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As a full-time freelancer, I’ve sent out hundreds of job inquiry emails.

While I also reply to freelance role ads, I know first-hand that you can win some of the best projects by being proactive and running outreach. In fact, that’s how I started cooperating with some of the world’s most renowned brands.

Just because a company you’ve got your eyes on hasn’t advertised a role doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not open to bringing the right person on board. Your job, however, is to grab their attention and show why you’re a good fit for the organization.

Sound a bit scary to get in touch with a company that isn’t actively looking?

Well, you might change your mind if you look at the number of applications businesses receive the second they post an opening on LinkedIn – it’s in the hundreds. And that’s scary.

If you don’t know how to go about creating a job inquiry email, then keep reading — I’ll tell you all about it.

Table of Contents

• What is a job inquiry email?
• How to Write a Job Inquiry Email
• What ChatGPT Wrote Me
• Writing My Own Job Inquiry Email

What is a job inquiry email?

A job inquiry email is a message you send to a company you’d like to work for but doesn’t currently have any job openings for someone in your field.

The email acts as a letter of interest, where you introduce yourself, mention your qualifications, and briefly explain what makes you a good fit for the organization.

You also add a CV in the attachment so that the company can get a better idea of who you are.

How to Write a Job Inquiry Email

It’s time for some practice. Here are a few tips that I follow whenever I write a job inquiry email.

1. Research the company first.

I’m assuming that you usually send a job inquiry to a company that you like and admire, so you know a thing or two about them.

But that’s not enough. You need to do proper research, which goes beyond visiting their site and quickly scrolling through their social media profile.

Google the brand and search for any interesting articles that you could refer to in your email, like being recognized as the best place to work.

Alternatively, you can try to find out who is responsible for recruitment and do a little digging on the person you’ll be contacting. It will be easier for you to build a connection. A generic email will not get you far.

Kimberley Tyler-Smith, an executive at Resume Worded, says, “A generic email gets lost in the inbox. Showing you’ve researched the company, their challenges, and their recent campaigns, you instantly put yourself in the ‘intriguing’ pile.”

Tyler-Smith suggests that applicants dig into industry publications, social media, and news mentions. Find out the company’s current projects, challenges, or recent successes.

“Make it clear how your skills and experience directly address the company’s challenges or opportunities. Did you love their latest marketing push? Did you notice a gap they’re not filling? Tie your skills and experience directly to these. Then offer a solution or suggestion,” she says.

Since marketing is about showcasing the brand, a candidate’s email needs to demonstrate that they have properly researched the business.

They can do it by referencing the brand’s messaging, the digital outlets it utilizes, and mentioning its history within their email’s context, says Christy Pyrz, chief marketing officer at Paradigm Peptides.

“By focusing on candidates who have shown in their job inquiry email that they have taken the time to research the brand, recruiters will find a hire that is the right person for the marketing position,” says Pyrz.

2. Start with a strong opening.

Most professionals receive anywhere between 50 to 100 emails every day. That’s a lot, especially considering how little time most of us have in between deep-focus work and meetings to check our inboxes.

Your email’s subject line and preview text need to stand out to catch the hiring manager’s eye and drive them to open it. Email clients typically display 50-90 characters of the message in preview.

What should those first few words focus on? Connor Butterworth, the CEO and owner of Southwestern Rugs Depot, says that your email should forge a bond by tailoring your message to the company’s recent achievements or news.

“If I receive an email that references, for instance, a recent campaign of ours and explains how the candidate’s skills could enhance similar projects, it instantly sets them apart,” he says.

Andrea Hoymann, head of strategy at Brand chemistry, agrees and provides an example of the information she’s looking for.

“Tell me something very specific you’ve noticed about our marketing. If you liked a post on social media, tell me why and how it’s relevant to our target market. And if you’ve improvement suggestions, it’s even better!” she says.

Personalizing the opening and the remainder of the email tells the potential employer that you haven’t sent the same message randomly to hundreds of companies.

“It also shows your strategic thinking as a marketer and gives me a glimpse of the ideas and perspectives you could bring to the team,” adds Hoymann.

3. Treat every job inquiry email as a micro-pitch.

Since our inboxes get flooded with emails every day, if you want to make sure that yours doesn’t disappear in the ether, you should treat every job inquiry email as a micro-pitch.

Remember, you only have a few seconds to grab the hiring manager’s attention. So, what can you include in your email?

Mark McShane, HR and managing director of AED Training, says, “Start with an impactful opener that distills your professional essence and clearly shows how your skills meet company requirements.”

For example, McShane says, let’s say you’ve bolstered social media engagement by 50% through innovative campaigns in your past role. This metric will captivate an employer.

