and carving out time for things I love to do apart from my job. It’s also helped me understand how many projects I can take on.

For example, I draft my schedule in a super old-fashioned way in my paper notebook. So, my bullet journaling usually goes like this:

7:30 — wake up
8:00 — yoga
10:00 — offer an outline for client X
11:00 — interview experts for HubSpot’s article
13:00 — lunch break
14:00 — work for a charitable fund
17:30 — meeting

If you’re not into old-school productivity methods, you can check out digital alternatives like Notion, Trello, Evernote, or Miro.

In my opinion, Miro is the coolest option because it reminds you of a regular notebook. It allows you to easily move items and fosters creativity.

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Pros:

• Helps with customizable organization.
• Assists in boosting creativity and aids prioritization.
• Provides centralized task management.
• Facilitates self-reflection.

Cons:

• Time-intensive upkeep.
• Risk of inconsistency.

Best for: Creatives, visual thinkers, and individuals seeking personalized organization.

My Verdict

Bullet journaling is a practice many of us have instinctively done at some point in our lives. Let’s say for planning trips, shopping, workout routines, or similar activities.

The trick is learning to do it more systematically. Sometimes, I rely completely on it. Other times, I use bullet journaling just as a scratchpad when transferring information from paper to my project management apps.

3. Calendar Blocking

The major issue people often face with their schedule is constantly switching between tasks. Calendar blocking is a time management method where you allocate specific time slots on your calendar for different tasks.

For instance, my workday before calendar blocking could look like this: I start writing an article. Then, after half an hour, I jump into a meeting. Next, I move to my emails. Finally, I get back to the article. Not effective at all.

Todoist’s graphic perfectly explains my point:

For time blocking, I use Google Calendar and block time for specific tasks. Each task gets its own focused time slot. Doctor appointments, yoga, and reading also go to my calendar.

The result? I get more done faster.

Here are some tips for successful calendar blocking:

• Divide your day into chunks for specific tasks.
• Be realistic about how long tasks will take; overestimate if unsure.
• Schedule breaks to avoid burnout; don’t overbook free time.
• Adjust plans if needed due to unexpected events.
• Review and follow your planned tasks regularly.
• Consider using apps like Todoist and Google Calendar for better organization.

Pros:

• Improved time management.
• Enhanced focus.
• Reduced task switching.
• Clearer prioritization.
• Better work-life balance.

Cons:

• Difficulty in adapting to changes.
• Potential for under-/overestimating task duration.

Best for: Anyone with multiple tasks and commitments to organize.

My Verdict

Calendar blocking organizes your working and free time and allows you not to get lost in multiple tasks at the same time. The biggest challenge could be sitting down on Sunday night or every Monday morning and preparing everything up front.

But it’s definitely worth it.

4. Eat the Frog

“If you have to eat a live frog, do it first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.” – Mark Twain

This quote explains what the Eat the Frog technique is all about. Do the hardest thing first, and everything else later will seem easier.

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Last year’s study found that using this method improves soft skills and helps combat procrastination, leading to long-term benefits for career and life.

I totally agree with that and implement the Eat the Frog method almost every day.

Here’s how I do it:

1. I pick my frog first — the most important but not urgent task. I go with the one that needs a lot of brainpower.
2. I usually select a task I can finish in 1 to 4 hours max.
3. I split big tasks into smaller steps.
4. I always focus on today’s tasks, not far-off ones.
5. And finally, I begin my day by tackling my frog task first.

Pros:

• Get tough tasks done first.
• Feel less stressed.
• Manage time better.
• Build good habits.

Cons:

• Starting with the hardest task may lead to fatigue.
• It could lead to overlooking time-sensitive matters.

Best for: Anyone who prefers to deal with challenges upfront rather than procrastinate or for anyone struggling with procrastination when it comes to difficult tasks.

My Verdict

When I’ve got those tough tasks to chew (the ones that need tons of focus, numbers, and research), I make them my top priority in the morning. Once I’ve tackled that, I can relax with a cup of coffee, catch up on emails, and move on to one more task.

I tried doing it the other way around, but I just couldn’t focus on anything else while knowing I had that big task waiting. So, for me, the “Eat the Frog” technique is the only way to go.

5. Project Management Practices

When I started freelancing, managing one or two projects without tracking wasn’t too hard. But as my workload grew, it became impossible.

Today, I can’t imagine my work routine without project management tools — Monday and Asana are my productivity lifelines.

They help me break tasks down, set deadlines, track progress, coordinate with my team, and deliver results.

I use Monday to plan and prioritize my weekly tasks for a charitable fund’s work in a simplified Kanban visualization with “Backlog,” “In progress,” and “Done” tabs.

What I like: Monday takes care of the project management essentials like subtasks, flexible statuses, owners and assignees, API integrations, etc.

As for Asana, I mostly use it for client writing and SEO projects. It’s so simple to get and assign tasks, track project progress, and communicate with others through the platform.

Pros:

• Centralize project information for easy access.
• Facilitate team communication and idea sharing.
• Help you break projects into manageable tasks.
• Keep your team focused and productive.
• Provide real-time data on project progress.
• Automate tasks for streamlined workflows.

Cons:

• I see nothing but benefits to using project management software. Learning how to use it might take time, but once you do, it becomes super easy.

Best for: Individuals, teams, and projects of all sizes. You can use it for small tasks or large-scale initiatives.

My Verdict

Although I like using my notebook for bullet journaling, PM tools help keep my work under control with notifications, reminders, repeated tasks, etc.

6. The Eisenhower Decision Matrix

“I have two kinds of problems — the urgent and important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix categorizes tasks by importance and urgency. I use it to decide what to focus on, delegate, or discard.

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You should consider using the Eisenhower Matrix if you’re often busy but feel your work lacks impact, struggle with time for long-term goals, or find it hard to delegate or say “no” (been there, done that).

I recently watched a YouTube video by Naomi from Todoist, where she shared insightful tips on the Eisenhower Matrix:

[Video: Beginner’s Guide to the Eisenhower Matrix]

Here’s how she explains each of these four categories:

1. Quadrant 1 — important tasks needing urgent attention.
2. Quadrant 2 — important tasks for long-term goals.
3. Quadrant 3 — urgent tasks that aren’t very important, often just busy work.
4. Quadrant 4 — tasks neither urgent nor important, providing instant but no lasting satisfaction.

And here’s how I apply this approach in my day-to-day work:

1. Quadrant 1. I prioritize meeting tight deadlines for articles.
2. Quadrant 2. I dedicate time to improving my writing and research skills for long-term progress.
3. Quadrant 3. Sometimes, if I’m too busy, I let a reliable person handle expert interviews for me.
4. Quadrant 4. I try to avoid spending too much time on social media to stay focused.

Pros:

• Clear prioritization.
• Effective time management.
• Long-term goal alignment.
• Better delegation.
• Reduced stress.
• Improved decision-making.

Cons:

• At first, it might be tough to decide which tasks are more important with a bigger impact but less urgency. After several practices, one gets used to the system and harvests tangible benefits.

Best for: Organizing obligations; particularly helpful for anyone who struggles with task prioritization, time management, or decision-making.

My Verdict

The sense of urgency posed the greatest challenge during my digital marketing career. It felt like every task demanded immediate attention. My default mode was “ASAP” for everything until I learned to categorize priorities and discern non-priority tasks.

That’s what I learned thanks to The Eisenhower Decision Matrix, and, in my opinion, it’s one of the best productivity systems out there.

7. Kanban and Scrum Methods

To be super productive during a workweek, I combine simplified Scrum and Kanban methodologies.

Scrum: You work in short bursts called sprints (usually one to four weeks long). In each sprint, you set goals and decide what tasks to tackle. Then, you have quick meetings called stand-ups to check progress and adjust your work plan as needed.

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Kanban: There are no sprints in Kanban. Instead, imagine your tasks on a board with columns labeled “Backlog,” “Doing,” “Review,” and “Done.”

As you work, you shift tasks between columns. It helps you visualize your workflow, limit work in progress, and focus on completing tasks one by one.

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Here’s how I do it:

Every Monday, I review my Backlog with ideas and tasks that have appeared randomly throughout the previous week, assign priorities and due dates, create subtasks, etc.

Every Friday, I look at my board in the PM tool Monday, a task manager, and analyze why I’m off schedule for some tasks and how to address the cause.

This helps me to be agile, complete as many tasks as fit within a work week (realistically), and spot bottlenecks or roadblocks.

Pros:

• Helps visualize workflows easily.
• Limits multitasking and improves focus.
• Encourages ongoing process improvement.
• Organizes projects effectively with clear goals.
• Fosters regular team communication and collaboration.
• Facilitates adaptation to changing project needs.