“It’s not simply about enumerating accomplishments; it involves illustrating the link between your talents and their potential to drive the company’s marketing goals,” McShane says.

4. Attach your CV.

Even though your email should include some of your accomplishments and qualifications that are relevant to the brand you’re applying to, don’t forget to also attach your CV.

It will give them a chance to learn more about you and ask additional questions if necessary.

Make sure your CV is properly labeled, so hiring managers can store it on file, even if they’re not looking for anyone at the moment.

5. Use formal language.

It’s best to use a formal tone of voice in your email. It doesn’t have to be cold or uptight; just don’t make it overly relaxed.

Since you’re not speaking to them as their employee or customer, it’s safer to keep it professional — especially considering that you’ve never spoken to them before.

Approach this email like you would have approached an interview, i.e., with a professional demeanor.

6. Show excitement and readiness to wait.

Your job inquiry message should only be a “cold email” by definition. Its content should convey a positive message and show you as a professional whose presence could also boost morale within the team.

One of the ways to grab the hiring manager’s interest is by demonstrating your long-term interest, according to Sarah Jameson, marketing director at Green Building Elements. To do this, you need to strike a balance between professional and enthusiastic.

“You can say something along the lines of ‘I’m currently looking for a new role, and [company name] is doing the exact kind of work I want to be part of. I’d love to apply for any positions in the company where I could be a good fit.’ These lines can help establish why you’re interested in this specific company,” she says.

They also prevent the hiring manager from writing you off if, at the time they receive your email, there are no relevant openings. Make it clear that you’re willing to wait for your opportunity to join the marketing team’s ranks.

7. Prove that you need the job, understand it, and have the capacity to do it well.

Joshua Uebergang, director at Shopify marketing agency Digital Darts, says that there are three criteria candidates need to meet if they want their job inquiry email to work. He uses a custom formula to assess applicants.

“You need to get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it. If you can demonstrate them in your outreach email to businesses, you will stand out from 99% of ‘normal’ applicants,” he says.

According to Uebergang, getting it means understanding the role, the systems, and how they work together. This, he says, cannot be faked, so you should study the business before reaching out.

Wanting it involves genuinely liking the job and waiting to do it responsibility for fair compensation.

Finally, the capacity to do it “means they have the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to do it well,” he says.

Uebergang says that he uses a Google template to score each individual’s outreach message — the higher the number of points, the higher the likelihood that the company and candidate would be a great fit.

What ChatGPT Wrote Me

I’ve decided to check how helpful ChatGPT3.5 is when it comes to writing job inquiry emails.

I used three prompts. Each time, I gave it more information to see how it would impact the output. Here is what I got.

Version 1

The prompt: “Write me a job inquiry email for a product marketing position at G2.”

Image Source

What I Think

This first prompt was very generic; all I asked for was to write a job inquiry email. It suggests using a hiring manager’s first name, which is a good idea if we manage to find it, as it adds a more personal touch.

Even though the email includes an explanation of why a candidate is contacting them, it says it’s to express interest in the Product Marketing position as advertised on the company website, which clearly shows that ChatGPT doesn’t understand what a job inquiry email is. This is a grand mistake.

The email includes a list of relevant achievements, and there is even a suggestion to include a specific number, i.e., “a 20% increase in product awareness” — that’s spot on.

While ChatGPT explains why a candidate is excited about working for G2, the reason given is very generic. Stating “being at the forefront of the tech industry” could apply to many companies.

The email mentions that there is a CV attached and thanks the hiring manager for their time, which are both desired elements to be included in a job inquiry email.

Overall, I could treat the output as a first draft, but it would need quite a lot of work (especially research) before sending it to a hiring manager. To give ChatGPT some credit — the prompt was brief and provided minimal instructions, so I couldn’t expect a top-notch result.

Version 2

The prompt: “Write me a job inquiry email for a product marketing position at G2. The hiring manager’s name is Laura. Suggest an email title. Use a formal tone of voice, but show my excitement to explore roles at the company.”

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What I Think

ChatGPT followed my instructions to use a formal tone of voice well but didn’t do a good job of displaying my enthusiasm.

There are better ways to show excitement than using general statements like “I am enthusiastic about the prospect of joining G2” and “I am excited about the opportunity to bring my skills” — especially when these aren’t followed by an explanation of why.

I would rather go for more emotional statements, like “I can’t picture a better place to grow as a product marketer than G2,” and then mention something brand-specific to back it up.

Once again, ChatGPT did a good job at suggesting that I use numbers to prove that I truly am, as it says, a “seasoned marketer.” Also, this suggestion is perfectly in line with the job inquiry email tips I shared in the previous section.

I would rework the opening statement a bit — while it no longer suggests that I saw an opening advertised on the company website, it says that I would like to express my interest in the Product Marketing position. This could puzzle the hiring manager since they know they aren’t actively seeking new team members.

Version 3

The prompt: “Write me a job inquiry email for a product marketing position at G2. The hiring manager’s name is Laura. Suggest an email title. Use a formal tone of voice, but show my excitement to explore roles at the company. Keep the email within 100 words.

Mention that I have five years of experience in product marketing in B2B and that I would like to work at G2 as it would be an amazing opportunity to learn about how SaaS companies build their product–market fit and strategize around standing out on the market.

These insights would help me become an even better product marketer and would be used to further grow the G2 brand. Take the company’s culture code, pasted below, into account, and build the narrative of my email around my culture fit alignment:

• Performance – Because this is where it all starts. We all have to do our jobs well.
• Entrepreneurship – Because as we grow, we need to strive to improve every single day.”

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What I Think

Here, I put ChatGPT to a bit of a challenge — my instructions themselves were 164 words long, but I’ve asked it to write an email under 100 words (which it did). Given the tricky circumstances, I think it did a very good job.

The output mentions all of the key points I’ve asked for, without getting into details. The copy is to the point and uses adjectives moderately (which is something I believe ChatGPT likes to overdo).

This email is missing something present in the previous two versions, i.e., information about a CV in the attachment. Still, there is a placeholder for the LinkedIn profile link, so it gives the hiring manager an option to read more about me.

I think this is my favorite version so far — which isn’t surprising, given how specific I was in my prompt. Good job, ChatGPT.

Writing My Own Job Inquiry Email

Now I’m going to write my own job inquiry email, based on the best practices I discussed earlier. Here it comes:

Hi Laura,

I saw that you’ve collected Series D funding — congratulations! On that note, I would like to ask whether you’re planning to grow your marketing team in the coming months. If so, I would love to express my interest in a product marketing role.

A few words about me — I have over five years of experience building product marketing strategies in the B2B space. Among others, I was responsible for:

• Introducing my company’s digital products to the EU market.
• Developing product messaging and positioning that set the company apart from competitors and demonstrated an understanding of the customers’ needs.
• Implementing new features in line with user needs and new technologies on the market.
• Broadening the visibility of the company and core products, improving the adoption rate by 25%.

I know that your company’s values include authenticity, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a focus on job performance.

All these characteristics strongly resonate with me. I’ve always wanted to work for a company that nourishes diversity and appreciates different perspectives, as it’s the best environment for innovation and career progress.

My CV is attached. Thank you for your consideration. If you believe I could be a good addition to the team, then I would love to discuss the possibilities.

Regards,

Kasia Kowalska

What I Did Here

I started by conducting thorough research, and I came across an article saying that G2 has collected D series, which I thought would make a good opener. I listed a few accomplishments, which I thought might be relevant to the brand.

I only included four, as I also attached my CV in case she wanted more details. I explained my interest in working for G2 by aligning with their brand values, which happen to be close to my heart. This shows I did the research.

I thanked the hiring manager for her time and emphasized that I would love to discuss how we could potentially work together. I kept the email short, knowing that recruiters’ time is very limited.

I chose a polite but professional tone of voice and did a little digging to find out who the Product Marketing Lead at G2 was, i.e., Laura Horton, so I could personalize my salutation.

I use this format whenever I am applying for new projects, and it works pretty well, so feel free to borrow it.

Humans vs. AI

Should you entrust your job inquiry email copy entirely to ChatGPT? I would advise against it. Still, you can treat its output as a first draft, as the tool does a good job of suggesting the right structure and the key points worth mentioning.

Your role is to make it personalized and relevant by adding details not only about you but also about the company you’d like to work with. This way, you boost the chances of grabbing the hiring manager’s attention.

When writing your email, put yourself in the recipient’s shoes. They have to go through hundreds of emails per week, and those that come from potential candidates are generic. This creates an opportunity to put your foot in the door and stand out, especially since the position is not advertised.

To sum up, use ChatGPT as a starting point, but don’t rely on it entirely. Let it do its part of the job, and you do yours. Good luck!

Goodbyes are hard. And it’s even more challenging when you must say goodbye through email.

Recently, I left my full-time teaching position to pursue a writing career. Sending a farewell email to my close colleagues, unaware of my decision to transition to a new job, was bittersweet.

I preferred to say goodbye in person, but sometimes, time only allows for a farewell email. And that’s okay.

If you want to preserve your relationship with your colleagues or keep a line of communication open, you’ll like to send a proper goodbye email.

I asked ChatGPT to help me write a farewell email to my coworkers. This is what I got.