Cons:

• A lack of defined deadlines may lead to delays.
• Rigidity in sprint timelines (Scrum) may cause stress.

Best for: Environments that value flexibility and adaptability over strict timelines.

📍Note: Implementing the two systems at a time is called Scrumban.

My Verdict

Combining these two methods helps me visualize what I have to do in the Kanban board, while the Scrum sprints help me to make lots of progress on particular projects. I like the balance the two systems bring to my work, which is largely independent and remote.

What’s the best productivity system?

Although every productivity system has its merits, my personal favorites are:

• The Pomodoro Technique for keeping me focused with 30-minute working sprints and 5-minute breaks.
• The Eisenhower Decision Matrix for simple organization of urgent and important tasks.
• Scrumban for regular progress check-ups.

No matter which system you choose, the only thing that matters is that it truly helps improve your productivity. I combine three of them on a daily basis, and I think that’s the best approach for completing the jobs to be done, ideating new projects, and tracking my team’s progress.

Try a few, see what fits and what doesn’t, and ultimately, you’ll find your best solution to avoid mental blocks, demotivation, and burnout.

 

I once signed up for an event and totally forgot about it in an hour. But when I opened my inbox later in the day, I found a shiny email confirming my registration for the event.

This confirmation email reminded me about the event with all the necessary context. It also gave me the option to add the webinar to my calendar — so that I wouldn’t forget it again.

It linked the speakers’ social profiles to connect with them beforehand.

Win, win, and win!

That’s just a small glimpse of the impact confirmation emails can create for you.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, I’ve curated a list of 13 awesome confirmation email examples with a few best practices to help you get started.

We’ll cover:

• 13 Best Confirmation Email Examples to Emulate
• How to Write a Confirmation Email: An Actionable Playbook
• Your Appointment is Confirmed

13 Best Confirmation Email Examples to Emulate

Let’s break down some of the best confirmation email examples to give you some awesome inspiration for creating your own. I’ve sourced different types of confirmation emails and will highlight what I liked in each one.

1. B2B Bite

This subscription confirmation email for Jason Bradwell’s newsletter is one of the best I’ve ever read. Bradwell is a B2B marketer specializing in podcast marketing for SaaS brands.

With this welcome email, he gives you a warm welcome into his newsletter, B2B Bite, and sets the stage for future editions.

The email expresses gratitude for subscribing. And it also gives you the option to unsubscribe without any hard feelings!

What I like: This email maintains a warm and positive tone all throughout. It invites people to follow Bradwell on other platforms and spread the word about his newsletter — all without sounding pushy or promotional.

More importantly, the email gives you a record of which ID you signed up with, the source, and everything you submitted while subscribing.

2. Superside

I found this awesome registration confirmation email from Superside for one of their webinars. Unlike the usual registration emails, this example has lots of color, visuals, and appeal to it.

The cover image gives you all the crucial details about the event upfront. And the body text shares more helpful insights for attendees.

What I like: The email shares detailed instructions to make it super convenient for folks to join the webinar. From completing the next steps to adding the event to your calendar, you have everything in one place.

Plus, the message ends with a gentle nudge to invite others to the show and connect with the speaker (Tracey Wallace) on Twitter. A perfect, polite way for them to grow awareness without being pushy.

3. The Saturday Solopreneur

When I subscribed to Justin Welsh’s newsletter, I expected a standard confirmation email like most other creators. But this email stood out in my inbox because Welsh shares such a wonderful note to welcome new subscribers.

Welsh is a content creator and business consultant for solopreneurs. With this email, he shares a perfect message to learn more about him and what you can expect from the newsletter.

What I like: The first thing I noticed was how neatly formatted and scannable this email looks.

Besides the core message, I love that the email also invites you to share a few things about yourself — making it a two-way conversation. The best part: The message sets clear expectations for future editions of this newsletter.

4. Demostack

Demostack’s email confirming my registration for their Demo HQ Day event is another great example to emulate. It has a minimal design with hardly any text.

That way, you can quickly note the event details and join the webinar with a single click.

What I like: This is a great example of a confirmation email if you’re a sucker for minimal design. The email isn’t overloaded with text but shares only one guideline for attendees.

It also includes the event’s cover image to create brand recall in case people come across more posts on social media.

Plus, there’s an option to quickly add the event to your calendar on Google, Outlook, or Yahoo.

5. Thriving Virtual Bookkeeper Blueprint

Another confirmation email example comes from Thriving Virtual Bookkeeper Blueprint. This is a text-only email sent to confirm participation in a webinar.

It re-iterates the purpose of the webinar and shares specifics about where and when it’ll happen. Shoutout to Ayman Nazish from Analyzify for contributing this example!

 

What I like: Not every marketer has the design skills to create beautiful emails. This example works best if you don’t have the skills, resources, or time to design a fancy confirmation email. Simply follow this structure:

• Welcome invite.
• Confirm registration.
• Name and purpose of the event.
• Time and link/venue to attend.

6. Notion

I received another email confirming my registration for a meet-and-greet event hosted by Notion’s Bangalore chapter. This email had all the necessary details about the event and shared a few guidelines for those attending.

The message also included a form for participants to provide some information to the event organizers — so you know they’ll personalize the experience for you.

What I like: One of the best things about this confirmation email was how scannable it looks. It uses emojis and text highlights to make the message quickly readable.

The email also gives you a couple of guidelines without making it overwhelming for attendees.

What I particularly liked about this email was the element of surprise. The Notion team kept the venue a surprise and only revealed the location in this confirmation email. So, attendees had to open the email to know where to go — clever!

7. Wild Alaskan Company

Most order confirmation emails are purely transactional, with details about the items you’ve shopped for.

But this email from Wild Alaskan Company is an impressive example of how you can build a strong rapport with customers from the start.

It’s a personal note from the brand’s founder where he shares anecdotes from his own life that led to the creation of this brand. It also includes key details about the subscription with links to learn more about the company.

Shoutout to Corina from ZeroBounce for contributing this example!

What I like: The warm and personal tone of this message makes the email unique and memorable. Unlike other order confirmation emails, this one tells you a story — along with other order details — to get customers pumped about starting a subscription.

8. Whale

If you want to make your registration confirmation emails a part of Gmail’s native interface, then this email from Whale is an excellent example.

The team creatively used the “add a note” feature in Google Calendar to send personalized invites with all the details about the event.

What I like: This is such an easy example to emulate because you can send a Gmail-native invite and add some additional context for the event.

I liked how Stijn, Whale’s CEO, shared the key themes he’ll cover in the webinar and how it’ll help attendees.

9. Investors Club

Here’s an example of a confirmation email from Investors Club’s newsletter subscription.

The email shares details about the number of emails subscribers will receive every week and the themes they’ll cover. It also includes an option to manage email preferences to opt out of any of these emails.

The clear language and structure make it super easy to read, even if you’re in a hurry.

Shoutout to Elena Buetler from Investors Club for contributing this example!

What I like: It’s a great confirmation email template for companies that send multiple weekly emails. Instead of overwhelming people with one email after another, you can inform them right away about all the emails you’ll send.

And the chance to opt out of any of these emails is a great add-on.

10. Marketing Examples

Harry Dry’s Marketing Examples newsletter is popular among marketers. But you can also learn a thing or two from his newsletter confirmation email. It’s crisp, clear, and clever.

Dry is a marketer and messaging expert known for his neatly curated newsletters with several examples. In this message, he tells you the cadence with which he sends each edition and nudges you to respond to the email to get all of them in your primary inbox.

What I like: I love how this confirmation email is short yet meaningful. He mentions the effort it takes him to create each edition so you can know you’re getting value-packed emails.

He also adds a link to another newsletter for subscribers to explore more content.

11. Nouveau

If you need a template to create appointment confirmation emails, then follow this example from Nouveau. This short email only has four elements:

• Brand logo.
• Appointment details.
• A quick note from the business.
• The exact location to visit.

It also has options to contact the brand and add this appointment to my calendar.

What I like: I like how this confirmation email includes all the essential details I need when booking an appointment. This helps me plan my schedule without feeling confused or overwhelmed with any detail.

12. Connor Gillivan

This confirmation email example from Connor Gillivan welcomed me as a new subscriber to his newsletter. Gillivan is an SEO expert and runs an SEO-focused agency, TrioSEO.

This email follows a different structure, where Gillivan first talks a bit about himself and his career. The second half of the message shares the type of content he’ll share and what you’ll learn from his newsletter.

What I like: This email has a great structure. It tells me two things about the newsletter:

• Who’s the creator.
• What’s in it for me.

Gillivan also builds credibility for himself by adding links to his work and past projects. I can also check out more resources to learn from him.

13. Trunk Club Custom

While looking for appointment confirmation emails, I came across this awesome example from Trunk Club Custom. The message starts with a note from the brand about their clothes and what they’re offering.

The email also includes details about when and where your appointment will happen.

What I like: The best part about this email is its design. I love that the email has two distinct sections. The first includes a note from the brand and an image. The other offers specific details about the appointment and guidelines.

How to Write a Confirmation Email: An Actionable Playbook

Ready to create confirmation emails for your brand?

Let’s discuss a few best practices to help you write confirmation emails for different use cases, like subscriptions, registrations, appointments, and more.

Create a structure.

Prepare the groundwork for your confirmation emails by creating a layout and visualizing this structure.

Whether you’re designing emails or writing a simple text message, you need a structure defining what details you’ll share first and which ones will come later.

Include all necessary information.

Double-check that your confirmation email contains all the information the recipient will need to follow through with whatever they just signed up for. If it is a webinar, event, appointment, or meeting, include the time and location or link.

Outline any further steps that are required of the recipient, such as replying to the email, making a payment, confirming the appointment, or responding to a survey.

Make it personal.

When writing the email copy, keep the tone personal and welcoming. Your emails should create a sense of excitement and encourage people to learn more about you or your brand.

So, share a story or add pictures to create a personal appeal in your emails.

Add some personality.

Don’t make confirmation emails boring. Write quirky copy to add some personality to these emails and use emojis to call out specific details (if this aligns with your brand identity).

You can use pop-culture references (just be sure your audience is aware of them) and add punch lines to make these emails memorable.

Emphasize user convenience.

Always think from the users’ perspective to deliver a convenient experience. If you’re sending an on-site appointment confirmation email, include your location and contact details.

If you’re sending an event invite confirmation, include options to add the event to the calendar. If you’re sending a subscription confirmation email, be sure to make unsubscribing or managing emails easy.

Promote your brand (gently).

Include links to your social media pages and/or website, ask recipients to share your offering with their friends and colleagues, or tell some of your company’s story.

These things are not the focus of a confirmation email, but it’s never a bad idea to drop these details into an email that is most likely to be opened by recipients.

Automate confirmation emails.

Besides these best practices, remember that automation is your best friend for sending confirmation emails. You can’t manually send emails to everyone who registers for your event or books an appointment.

Instead, you need a powerful email automation tool like HubSpot to automatically trigger emails when people take a defined action.

Simply set up your email template with personalized fields, and HubSpot will send the mails when triggered.

Your Appointment is Confirmed!

You’re all set to create confirmation emails for your events, newsletters, and other use cases. Save any of these examples for future reference.

Remember to start by creating a structure for your email template. Then, write user-friendly copy to resonate with your audience. Finally, use HubSpot’s email automation tool to schedule your emails for the right triggers.

Ecommerce is businesses selling products online, and people buying those products online.

Consumers and businesses alike are making more and more purchases online, and that’s only expected to increase, especially so on social media.

Below I’ve compiled a list of ecommerce statistics that will help you understand the potential impact of using the practice, as well as its growth potential throughout 2024 and beyond.

Table of Contents

• General Ecommerce Statistics
• Social Media Ecommerce Statistics
• Ecommerce Growth Statistics
• Consumer Behavior and Demographics Ecommerce Statistics
• B2B Ecommerce Statistics
• B2C Ecommerce Statistics
• Mobile Ecommerce Statistics

General Ecommerce Statistics

1. The average number of products bought per online order is 4.95. (Statista, 2023)

2. The global conversion rate of online shoppers is 1.9%. (Statista, 2023)

3. High-performing retail businesses are more likely to invest a given amount of their sales in digital and ecommerce. (Boston Consulting Group, 2023)

4. A majority of social media marketers (68%) use social media to drive traffic to products on its own website. (HubSpot, 2024)

5. eMarketer predicts that Grocery will become the largest ecommerce category in the U.S. by 2026. (eMarketer, 2024)

   
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6. There was a 20% increase in consumers shifting to ecommerce channels in 2020. (McKinsey, 2023)The average cart abandonment rate is 70.19%. (Baymard, 2023)

7. Amazon is the biggest e-commerce company worldwide with a 1.34 trillion USD market cap. (Statista, 2023)

8. Free delivery is the main reason 45% of shoppers head online. (Data Reportal, 2023)

9. Most marketers say they have an employee responsible for managing social commerce. (HubSpot, 2024)

Social Media Ecommerce Statistics

1. 87% of sellers say social selling has been effective for their business this year. (HubSpot, 2023)

2. 59% of social sellers say their company is making more sales through social media this year than last year. (HubSpot, 2023) 

   
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3. High performing salespeople are 12% more likely to use social media when selling. (HubSpot, 2024)

4. More than half of social media marketers use social media to sell products directly within social media apps. (HubSpot, 2024)

5. 50% of marketers plan to increase their investment in selling products directly in social media apps in 2024. (HubSpot, 2024)

6. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are the platforms social media marketers most commonly use for social selling. (HubSpot, 2024)

7. Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook offer the highest ROI for social selling. (HubSpot, 2024)

8. Social media is 3rd place in terms of channels where consumers are most receptive to advertising. (Integral Ad Science, 2024)

9. Social media marketers who sell products directly through social media apps say Facebook and YouTube have the highest ROI. (HubSpot, 2024)

Ecommerce Growth Statistics

1. Retail ecommerce sales are projected to reach more than eight trillion dollars by 2027. (Statista, 2023)

2. 84% of social media marketers predict that, in 2024, consumers will buy products from brands directly in social media apps more than third-party websites and brand websites. (HubSpot, 2024)

3. Gartner predicts that 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur on digital channels by 2025. (Gartner, 2020)

4. eMarketer predicts that global retail media ad spend will reach $140 billion this year, which makes up 20.3% of all digital ad spend. (eMarketer, 2023)

5. The revenue in the US ecommerce market is forecasted to increase by 475 billion USD between 2024 and 2028. (Statista, 2023)

Consumer Behavior and Demographic Ecommerce Statistics

1. 19% of consumers have reached out to customer service via DMs in the past 3 months, up 45% from 2022. (HubSpot, 2023)

   
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2. A majority of consumers (82%) say they’re satisfied with their most recent social shopping experience. (HubSpot, 2023)

3. Adults aged 18 to 24 make up the largest share of ecommerce shoppers in the U.S. (Statista, 2023)

4. China has the highest number of consumers shopping on social networks. (Statista, 2023)

5. The total revenue of online retail in Asian countries totaled 1.7 trillion USD in 2023. (Statista, 2023)

6. The most common reason for cart abandonment among consumers is extra costs for things like shipping and taxes. Needing to create an account is the 2nd. (Forbes, 2023)

7. Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X prefer finding products on social media over any other channel. (HubSpot, 2023) 

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8. Just 47% of social media users feel comfortable buying through social media apps. (HubSpot, 2023)

9. 42% of consumers trust social media platforms with their personal card information. (HubSpot, 2023)

10. Facebook wins among social media users when it comes to social media shopping. It’s the most popular app for in-app purchases, they say it offers the best in-app shopping experience, and it’s the most trusted. (HubSpot, 2023)

11. TikTok is the least trusted platform among consumers for in-app shopping. (HubSpot, 2023)

12. A majority of consumers only somewhat agree that the products they buy directly on social media will come as described/depicted. (HubSpot, 2023)

13. The main concern consumers have about buying products directly within social media platforms is that the sellers aren’t legitimate companies/are a scam. (HubSpot, 2023)

B2B Ecommerce Statistics

1. 79% of B2B buyers say they prefer to place repeat orders online. (Sana Commerce, 2023)

2. The main hurdle B2B buyers face with online purchasing is lack of accurate information on delivery times. (Sana Commerce, 2023)

3. 65% of B2B companies across all industries offer ecommerce capabilities. (McKinsey, 2023)

4. 80% of B2B companies say they hold their ecommerce channel to the same or higher standard as other channels. (McKinsey, 2023)

5. More than 1/3 of B2B buyers say they’re willing to spend $500,000 or more on digital channels, and 15% say they’re comfortable making purchases of more than $1 million online. (McKinsey, 2023)

B2C Ecommerce Statistics

1. Global B2C ecommerce revenue is projected to grow to 5.5 trillion USD by 2027. (International Trade Administration, 2024)

2. The most popular B2C e-commerce segments are consumer electronics, fashion, and furniture. (International Trade Administration, 2024)

Mobile Ecommerce Statistics

1. Smartphones account for 66% of online orders. (Statista, 2023)

2. Mobile retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. are expected to reach more than 560 billion by the end of 2024. (Statista, 2023)

3. Mobile Retail ecommerce sales in the U.S. will exceed 450 billion USD by the end of 2024. (Statista, 2024)

4. Apple Pay is the most used mobile payment format among U.S. consumers. (Statista, 2023)

5. 60% of US adults believe that mobile shopping is a necessity for online shopping convenience. (eMarketer, 2022)

6. 80% of consumers worldwide visit a retailer’s website from their smartphone while shopping in-store. (eMarketer, 2023)

7. Business Insider predicts that mobile commerce will account for 42.9% of e-commerce sales in 2024. (Business Insider, 2022)

When I was working as an in-house marketer, our team spent months in preparation for a massive industry event.