What Chat GPT Wrote Me

It’s easy to get hung up on writing the perfect farewell email.

Do you send a heartfelt message? How do you address the whole team? What about your clients? What do you say to them?

To answer some of those questions, I asked ChatGPT to write farewell emails to various colleagues and partners.

Here’s what ChatGPT wrote for me.

Farewell email for the entire team

Sometimes, it’s best to inform your whole team of your plans to leave your position. In my experience, emailing the listserv means no one misses your important and exciting announcement.

Here’s the prompt you should use in ChatGPT to write your goodbye email to your team.

“I have recently accepted a new position with another company. I am sad to leave my team. Write an email to my team expressing my gratitude and my departure.”

Here’s ChatGPT’s response.

ChatGPT’s response is a decently worded farewell email. The draft considers your feelings while also expressing gratitude for your team. The response isn’t too long or clunky like some ChaGPT responses tend to be.

You can use this response as a first draft of your goodbye message. And, if you want to make it more personal, add a tasteful inside joke that your team will make your team smile.

Pro tip: If you have a particular way you end emails, don’t end your email with “Warm regards.” Instead, stick with your classic email signature.

Farewell email for your work best friend

Work besties, we all have them. And they can be the hardest people to break the news that you’re leaving for a new opportunity.

If you can’t talk with your work bestie in person, consider sending them a farewell email using this ChatGPT prompt.

At first glance, the ChatGPT response is rather long. But when you read it, the response does an excellent job of expressing the connection you made with your work friend.

If you send this to your friend without editing the post, your work best friend will likely recognize the ChatGPT response. And although it is a decent draft of a goodbye message, it lacks the personal touch that can only come from you.

Pro tip: Use this draft as a starting point for your goodbye message. Edit the draft so the message is shorter, and add your spin to the email.

Farewell email for your boss

Emailing your boss your farewell message might be the most challenging part of saying goodbye.

Depending on your relationship with your boss, you might need to write a formal email compared to what you would send to your team or work friend.

I used this prompt to write a farewell message to my boss: “Write me a goodbye email to my boss, who is leaving for a new role.”

When you email your boss about your departure from the company, you’ll want to express your appreciation for your boss’s leadership during your time with the team.

Doing so helps keep an open line of communication and preserves your working relationship with your boss.

This ChatGPT response is a decent draft of what I would send to my boss. It thoroughly expresses gratitude and appreciation.

The overall response is a great starting point for your farewell email. Once again, though, the draft is rather long, so you should shorten it for better readability.

Pro tip: Read your draft out loud to help you better hear the tone of the email. You’ll want your farewell message to your boss to come across as positive.

Farewell email for your clients

If you work in a capacity that allows you to work with and serve clients, you might not be able to speak with them all in person about your departure.

Sending a farewell email to your clients is an easy way to ensure you haven’t missed someone. Plus, it helps open the door for future partnerships in other roles.

I used ChatGPT to draft a farewell email to clients. This is the prompt I used: “I am leaving the company. In my role, I worked closely with clients. I want to keep the door open to my working relationship with them. Write my goodbye email.”

Check out this response.

The generated response conveys gratitude for the client and their business. It’s also worded in such a way that lets the client know you’d like to continue working with them if the opportunity is available in the future.

Once again, the email is lengthy. If I received this email, I would skim it and potentially miss an important detail, like your contact details. If you use this prompt to draft your farewell email to clients, edit the draft.

You might want to include a personal anecdote to show how much you value the client’s relationship with you.

Pro tip: Before sharing your personal contact information with your clients, double-check with your boss to ensure this is okay.

You might appear to be poaching clients from your former company, and you do not want to burn bridges inadvertently.

Farewell email for your direct reports

If you’re in a leadership position, you must email your supervisees about your decision to leave the company. This is just a common courtesy. Plus, your message gives your supervisees a clear, written plan of who they will report to.

Here’s the prompt I gave to ChatGPT to write a farewell email to my supervisees:

“I am a supervisor. I need to tell my supervisees that I am leaving. Please write my farewell email. They will report to the department manager until there is a replacement.”

If you’re leaving your team, you’ll want to express your appreciation and gratitude to them for helping them accomplish the company’s goals. This ChatGPT response accomplishes that.

It also allows you to insert your contact information to continue a relationship with your direct reports.

The response also does an excellent job of explaining to your direct reports who they should report to after your departure. This is essential information your supervisees need to know before your last day in the office.

Pro tip: Bold or highlight your direct reports’ temporary supervisor. That way, this critical detail doesn’t get lost in your message.

The Perfect Farewell Email Template

The generated responses to the farewell email prompts are long. Long emails are okay, but your recipient will often scan or skim the email, looking for important details.

It’s best to keep your farewell email short, concise, and to the point.

Based on my experience with the ChatGPT responses, I’ve created the perfect email template you can copy, paste, edit, and save.

Essential parts of a farewell email

Subject Line

The subject line of your email is crucial. Think of it as your opening line. You need it to convey your message succinctly so it doesn’t get lost in the recipient’s inbox.

You can say something like, “Important Update: Farewell and Thank You,” to guarantee your email will be read.

Greeting

Start off your email with a greeting. ChatGPT’s greeting is, “I hope this message finds you well.” I think this is an appropriate opener to use in any email message.

You might also say, “I hope you’re having a great day!” to express the same sentiment.

Main Message

The main message of your email should be concise. ChatGPT’s responses were lengthy. You can express the same message but in fewer words. Keep the body of the message short — no more than three paragraphs.

Highlight or bold any critical information, like who your direct reports will report to in the future.

Alternate Contact Information

Leave alternate contact information if you want to leave the door open for future relationships. Leaving this part out is okay if you’re uncomfortable sharing your email address or phone number.

Closing

ChatGPT’s closing is usually “Warm regards.” This is a fine response, but it can read too formal. If that’s not your standard closing, choose something more aligned with your style and voice.

Sign-offs like “Best wishes” or “I wish you the best of luck in the future” are excellent closing statements.

A Farewell Email Template

Save this template to your Google Drive and use it the next time you leave your current role.

Subject: An Important Update: Goodbye and Thank You

Dear [Coworkers/Team/Boss/Clients]–

I hope this email finds you well. I have some news to share with you. I have accepted a new position with [new company name] and will be leaving [old company] on [date of departure].

I have sincerely enjoyed working with you and learned a lot while employed here with [company name]. I will forever be grateful for your friendship, guidance, and support during my time here.

Although it is bittersweet, I am looking forward to my new role. If you need to reach me after my departure, you can email me at [email address] or call me at [phone number].

Thank you again for making my time here at [company name] special. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Best of luck to you–

[Your name]

Saying Goodbye

If you need to write a farewell message to your team, ChatGPT’s farewell email responses are great starting points for your draft farewell email. Or use the prompt I’ve provided for you — just fill it in with your company’s name.

Either way, include your spin on the message to make it more personal for your team.

If you’ve ever been to a stunning, interactive website that makes you simultaneously want to throw confetti in the air and share it with your friends, there’s a good chance it was built with JavaScript.

In fact, any site that uses Google Analytics (and other tracking tools) or features interactive elements or web applications also uses JavaScript, a nearly omnipresent coding language. The possibilities are limitless.

The downside? If done wrong, it can tank your SEO. So, how can you use JavaScript SEO to your advantage and boost your search performance? Let’s dive in.

What is JavaScript SEO?

How to Make Your JavaScript SEO-Friendly

JavaScript SEO Best Practices

Trying It Out

What is JavaScript SEO?

Before defining JavaScript SEO — let’s talk about the most common use cases for JavaScript. In addition to website development, JavaScript is an excellent option for gaming, computer programs, and more.

In web development, it’s primarily used for an interactive website, web and mobile apps, and dynamic content.

Once you know how the programming language is used, JavaScript SEO is simply about ensuring search engines can easily find any site built with JavaScript.

If your understanding of SEO is primarily limited to keyword optimization, you’re far from alone. There are ultimately three types of SEO — on-page, off-page, and technical.

On-page SEO focuses on the content that’s on your site (keyword optimization). Off-page SEO is concerned with your site’s reputation, popularity, and usefulness — and is mainly out of your control.

JavaScript SEO falls under the third category — technical SEO — which focuses on ensuring your site is searchable, indexable, and crawlable so people searching for the information you offer can find it.

Want to learn more about On Page and Technical SEO? Grab our free tutorial here!

How to Make Your JavaScript SEO-Friendly

Most of the JavaScript used on websites, including yours and mine, won’t significantly impact SEO. The biggest challenge comes when your developer uses JavaScript to build sections with lots of important information or entire pages.

The reason is simple: JavaScript can make it more difficult for search engines to read your site.

1. Use dynamic rendering (sparingly) as a workaround.

One of the most significant issues with JavaScript SEO and indexing relates to how your code is rendered — or how Google indexes (or doesn’t index) your site.

That means you must understand how your site can be rendered — server-side rendering, client-side rendering, and dynamic rendering.

Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

What it is: When JavaScript is rendered on the server before appearing in your browser or to Google’s crawlers.

How it affects SEO: It reduces the load time for your page’s most important content, which increases SEO performance.

The downside of SSR: SSR can drastically increase the time required if you need user inputs.