In the run-up to the big day, one of the biggest challenges was finding sponsors for the show.

Emails went unanswered. Pitches were ignored. Nothing seemed to click.

That’s when we put all our creative instincts into creating the perfect sponsorship emails. And these emails secured positive responses, bringing actual sponsors for the show.

If you’re struggling to find sponsors for your next big show, I’ve been where you are. That’s why I’ve curated nine of the best sponsorship email examples to help you perfect your pitch and bag that sponsorship.

We’ll cover:

• The Best Sponsorship Request Email Examples
• How to Write an Email for Sponsorship
• The Ultimate Sponsorship Email Template

The Best Sponsorship Request Email Examples

Let’s look at these nine excellent sponsorship email examples and learn different elements you can emulate. I’ve collected a few real-life email examples and sponsorship email templates you can customize.

1. WTSFest

Areej AbuAli, the founder of Women in Tech SEO, hosts the WTSFest every year. This on-site event happens in multiple locations and brings together 500+ women working in the field of tech SEO. Areej shared this email she sent to a potential sponsor interested in contributing to this event.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

This is a winning email because of its brevity. The message opens with a quick elevator pitch for the event. Areej gets straight to the point and briefly highlights what makes WTSFest a unique opportunity for the potential sponsor.

The email takes only a couple of sentences to zoom in on the biggest value proposition for sponsors: one of a kind, with an all-women speaker line-up and attendees. The brochure is a great way to share more details and answer questions/objections without making the email too wordy.

2. The Wall Street Women Forum

I found another great sponsorship email example shared by Saranya Balachandran, the Content Marketing Lead at Ionixx Technologies. Saranya sent an email exploring the possibility of sponsoring an event hosted by the Wall Street Women Forum.

On the left, you’ll see the response she received from the event organizers. This email shares a high-level overview of the event and answers the critical question: what’s in it for sponsors?

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

The response from the Wall Street Women Forum’s team was crisp yet detailed. It covers all the key details about the event: when, what, who, and where. Plus, sponsors can also check out the event’s agenda.

More importantly, the email specifically highlights the benefits for sponsors. It also includes a more comprehensive brochure sharing more insights that sponsors would be interested in. and I particularly liked that the message invites sponsors to get in touch with the event co-chairs to discuss more details.

3. SaaS Sponsorship

If you think your potential sponsors are too busy to read a long email or go through a brochure, then this email can be a great template for you. It’s concise and creates interest without giving away too many details.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

This example works great if you want to keep your message simple and short. It’s a brief pitch inviting potential sponsors to explore opportunities over a chat. So, the email highlights only essential information sponsors need: what’s the event for and what the key benefits are.

4. Healthcare Sponsorship

I believe emails requesting sponsorships should have two parts:

• What the event is about.
• Why sponsors should care.

This email template addresses both parts well. It gives you a brief description of the event, attendees, and themes to be covered. And it gives you three clear points of what you get as a sponsor.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

I love that this email is easily scannable and delivers a convincing pitch, even if you skim through the message. It also has a personal tone with first-person pronouns and nudges sponsors to explore possibilities for contributing to the show.

 

5. Big Event Sponsorship

Big events typically include sponsors in different tiers with varying packages and benefits. If you’re targeting sponsors for multiple levels/tiers, then this email is great to give people a quick overview of the event. It encourages them to check out the brochure or deck and learn more about different packages.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

If you’re doing cold email outreach to find sponsors, you have to set some context around who you are and why you’re reaching out. I like this example because it starts by establishing credibility for the sender.

The message doesn’t beat around the bush. Instead, it takes very few words to emphasize the main CTA (view sponsorship packages). And it ends by highlighting that it’s a location-specific event — an important detail for companies trying to enter this territory or build their stronghold.

6. Data Analytics Event

While most sponsorship request emails rinse and repeat the same set of benefits, this example takes a different approach. It explains how companies can strengthen their brand image and reinforce their business values by sponsoring the event.

The message essentially banks on the quality and central theme of the event rather than highlighting flashy marketing and similar perks.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

This email positively influences companies to sponsor the event by highlighting how both businesses are driven by mutual values. It also gives sponsors the promise of interacting with key opinion leaders and potential customers in the industry.

7. Innovation in Fintech

If you’re giving sponsors access to a niche audience, it’s best to lead your sponsorship request with this focus. This example is entirely centered around the fintech vertical and promises sponsors great opportunities to reach a niche audience of professionals and businesses in this space.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

This email can catch sponsors’ attention with one compelling sentence: Sponsoring this Expo would position your brand at the forefront of the fintech revolution. It’s an aspirational opportunity—one that would excite brands to explore sponsorship opportunities.

The message also highlights all the benefits specifically aimed at the fintech industry. Its focused messaging stands out from generic pitches.

8. Sustainability Event

What if you create a sponsorship email the same way you write a LinkedIn post? Open with an intriguing hook, contextualize your idea, make the offer, and end with a gentle CTA. I love this example because it follows this structure and delivers a compelling message without sounding pushy or too direct.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

This email opens with an idea that sponsors could relate to. This opening sentence sets the stage for the event and draws readers’ attention to the rest of the pitch.

The message doesn’t spotlight the same old benefits for sponsors. Instead, it focuses on the event’s mission and how sponsors can become a critical part of this mission. It also sheds light on the audience attending the show for sponsors to see if it aligns with their business.

9. Cybersecurity for Enterprises

I’ve also found that opening your sponsorship emails with an ambitious promise can be a creative way to reel people in. Give them a view of what they’ll achieve by contributing to your event, then share more details about how you’ll make it happen — like in this example.

What I Liked About This Sponsorship Email

I like how this example opens with a unique proposition to provoke a sense of intrigue among readers. The messaging also speaks from the sponsors’ perspective and highlights what’s in it for them. Plus, it mentions a key benefit: positioning each sponsor as a thought leader in the industry.

How to Write an Email for Sponsorship

I’ve read, analyzed, and written dozens of sponsorship emails. Some worked well, and some tanked. After evaluating all my experiments with these emails, I’ve narrowed down my best tips for writing sponsorship emails.

Emphasize your shared brand values.

High-decibel marketing campaigns won’t impress sponsors. They want to know the core values of your event and how they align with their brand.

I recommend highlighting your business values at the start of the email with a personal touch. You should show that you’ve done your research about them and understand their mission. Present these values to resonate more with your prospects and nudge them to have a conversation.

One of the biggest value-driven benefits you can highlight for sponsors is that they can get behind a cause they truly believe in.

This way, you can also build long-term partnerships with these sponsors instead of creating a transactional relationship for a one-off event.

Share specific insights about your audience.

Another decisive factor for sponsors is knowing who they’ll reach, aka the audience. You can’t simply write a line or two describing the kind of folks attending your show and call it a day. Give sponsors more context about participants and explain how they can benefit from this specific audience.

This clarity on your event audience will add more value to your sponsorship proposal. It can make your pitch instantly appealing if the audience aligns with a company’s target market.

Plus, this audience research shows you’ve put enough thought into curating a world-class experience for a highly niche group of people instead of making it open for all.

Create a sense of exclusivity.

You can increase the perceived value of the sponsorship opportunity by offering some exclusive benefits or early access to your event. Build a sense of urgency and hype to make your offer sound more exciting to prospects.

For example, you can provide exclusive rights to host the first session or early access to the tickets. This time-bound offer can also fast-track decision-making and encourage sponsors to take the spot before the opportunity goes away.

Sign off with a single call-to-action.

You should conclude your sponsorship request with a clear CTA highlighting the immediate next step. Don’t confuse readers with multiple CTAs, like “let’s discuss more” and “check out our packages.” You have to make it easy for them to proceed and learn more about this opportunity.

Remember to steer clear of pushy messaging. You have to encourage them to explore the sponsorship packages instead of using promotional words.

A Tried-and-Tested Sponsorship Email Template

Here’s a pre-made sponsorship email template you can use to create your first set of emails.

Subject: Become a sponsor for [Event]!

Hey [Sponsor’s Name],

I’ve been following [Sponsor Company] for a few years now, and I recognize your commitment to [specific values or mission]. That’s why I’m reaching out to you with an exciting opportunity to showcase your passion for this cause by becoming a part of [event name].

Here’s why I believe it’s a great opportunity for your brand:

• Benefit #1
• Benefit #2
• Benefit #2

I’d love to give you the exclusive offer of [mention exclusive offer] and a platform to partner with key industry leaders and decision-makers.

Would you be keen to discuss more details about this partnership? Please book time here to learn more about our sponsorship packages.

Best,
[Your signature]

Securing Sponsorships Made Easy with Email Examples

Finding sponsors is no mean feat — and I say this from my experience of spending weeks of trial and error to secure sponsorships for our event.

But with these handpicked examples, you now know how to write sponsorship emails that make people tick and engage in further conversation.

So, bookmark this post for the next time you’re reaching out to potential sponsors and need a pinch of inspiration to write your messages.

ChatGPT and Google Bard have entered the chat. You’re missing the party if you haven’t joined the conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) in digital marketing.

Perhaps you’re exploring AI on your own, or your boss asked you to report back on ways to implement AI in your work (welp!). Whatever your motivation, I’m here to help.

I’ll break down what AI in digital marketing is, how to use it, examples, pros and cons, and marketing strategies that benefit from AI.

Table of Contents

• What is AI in digital marketing?
• How do digital marketers use AI?
• AI in Digital Marketing Pros and Cons
• Examples of AI in Digital Marketing
• How to Use AI in Digital Marketing
• Harnessing the Power of AI

AI uses machine learning and large-language models (LLM) to analyze big data and turn it into actionable insights, automated actions, and content.

AI can even interact with customers who perform a specific behavior on your website, like clicking a button or liking a social media post.

What does this mean for you? With AI, you can analyze customer behavior, predict outcomes, automate marketing tasks, and create and personalize marketing content.

New AI tools are coming on the market every day. They promise to help marketers do their jobs faster, smarter, and more easily. Since these tools are still emerging, not every one is a home run, and the number of tools to research is overwhelming.

We’ve surveyed over 1,000 marketers to see how they use AI in their jobs and where it impacts them.

Pro tip: If you’re a HubSpot user, check out our new AI tools. We have a new content assistant and ChatSpot tools to streamline your day-to-day. Many of our features use AI, including SEO, call recordings, social media, data management, and more.

Get started with HubSpot Content Assistant.

How do digital marketers use AI?

In our survey, 64% of marketing professionals said they use AI tools in some form in their jobs, but the purpose and level of integration can vary widely. Just 21% of marketers said it’s extensively integrated into their daily workflows.

So, how are they using it? Our research found that the top three uses of AI in digital marketing are:

1. Data analysis/reporting (used by 40% of marketers).
2. Research, like market research or summarizing articles (39% of marketers).
3. Content creation (38% of marketers).

Let’s take a closer look at the potential uses of AI in digital marketing.

Ways to Use AI in Digital Marketing

1. Data Analytics

Struggling to make sense of large data sets? Most digital marketing tools give you analytics, but marketers often have to export and piece together data from different platforms like puzzle pieces to get the big picture.

AI can collect and sift through large amounts of data from multiple marketing platforms and summarize the findings.

This will help you save time when strategizing and developing marketing assets for your campaigns.

Pro tip: HubSpot Sales Hub has conversational intelligence capabilities to help you understand how your team performs on customer calls through data-driven insights.

Learn how to use account-based marketing recommendations powered by AI.

2. Content Creation

Digital marketers can instruct AI to write marketing content, including captions, social media posts, email copy, and even blog copy. Beyond writing, marketers can use AI for multimedia like images, audio, and even video.

It’s important to note that most AI-generated content isn’t ready for publishing immediately. Most marketers today use generative AI as a starting point — whether that’s ideation, an outline, or a few paragraphs to ignite your creativity.

Just 6% of marketers using AI say that they publish AI-generated content with no changes. You should always fact-check, edit, and adjust AI’s writing to make it sound more human and on-brand.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s AI-powered Content Assistant helps you generate blog ideas, create outlines, and write blogs or marketing emails.

3. Reducing Admin Work

Like any professional role, digital marketers spend a significant amount of time sitting in meetings and doing administrative tasks.

HubSpot’s State of Artificial Intelligence report uncovered the number-one benefit of using AI in marketing: it saves them time.

In fact, business professionals save an average of two hours and 24 minutes per day by using AI and automation tools.

AI tools can tackle manual tasks like scheduling meetings, summarizing articles and research, and taking notes.

For example, 63% of marketers are using AI tools to take notes and summarize meetings. These functions aren’t sexy, but they free up a marketer’s time to spend on more important, creative parts of their jobs.

3. Content Personalization

Of marketers using AI, 71% say it helps them personalize the experience customers get with their company.

This means AI can change the customer’s experience depending on their online behavior or whether or not they’ve filled out a form for your company.

For example, dynamic content changes depending on the user — their name, occupation, online behavior, etc.

AI analyzes a user online and gives them a more personal experience with marketing assets, including web pages, social media posts, and emails.

6Sense is one example of a tool that leverages AI to sift through intent data. You can then understand who in your audience is looking to make a purchase so you can personalize the marketing experience.

4. Media Buying

Another way to use AI in marketing is through media buying. Gone are the days when junior media buyers hand-select websites or billboards to advertise on.

Instead, adtech platforms use AI to choose the most effective ad and media placements to reach a target audience and maximize ROI.

If you use Google Ads, you’ve already encountered the AI feature that assists with the auction process.

Other standalone AI tools like Pattern89 provide recommendations on your ad spend and enable you to target the right audience to increase performance.

Pro tip: You can also leverage AI to help you write engaging ad copy in a fraction of the time.

Campaign Assistant is a free AI-powered app that can help you generate ad copy for Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn with ease — all with just a few simple prompts.

5. Chatbots

One use of AI in marketing that we’ve seen for years is chatbots. Chatbots, created with natural language processing (NLP), can answer common questions, nurture leads, schedule demo calls, and more.

A chatbot can personalize the customer journey during the stage when they’re consuming marketing content. This tool can also answer customer questions.

Let’s look at Drift, for example. The company has trained its chatbot to answer questions, even outside of a pre-programmed path. This way, if a person has a question that isn’t loaded into the system, the user will still get an answer.

Pro tip: Looking to better understand how AI-powered chatbots can answer customer questions? HubSpot Academy can help. This course describes the difference between rule-based and AI-powered chatbots.

6. Automated Email Marketing Campaigns

Automated email marketing has also been around for years. However, AI tools can help produce more engaging email content and learn about your email list behaviors.

The goal is to have your marketers spend less time researching and brainstorming so they can focus on sending successful campaigns.

As AI expands and improves, automated email marketing software becomes even more important to include in your marketing stack.

HubSpot Content Assistant can help you create marketing emails. Write a prompt about what you’d like to promote — from a discount to a webinar to a blog post — and AI can generate a message with the right tone.

7. Predicting Customer Behavior

Another great use of AI in digital marketing is to forecast customer behavior and sales.

AI can predict the outcome of marketing campaigns by using historical data, such as consumer engagement metrics, purchases, time-on-page, email opens, and more.

AI helps marketers understand the predicted outcome of their campaigns and marketing assets and forecast outcomes. These insights help marketers develop better, more dynamic campaigns that produce sales and boost ROI.

8. Improving Customer Experience

Digital marketing is all about the customer experience, and AI can help marketers deliver the best experience for their visitors to convert them into leads.

AI can help increase customer retention and loyalty, delight customers with personalized content, and improve assets.

AI Marketing Pros and Cons

While AI has a lot of great benefits, it’s still an emerging technology and has some drawbacks. Let’s examine some of the advantages and disadvantages of AI in digital marketing.

Pros of AI in Digital Marketing

1. Increased ROI

As you can see, the main goal of using AI in digital marketing is to increase performance and ROI for your campaigns.

Rather than running an ineffective ad for an entire campaign, you can harness data analytics and insights to produce better marketing assets in real-time.

This saves your marketing team time and money, allowing them to work more efficiently and increase profits. Cutting staff time and production costs also boosts your ROI.

2. Speed and Efficiency

I’ll say it again: Two-thirds of marketers say that time savings is the biggest advantage of generative AI in marketing. How much? Marketers report that they save over three hours for every piece of content that they produce with AI.

This frees up your time and capacity to do more and invest your time where it matters most, but it also helps your brand.

All marketers know that being first in a market is a major advantage.

Whether you’re spinning out social media campaigns based on pop culture moments or launching digital campaigns, the ability to pivot and launch campaigns in days or even hours is pure gold.

3. Better Customer Experience

Another advantage to using AI in marketing is that it can improve your relationship with your customers.