Client-Side Rendering (CSR)

What it is: CSR is when JavaScript is rendered on your browser with only a basic version of HTML, and the rest of the content is delivered via JavaScript.

How it affects SEO: It reduces indexability because most of your content is delivered via JavaScript.

The downside of CSR: While rendering is faster, search performance is much lower, so you’ll need to focus on giving Google as much information as possible so it can index your content appropriately.

Expert tip: Kristina Azarenko, a leading technical SEO expert, says, “Using client-side rendering means Googlebot can’t access any content.

A much better and more successful approach is using server-side rendering, so Googlebot also serves the content from the server.”

Dynamic Rendering

What it is: Dynamic rendering identifies bots that cannot render JavaScript and delivers an SSR version.

How it affects SEO: It allows bots to index a version of your content, which makes it more findable.

The downside of Dynamic Rendering: Ultimately, dynamic rendering is a workaround that Google says shouldn’t be a long-term solution because “it creates additional complexities and resource requirements.”

Dynamic rendering can be used by sites that experience rapid content changes or have content that uses JavaScript that is incompatible with browsers. It’s not the best fit for most sites and doesn’t need to be used on every site page.

2. Use unique, descriptive meta content.

Make sure that Google can easily find out what each page includes using meta content, page titles and meta descriptions. This includes

• Title tags.
• Meta descriptions.
• Alt text and attributes for images.

Adding meta content lets Google figure out what your site or page is about, making indexing your site and pages more straightforward and accurate.

3. Implement lazy loading.

Lazy loading speeds up page loading by serving content only as needed or about to be read. It’s particularly helpful for loading large images or content that requires lots of resources.

Your images and resource-heavy content and elements won’t get loaded with the rest of the top-of-page content, but as users read through the content, they’ll load.

And if your user doesn’t read to the bottom of the page, you won’t load unnecessary images.

The downside is that if you have someone scrolling quickly, they might end up waiting for images to load. What’s more, it may affect how Google sees your web page. So, if you follow this practice, do so carefully.

4. Make sure your JavaScript is compatible with Google.

Go into your Search Console and paste the URL of your specific page into the URL Inspection tool to see how Google renders it.

Want another tool to test? You can also use Google Rich Results Test and Google Mobile Friendly Test to see the rendered HTML.

Expert tip: David Zimmerman of Reliable Acorn recommends using tools like the Google Mobile Friendly Test because they show you what the Google spider sees.

Zimmerman adds that just because “your developer ‘read somewhere’ that Google can read JavaScript doesn’t mean that they understand how to write an SEO-friendly JavaScript website.”

The bottom line here? It’s a good idea to stay on top of things.

5. Fix any search-related errors.

You can preview the tested page once you confirm Google has indexed the page. Google only renders the content it can see, so if the tested page doesn’t appear correctly, Google won’t be able to index it.

Best of all, you can discover what’s happening and why and take steps to resolve the problem.

6. Fix and retest.

Once you’ve fixed any errors related to JavaScript rendering and compatibility, you can use the URL inspection tool to ensure your JavaScript works correctly in live mode and request that Google indexes the updated code.

JavaScript SEO Best Practices

I caught up with several JavaScript SEO experts to learn about their best practices, and we’ll get to those in a moment. However, first and foremost, make sure you’re operating on the latest information.

1. Get a primer on JavaScript SEO.

A lot goes into JavaScript SEO, and with browsers undergoing regular updates, if you haven’t done JavaScript SEO in a while, you may need a primer.

If you need to revisit what search engines are looking for when it comes to JavaScript or get detailed instructions about what to fix — and how — Google breaks down everything you need to know in Google Search Central.

It’s the secret weapon of anyone with a website because it tells you exactly how to make your website SEO-friendly — and it includes an entire section dedicated to JavaScript.

2. Put all important content into the source code.

Remember how I mentioned that Google can only index what it can see? To ensure your site is indexable, follow Azarenko’s advice and “make sure JavaScript issues don’t break your SEO efforts.”

She recommends “ensuring all-important content is available in the source code (i.e. before JavaScript is executed). This allows Google to ‘read’ your information without depending on JavaScript.

Include all metadata (title, meta robots, canonical tags, etc.), body copy, and structured data.”

3. Regularly test your site for JavaScript SEO-friendliness.

Even small edits to your JavaScript code or content can change how Google sees your site. And this isn’t limited to your JavaScript — using tools like Google Search Console to monitor page performance can help ensure your site stays at the top of search results.

Expert tip: Tristan Harris recommends using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse to test SEO performance and identify improvement areas.

Best Practice #4. Stay on top of Google’s Guidelines.

Google regularly updates its algorithms — and, therefore, its best practices. With that in mind, paying attention to Google’s page for updates is a good idea.