The more personalized your recommendations are and the deeper your relationships are, the more likely they’ll become repeat buyers.

AI can also identify customers at risk of churn and put them in an automated marketing campaign to get them to re-engage with your company.

4. Data-Based Marketing Decisions

AI can make scaling your business easier, using data to analyze, predict, and create marketing assets that sell. See how your team can use artificial intelligence and automation in this course from HubSpot Academy.

Cons of AI in Digital Marketing

1. Content Quality and Accuracy

While generative AI has come a long way, its content isn’t flawless. Factual errors are a particular issue: 47% of marketers say that generative AI has provided them with inaccurate information.

If you’re going to use AI to generate content without having a human edit it, you may see a drop in the quality. The success of AI is reliant on high-quality data that is accurate and timely.

Without a human editor, AI can produce content with factual inaccuracies, bias, or a divergent tone from your brand. Using AI requires human oversight so these types of mistakes don’t happen.

2. Privacy

As marketing assets have become more personalized through the years, customers are beginning to value privacy more and more.

With AI, some of these techniques require using a customer’s cookies and previous internet behavior to predict future purchases.

If your marketing team downloads and uses AI software, you’ll need to be sure you comply with privacy laws, such as GDPR.

3. Copyright Concerns

As a new technology, the legal framework for AI is still being built. Generative AI tools are trained on public content from thousands of companies, so it’s possible they could generate content that’s a little too close to your competitor’s.

Copyright laws are written around human authorship, so it’s unclear if you actually own AI-generated content in the same way.

4. Evaluating Non-Quantifiable KPIs

It might be hard to get buy-in to invest in AI at your company because there are non-quantifiable KPIs at play.

Certain metrics will be easy to track, but others — like improving the customer experience, increasing brand awareness, or improving reputation — will be much harder. That’s why it’s important to have the right measurement tools in place.

Examples of AI in Digital Marketing

At this point, you might be wondering, “Okay, but how does this look in practice?” Let’s review some real-life examples of how big media companies have used AI in their digital marketing.

1. Netflix

If you’re in marketing, you know you have to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Netflix uses AI to do this. How?

On a Netflix Tech Blog, the company explains how it uses previous viewing history to determine the artwork for recommended movies or TV shows.

For example, if you’ve watched a lot of one actor’s movies, they might recommend another movie they’re in. But if the artwork doesn’t show off the actor, you may click away.

So, when the movie is recommended to this specific viewer, the artwork will showcase that actor.

Or maybe a viewer tends to watch more comedies than romances. When Netflix recommends a movie, they might change the artwork to show off comedic scenes versus romantic moments from the film.

Let’s take a look at how Netflix would recommend the movie Good Will Hunting to someone who watches romance movies versus the artwork they’d use to recommend the movie to someone who watches comedies.

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So, why does Netflix do this? The goal is to increase conversion rates and improve the customer experience on their platform.

2. Spotify

Spotify uses a similar approach to Netflix. The company will use AI to understand a user’s music interests, podcast favorites, purchase history, location, brand interactions, and more.

Then, customized playlists and recommendations are curated for each user.

This type of content personalization has helped major media companies like Spotify become top streaming platforms. But the personalization doesn’t end there.

Spotify will also send automated email marketing messages with personalized recommendations.

The goal? Create automated marketing messages and assets that will convert a user because the message is specific to that customer.

3. Amazon

Two major use cases for AI in marketing are forecasting sales and analyzing data. Amazon uses AI to do just that.

When you go on Amazon, there is a recommended products section that uses predictive analytics to determine if a customer is likely to make a purchase.

This helps the marketing teams at Amazon know what products to place in front of which customers. Plus, they can predict how well a product will sell based on their recommended product campaigns.

This type of AI helps increase conversions, improve customer satisfaction, and measure the overall success and ROI of various marketing campaigns.

How to Use AI in Digital Marketing

If you haven’t started deploying AI in your digital marketing strategies, this is your year. Now, 46% of marketers feel overwhelmed by the prospect of integrating AI tools into their daily process or workflow.

But the best way to eat an elephant, as Desmond Tutu once said, is one bite at a time.

I’ve learned through experience that the best way to make any large organizational change is through a strategic, systematic, and empathetic approach.

1. Define your goals.

Before starting out, determine what goal or objective you want to reach. Do you want to make your campaigns more effective? Do you want to save your team time or money?

Don’t skip this step — you can’t determine success without defining your goals and quantifiable KPIs.

2. Audit your infrastructure.

To start, put together a small team to analyze your current tools and infrastructure and find opportunities for adoption.

Write a report with all possible areas of implementation, potential outcomes, and what resources you would need to make it happen.

Assess the quality, quantity, and accessibility of your data to see how suitable it is for AI applications. Don’t forget to identify potential challenges or negative outcomes along with the positive.

You can’t throw out your marketing playbook and replace it with AI strategies overnight, so identify your top two to three areas where you want to test initially.

These don’t all have to be huge initiatives like overhauling your email marketing — small things can add up. For example, I love using AI tools for note-taking from meetings and transcribing interview recordings.

3. Audit staff capabilities.

Another area you should assess is whether your staff has the training and knowledge to implement these programs.

You’ll likely need to invest in training for your current staff, hire a consultant, or create a new position to drive forward your AI initiatives.

Case in point, 62% of marketing leaders say they’ve already considered hiring an employee specifically for AI, and 40% of those who haven’t say they plan to.

Your team likely already has some worries they could lose their jobs to AI, so make sure to position this as an opportunity for your team to reskill, learn, and become better marketers.

4. Select the right AI marketing tools.

Once you’ve identified your goals and top areas for implementation, it’s time to build your toolbox. Your current tools may already offer an AI feature, but it’s smart to look at all of the options on the market.

First, decide whether you’ll use an out-of-the-box AI solution versus a custom one. An example of an out-of-the-box AI solution would be Jasper, ChatGPT, or Google Bard.

A custom solution, which you can create with APIs for an open-source AI like Llama 2, can be a powerful solution for long-term success. You can connect and train AI on your proprietary data or train a GPT on your own voice and style.

This approach takes additional expertise, so you’d need to work closely with a consultant or your IT department.

5. Test and analyze AI.

At last, it’s time to test the waters. Take your top two to three areas of implementation and launch your programs. Set a timeframe and some target KPIs to watch so you can compare results.

For instance, if you want to test AI-written and AI-placed social media ads, run a trial period of a month. Monitor and edit the content throughout the month and document the process.

Once you’re done, compare the performance of AI-generated, human-generated, and AI-assisted content to see how it did and create a plan moving forward.

6. Build a culture of innovation.

As I mentioned, getting your team on board is key with any new technology change. Ask your team for feedback, bring them along in the process, and assure them that AI is intended to make them better, not replace them.

Harnessing the Power of AI

Marketing teams can scale their operations with AI, and it doesn’t have to break the bank.

However, it’s important to keep in mind the limitations of AI, even as the technology continues to get better over time in the changing marketing landscape.

While you might be able to use it to aid several marketing campaigns (and should), it isn’t replacing marketers just yet.

If you want to be taken seriously, a professional email address is necessary.

You might love your old AIM address from high school, but if your clients, partners, or other professional contacts receive an email from “[email protected],” there’s a good chance it’ll go straight into the trash.

That said, coming up with a professional address isn’t always easy. To help you figure out how to set up a professional email address for your business, I tried a handful of the top email address generators available today.

Below, I’ll go through some of the most important do’s and don’ts I’ve learned throughout my marketing career before walking you through three of my favorite email name-generation tools.

How to Create a Business Email Address

Unprofessional Email Address Examples

Professional Email Address Ideas and Examples

Email Name Generators

1. Choose your email host.

If you want a custom domain for your business, you’ll first need to purchase a domain and hosting site.

One way to create a business email address is to look for a hosting package with a business email. An email address usually costs extra, but many users set up their business email this way because it can be easier than other options.

If you opt for this approach to creating a business email, you must go to your hosting site and set up your email. Usually, this means going to the “Email” section of your hosting site and choosing an email (see tips and examples below).

Alternatively, another way to set up email is to go through G-Suite rather than your hosting platform (this is what we do at HubSpot). Google will walk you through this process, and it’s also pretty straightforward.

2. Connect your email to an email client.

Next, if you choose to host your email through your hosting platform, you must connect your email address to an email client.

To do this, start by logging into your hosting platform. Then, go to the “Email” section and find a button that says “Set up Mail Client” (or something to that effect).

This will walk you through setting up your email with Outlook, Gmail, or any other mail app.

3. Connect your email to your marketing automation software.

Finally, you’ll want to ensure your marketing automation platform has access to your email.

To do this with HubSpot, you can follow these instructions.

If you use another system, you’ll want to go to your settings and look for a “Domains” or
“Email Sending” button. Then, follow the steps to connect your email.

Unprofessional Email Address Examples

We’ve covered the basics of setting up an email address from a technical standpoint. But what address should you choose?

I can tell you firsthand that avoiding an unprofessional email address is critical. Before we dive into ideas to inspire your professional email address, let’s review common mistakes you should make clear of.

Nicknames

Even if your colleagues call you by nickname, you should still leave nicknames and alter-egos from your professional email address.

For example, your name is Daniel Johnson, but your coworkers, friends, and family call you Danny or DJ.

While you may like being called by those nicknames, the following email addresses would still be inappropriate:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

To make a good impression, keep your personal and professional lives separate. Your close coworkers can still refer to you by your nickname.

Still, your business email address must reflect your professional name, especially if you’re emailing someone for the first time or giving your contact information to a potential lead.

What does this look like in practice? Instead of using a nickname, use some combination of your first name, last name, and/or initials, such as:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Company Position

Though it’s acceptable to include your profession in your business email, you should avoid having your current role. After all, your position within the company can change over time, and your email address is expected to remain the same.

Plus, your job title may only capture a handful of your skills, and the person you’re contacting may not be interested in those particular skills. As such, I’d suggest that you avoid creating an email address like these:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Remember, you can always include your job position in your email signature. But it’s best to combine your name and initials in your email address. Plus, it’s also shorter and easier to read.

Numbers

Most names are not unique. Especially if you have a fairly common name, finding an email address that hasn’t been taken yet can be hard. As such, some people may be tempted to include numbers in their email addresses.

However, this can do more harm than good.

When creating email addresses, avoid adding lots of extra numbers like this:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Usernames like these often come across as unreliable and untrustworthy. They can even set off spam filters, meaning your emails will be sent straight to the recipient’s junk folder.

Instead of numbers, you can use periods or underscores — but do so sparingly because too many punctuation marks or symbols can also trigger spam filters.

If you choose this route, use only one or two punctuation marks in your email address. For example, the following formats are acceptable for a professional email:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Professional Email Address Ideas and Examples

Now that you know how to set up your business email (and what to avoid when crafting an address), let me share some of my favorite ideas and examples to help you choose your naming conventions.

Combine your names.

• First name + last name = [email protected]
• First name . last name = [email protected]
• First name . middle name . last name = [email protected]
• First initial + last name = [email protected]
• First initial + middle name + last name = [email protected]
• First initial + middle initial + last name = [email protected]

Pro Tip: A period is a great option if you want to break up your first and last name.

Shorten your names.

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Best for: If your name is longer, it’s often worth coming up with a shortened version.

Combine your name with your profession, city, or degree.

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

What we like: Adding a profession, city, or degree to your email address can effectively differentiate yourself.

Email Name Generators

In my experience, it can be challenging to settle on a professional email address. So, if you’re still struggling to figure out how to set up a professional email address, I’d suggest taking a look at some of the email name generators below:

1. Romarto

Romarto is one of the simplest email generators I’ve used. Just enter your first and last name, and the generator tool will come up with different combinations you can use for your address.

You can also add your profession or city to get more options.

I tried out Romarto, putting my first and last name into the generator. I had the option to include my middle name, profession, and the city I live in.

From there, Romarto created dozens of options that I could use for my email, mixing and matching different elements of my name and profession. This is an excellent option with plenty of outputs if you feel stuck.

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Best for Romarto is an excellent option for busy professionals seeking a quick and easy email generation tool.

2. 4MeNearMe

Another option I tried was 4MeNearMe. This free email address generator works similarly to Romarto, except it lets you add your email host.

I tested 4MeNearMe. Similar to Romarto, I had the option to share my name, profession, and area. I could also include the email server I planned to use, like Gmail.

The results appeared cleanly in tables, separated by what combinations of information the algorithm used.

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Pro tip: If you’re looking for a tool to add an email host, 4MeNearMe is the way to go!

3. GetMara.com

Finally, GetMara.com is another excellent tool to help you choose your professional email address.

As you can see in the screenshot below, GetMara allows users to add their company’s domain to craft the correct business email address for their organization.

GetMara.com had fewer fields to fill out. All I had to do was put in my name and company name. As a result, I had fewer options to choose from than the other two email generators. However, constraints can be helpful.

If you’re looking for a shortlist, GetMara.com is the way to go.

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What we like: GetMara lets you generate over 50 different email addresses, helping you identify the best possible option.

Crafting the Perfect Professional Email Address

In sum, there are a few key takeaways I’ll leave you with when it comes to creating your professional email address:

• Stick to a variation of your real name, and avoid nicknames.
• Don’t use numbers because they can result in your email getting flagged as junk mail.
• If you must use punctuation or symbols, do so sparingly, using only periods and underscores.
• Keep your professional and personal lives separate.

Choosing a professional email address can be challenging. Fortunately, there are still plenty of ways to choose a solid, professional email address — and my experience has taught me that they’re well worth the effort.

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

Google Sheets templates help you create better spreadsheets while saving you valuable time. And it’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I love a good formula to keep manual math to a minimum (and, therefore, data as accurate as possible).

So, what do Google Sheets templates do? Short of reading minds, a template knows what you need and offers it with minimal manual input, giving you the ability to focus on more important things — like analyzing and translating the data itself.

In this post, I’m touching on the most important templates you’ll need to efficiently use Google Sheets for business — including templates for project management, reporting, people management, and customer tracking.

You’ll explore:

• Why should you use Google Sheets templates for business?
• How to Find Templates in Google Sheets
• Helpful Google Sheets Templates

Let’s get started.

Why should you use Google Sheets templates for business?

Google Sheets templates are valuable business tools that can be used by teams of any size. Whether you’re a business just starting out or an established enterprise firm, using Google Sheets templates is highly beneficial.

Even if not a primary business tool, they can supplement other tools. For instance, you might use a free CRM to track customer information, then use a Google Sheets invoice template to quickly create invoices for each customer.

Let’s explore the top benefits of using Google Sheets templates for business.

Google Sheets templates are free to use.

Google Sheets templates are free and cover a wide variety of needs without forcing anyone to spend big bucks on a subscription to Excel or other platforms. When you sign up for a Google Workspace account, you get immediate access to these templates.

Google Sheets templates make collaboration easy.

What I love about Google Workspace and Google Sheets templates, in particular, is how they allow your team to collaborate seamlessly and easily. By clicking the “Share” button at the top right-hand corner of a document, you can give team members access to the file.

You can also limit the collaboration aspect to commenting or viewing only and limit people’s ability to download, print, or copy the document.

Adapting these settings provides a great option for sensitive documents that only a few people should edit.

Google Sheets templates are intuitive to use.

Using a Google Sheets template doesn’t require much experience with spreadsheets. You don’t need to know advanced formulas and functions to make them work for you.

All you have to do is plug in your numbers and populate the fields. The document will generate a report or calculate a total based on the built-in fields.

Google Sheets templates are customizable.

Using a Google Sheets template doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with its look and feel. You can easily change the fields, the colors, and the fonts using Google Sheets’ built-in tools to give your sheets a brand-specific look and feel.

There’s no data loss.

Another great benefit of using Google Sheets templates? Unless a freak accident happens with Google’s servers, it’s nearly impossible to lose data.

Google Sheets stores everything in the cloud, including a version history of the document. You can always revert to a previous version if something happens.

If your laptop crashes or you lose an internet connection, Google Sheets simply freezes the copy until you’re online again. You’ll still want to take a few precautions, such as enabling offline editing and downloading a copy of important documents to your local drive.

How to Find Templates in Google Sheets

Ready to find a few templates that you can start using right now for your business? There are two common ways you can find and use free Google Sheets templates.

1. Google’s Built-In Template Gallery

On your browser, go to Google Sheets. Click Template Gallery at the top right. Explore the templates to find the right one for you.

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You’ll find different templates for your personal, work, project management, and education needs. Here’s an example of what the Personal template library looks like.

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2. Add-Ons

Another way to find free templates in Google Sheets is to download and install the Vertex42 add-on. Here’s how.

• Open an existing Google sheet, or type “sheets.new” into your address bar to create a new one.
• On the top left menu, go to Extensions, then Add-ons, then Get add-ons.

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• Type “Vertex42” into the search bar, and click enter.
• Install the add-on.

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• To access the templates, click on Extensions, then Template Gallery for Sheets.
• From there, click Browse Templates.

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Here, you will find templates that can help with almost everything you need — creating an invoice, an income/expense tracker, or a dashboard to manage your projects.

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Let’s look at some of the free Google Sheets templates you may find useful for your business.