Zimmerman recommends using a page monitor like Hexomatic to keep up with Google’s guidelines for JavaScript SEO, “If the page monitor shows me Google has made an update, I check it out to see if it should change my processes in any way.”

Best Practice #5. Follow best on-page SEO practices.

Sure, I’m focusing on JavaScript SEO specifically here, but the key principles of SEO still apply. While JavaScript can reduce the amount of content search engines see, ensuring your content is optimized for best SEO practices is still essential.

Expert tip: Dave Ver Meer recommends disabling JavaScript.

“It’s the quickest way to identify a range of larger issues. When you visit pages on your site, you can find red flags like missing content because it’s not being rendered before the page loads and if some links don’t work,” Ver Meer says.

Trying It Out

To test my new skills in a relatively (read: completely) safe environment, I went to my sometimes-friend, sometimes-nemesis ChatGPT.

My prompt: “I want to create a Javascript code form to collect leads. Please use fun placeholders for name, email, budget, and message.”

GPT’s response: “Certainly! Below is a simple example of a JavaScript form that collects leads. This form includes fields for name, email, budget, and a message. I’ve added fun placeholders, as you requested.

The form also includes basic validation to ensure that the name, email, and message fields are not left empty.”

Here’s the HTML for the form.

As for the fun placeholders? Well, GPT thought Iron Man would be fun. Here’s what the full code in HTML looks like:

And here’s the JavaScript:

Of course, ChatGPT had a disclaimer:

Now for the fun part. Let’s see how ChatGPT optimizes this JavaScript for SEO.

Unsurprisingly, the HTML version of the code was considerably more robust. I’ve broken it up into two sections so you can compare the differences. (I’ll spell them out below.)

The body looks quite similar, with most changes related to the hypothetical lead gen page content.

Now, let’s look at the updated JavaScript.

Does it look familiar? Let’s compare the code side by side.

They’re identical. Surprised?

Here’s why.

My brand-new JavaScript code is responsible for the functionality of my brand-new lead gen form.

And only the functionality.

It’s not responsible for the structure or “page” content. That’s where the HTML comes in. And that’s also where recommendations for SEO optimization apply.

How I Used ChatGPT to Optimize JavaScript SEO

Are you wondering about the specific changes ChatGPT recommended to optimize the JavaScript SEO?

Change 1. Add a page title & meta description.

Change 2. Use heading tags.

Change 3. Label form fields for SEO and accessibility.

Change 4. Add alt text to images.

Change 5. Use responsive design to make the page mobile-friendly.

Change 6. Add schema markup to help search engines understand the content of your page.

The Bottom Line of JavaScript SEO

Deciding to use JavaScript on your website requires understanding the implications for SEO and planning accordingly to ensure your site remains SEO friendly — or findable, crawlable, and indexable by search engines.

This is not meant to caution you against JavaScript. On the contrary, to make the most of your interactive features, it’s necessary to find and hire developers who understand JavaScript and SEO and can help you stand out while getting found.

The biggest takeaway? The most important thing you can do to make your JavaScript SEO-friendly is to ensure that it renders correctly and that your page HTML is structured to provide as much information as possible about the page’s content.

Perhaps surprisingly (and perhaps not), the rules of on-page SEO apply to JavaScript SEO — the key lies in ensuring search engines can “see” your content.

If I reach the footer of an email in my inbox, it usually means one of two things: 1) The email was so engaging I read all the way to the end (that’s rare), or 2) I scrolled down to unsubscribe.

There, sandwiched between social icons and the company logo, lies the humble email disclaimer.

An email disclaimer is a legal statement that protects the sender from some legal liability. Legal disclosures may seem like the least exciting part of an email marketer’s job, but violating regulations can be costly.

I’m going to show you the types of email disclosures, examples of each, and best practices for a compliant, user-friendly disclosure.

Table of Contents

• What is an email disclaimer?
• When To Use an Email Disclaimer
• The Best Email Disclaimers
• Getting Disclaimers Right

What is an email disclaimer?

An email disclaimer is the text and links at the bottom of an email that contain essential information for the recipients, including the company’s terms and conditions, privacy policy, and how to unsubscribe.

Emails sent by an individual should place any email disclaimers in the signature, while mass emails should embed disclaimers in the footer. Setting them up this way means they appear consistent in every email you send.

When To Use an Email Disclaimer

When you need an email disclaimer, which ones to use depends largely on what business you’re in and where your customers live. Here are a few factors to consider:

• The purpose of the email (commercial or transactional).
• Whether your industry has specific regulations, like HIPAA.
• Whether your email contains trademarks or copyrighted information.
• Where you and your customers are located.