Google Sheets Templates

Whether you send invoices to clients, track website analytics, or create expense reports, you probably work with spreadsheets, which can feel frustrating or tedious when you’re under a time crunch.

Fortunately, Google Sheets offers a wide variety of pre-built templates, allowing you to more quickly and effectively create reports and analyze data. Here are some of the best Google Sheets templates you can start using now.

• Google Sheets Templates for Finances
• Google Sheets Templates for Reporting and Analytics
• Google Sheets Templates for Customers
• Google Sheets Templates for Project Management
• Google Sheets Templates for Leading a Team

Google Sheets Templates for Finances

One of the most common ways to use spreadsheets is as a tool for bookkeeping and invoicing. Here are some of my favorite ready-to-go templates that save you time and make it easy to:

• Invoice clients.
• Maintain an annual business budget.
• Generate financial statements.
• Create expense reports.
• Generate purchase reports.

Best of all? You don’t have to create or choose any formulas that will help you calculate this data.

1. Invoices

If you’re a freelancer or work for a small business, this invoice template simplifies the process of using invoices to bill clients for services.

It provides space for all the necessary information and looks more professional than a plain spreadsheet. Plus, the template is customizable, so you can create a theme that aligns well with your brand image.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Freelancers and small businesses.

2. Annual Business Budget

More in-depth than it initially appears, this template has tabs for setup, income, expenses, and summary at the bottom, and each includes several subcategories. It’s a good option if your budget requires a lot of customization and many moving parts.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This budget template provides all the essentials while allowing you to customize it to fit your business’ needs.

3. Financial Statements

The financial statements template is an all-in-one resource to keep track of business transactions, profits, and losses. If you work for or own a small business and need to manage your finances, this template makes the process easier and less prone to human error.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Tracking how your small business is doing.

4. Expense Report

Knowing how much you spend is essential for running a successful business. But it’s often easy to forget to record these expenses with the amount of work you have to do every day. This simple expense report template makes it easy to record all expenses — yours and those of your employees.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This template makes it easy to hold you and your team accountable for your expenses.

5. Purchase Order

This template is a lifesaver for professionals in charge of tracking orders, saving time, and avoiding the headaches that come with monitoring supplies or shipments.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This template is simple and straightforward for all purchasing needs.

Google Sheet Templates for Reporting and Analytics

Reporting dashboards are typically built into a wide variety of software products, such as Marketing Hub. However, if you don’t have the budget, you can easily create one using a Google Sheets template.

The below templates automatically gather data from Google Analytics, putting the information in a highly digestible, visual format that you can share.

6. Website Traffic Dashboard

If you analyze website traffic with Google Analytics, this template is a fantastic supplemental tool to pull that data into an organized report. Better still, you can use the dashboard template with the Supermetrics Google Sheets add-on to monitor and analyze data from PPC, SEO, social media, and website analytics.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Collecting and analyzing website traffic to see your strengths and areas for improvement.

7. Website Paid Traffic Report

If you’re looking for a way to demonstrate paid ads’ influence on your business, this template makes analyzing and reporting on paid traffic relatively seamless. It automatically collects data on your paid sources from Google Analytics and provides a clean chart with important information, including PPC’s percentage of goal conversions, total traffic, and bounce rate.

You can also adjust the template to compare different periods, different channels, or segments.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Companies using Google Analytics who want reports on their paid advertisements.

Google Sheet Templates for Customers

If you don’t have access to a CRM yet or your business is still growing, you can use spreadsheets to track customer information and see your growth. The Google Sheets templates below give you a CRM and a sales dashboard without paying the cost typically needed for such software.

However, as your business starts to grow and you earn more customers, you’ll want to switch over to a dedicated CRM.

8. CRM

CRMs help you organize contacts and automate an effective sales and marketing process. However, if you’re a small company just starting out, you might not feel ready to implement a fully established CRM.

This CRM template is a great place to get your feet wet, saving data automatically so you never lose information. Plus, you can share with coworkers, which helps encourage collaboration between your sales and marketing departments.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Small businesses to keep all customer data in one place.

9. Sales Dashboard

This template helps salespeople manage their leads, sales, and revenue all in one place, with multiple tabs feeding your data into a main dashboard. Plus, it features an “instructions” tab to get you up to speed on using the sheet.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Individual sales reps to track their leads and sales.

10. Sales Operations Dashboard

This template contains all the pre-built dashboards a sales manager, analyst, or operations specialist needs to monitor performance and maximize revenue. You can use this template to gain full visibility into your sales pipeline, set and track sales targets, and compare sales KPIs across monthly, quarterly, and yearly periods.

Want to supercharge your dashboard? Connect it to your live HubSpot sales data using the Coefficient add-on for Google Sheets. You’ll always have real-time charts and sales metrics to make better decisions.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This is the perfect way for small businesses to keep track of their sales.

Google Sheet Templates for Project Management

Google Sheets project management templates offer cost-effective alternatives to buying project management software.

You can use them to keep track of your project timeline, create Gantt charts, build product roadmaps, and even generate action lists that you can color-code and categorize.

Pro tip: If you’re managing multiple projects, simply duplicate the initial tab and keep all projects in a single spreadsheet.

11. Project Timeline

Whether this is your first significant project or you’ve been managing projects for years, this timeline template is a valuable tool for organizing each project step, allowing you to visually break up a daunting project into smaller pieces.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This template provides everything you need to plan and organize any project.

12. Project Tracking

If you’re juggling many projects simultaneously, this project-tracking template takes project management to the next level, enabling you to organize your tasks into categories by date, deliverables, status, cost, and hours.

Best of all, you can prioritize and visualize your projects, reducing your time management stress.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This template allows you to include sufficient detail for each project while helping you see everything on your plate at once.

13. Event Marketing Timeline

Promoting an event? This event marketing template offers organization and structure. It also features categories that include local and national marketing, PR, and web marketing, with subcategories ranging from an email newsletter to impact studies.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Storing all your event marketing preparations in one place.

14. Gantt Chart Template

When you’ve got a complex project with overlapping components, timing is one of your primary concerns. This Gantt chart template can help you visualize all steps and delegate essential tasks more efficiently. While there are a variety of different Gantt chart templates out there, Google Sheets is a good place to start and makes collaboration straightforward.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Keeping complicated projects with lots of people and moving parts organized.

15. Product Roadmap

Roadmaps help your team understand the direction you want a project to take. This product roadmap template makes it easy to create a calendar summary of your project and the milestones of your product development process.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: The calendar view gives you and your team a clear “big picture” view of what needs to be done and when.

16. Product Launch Plan

This template makes it easy to organize the best product launch possible with fields to help you outline your market and competitive analysis, project strategy, key messaging, and who your target audience is.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This template ensures you don’t miss anything as you prepare to launch a new product.

17. Action List With Ranking

Managing a project requires tracking daily actions to ensure you don’t lose focus. This action list template gives you a tool to prioritize the most important tasks on your list and makes sure your team is on the same page.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: The “value” and “difficulty” columns allow you to visually rate each task and then prioritize accordingly.

18. Project Budget

Most project managers create budgets for each of their projects outside of the general business budget. This project budget template offers a simple yet effective option to quickly estimate how much revenue a project might generate and how much it would cost.

While other Google Sheets budget templates might have more detail to them, this spreadsheet is great for focusing on the essentials.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Keeping track of a specific project’s budget.

Google Sheet Templates for Leading a Team

Google Sheets templates make it easier and simpler to manage a team without multiple emails or Slack check-ins. These templates allow you to set employee shifts and track how many hours employees spend on certain projects. And because these templates are collaborative, your employees can fill out forms at their convenience.

19. Employee Shift Schedule

This template simplifies the task of keeping track of who works what hours and how much each employee gets paid. Including slots for employees’ names, hours worked, and monthly wages keeps your paycheck process straightforward and organized.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Leaders who manage teams with shifts and hourly wages or who work with multiple freelancers/contractors.

20. Weekly Timesheet

Like the employee shift schedule, the weekly timesheet helps you track time and know how much to pay employees or subcontractors. Plus, this weekly timesheet template allows you to quickly find out how much time each employee spends on a project.

Click here to use this template.

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What we like: This template is a great way of keeping track of how employees use their time.

21. Contact List

This template comes in handy if you want to create a contact list database, making it easy to store your contact information (say, phone number and email address), your employees’ contact information, and those of emergency services like the ambulance or fire department.

Click here to use this template.

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Best for: Keeping important contact information all in one place.

Start Using Free Google Sheets Templates

No matter what your job is, using a suitable spreadsheet simplifies the process and makes it a more enjoyable experience.

So what are you waiting for? Get started with using these free Google Sheets templates to save time and effort, and download ten additional ones to exponentially improve your productivity.

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