Location-Specific Email Regulations

Most countries have regulations concerning emails, including:

• CAN-SPAM Act (United States).
• CASL (Canada).
• GDPR (European Union).
• UK-GDPR (United Kingdom).
• California (CCPA), Colorado, Utah, and Virginia all have email laws that took effect in 2023.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where your company is headquartered. If you have one person on your email address from any of the above places, you need to comply with the regulations for that area.

Working in marketing and communications for 15 years, I’ve worked with my fair share of attorneys. While it can feel creatively stifling to be told what you must and can’t include in your emails, it protects both you and your company.

Even the weakest of these regulations, CAN-SPAM, carries strict penalties. You can be fined up to $51,744 per email for any violations. In Europe or Canada, violations can run into the millions.

GDPR, CASL, and UK-GDPR are broad regulations covering how you should store and manage customer data (including email addresses). Across all these regulations, you should include in your email at a minimum:

• Company name.
• A physical address.
• Instructions or a link to unsubscribe.

In many cases, that’s just the beginning.

The Best Email Disclaimers

Just because email disclaimers are legal statements doesn’t mean they need to be boring or unintelligible. In fact, it’s your job to find a balance between compliance and clarity for users.

The email disclaimer is also valuable real estate. It’s a place where readers know to look for vital information about the sender: who they are, how to learn more, and how to engage with the brand by managing email preferences, etc.

It’s an often-overlooked place to build trust with your customers.

1. Email Confidentiality Notice

You’ve most likely seen a confidentiality disclaimer from someone like an accountant or attorney.

A typical notice might read, “This email and any information, files, or attachments are for the exclusive and confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient…”

While legal experts differ on how much protection this affords the sender, it’s still a good idea to include it if your emails include personal information.

You might need it if: The email communication includes any personal information other than the person’s name. This could include membership numbers, payment information, or identifying information like date of birth.

Example: Expedia Group

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The disclaimer in this footer is short and to the point, ensuring readers see it and understand why it’s important. I’m more likely to read the text because of its easy-to-consume length. There’s not too much to wrap my mind around.

What I like: The confidentiality disclaimer in Expedia’s standard email footer is much shorter and simpler than what you typically see. However, it appeals to common sense and shares the why: “This email and its links may contain your personal information; please only forward to people you trust.”

2. Privacy Policy

What’s the difference between confidentiality and privacy?

Confidentiality is an ethical responsibility preventing the disclosure of information, while privacy is a human right. This refers to respect for a person’s private life, home, and correspondence.

A privacy policy (or privacy notice) is a legal document that explains how an organization handles personal data. Both GDPR and CCPA (California) require that companies include a privacy policy in emails.

Because these are long, most brands link out to the full policy. The policy should be in plain language, concise, transparent, and in an easily accessible form.

You might need it if: Any of your recipients lives in Europe, California, Colorado, Utah, or Virginia, or you want to offer more transparency on how customer data is used.

Example: Hyatt Group

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The brief privacy policy here links to the full policy if anyone wants to access it to understand how exactly Hyatt is using their private information.

It also clearly states what rights their clients have, “…to access, to rectify and to object for legitimate reasons to the processing of your data.”

Sharing this information allows Hyatt customers to know that they still have rights regarding how their data is used, even though it is already supposed to be protected by the privacy policy.

What I like: Hyatt links its privacy policy to a company value — respecting customers. I like that they also give a way to contact them with feedback or questions about data use.

3. Unmonitored Email Disclaimer

What happens when a customer replies to your mass email?

If you use an email platform to send email distributions, you can make your reply-to email any email address that you want — including one that doesn’t match the sender’s email.

Small businesses often use a generic email address or even the founder’s email as a reply-to email so they can keep all their responses in one inbox.

Larger companies that use a CRM or ticketing system often want their customers to submit questions and support tickets a different way — so their reply-to email is unmonitored.

If that’s you, you need to let your customers know how to get in touch with you instead of replying.

You might need it if: The reply-to email is different from the sender email or is unmonitored.

Example: TripAdvisor

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When writing a newsletter, people might have questions. And, when those questions arise, recipients may want to hit reply.

If they receive a bounce back unexpectedly, they may feel abandoned — completely left in the dark. A disclaimer can help you direct them to the right place.

Tripadvisor lets email recipients know that this email address cannot receive responses and directs them to their Help Center instead.

What I like: TripAdvisor’s email disclaimer about replies is concise but clear. They give an alternate way for customers to get in touch with TripAdvisor if they need to.

4. Copyright and Trademark Notices

If your company owns trademarks or copyrighted information, it’s important to protect your intellectual property. Adding a copyright and trademark notice lets your readers know that the content can’t be duplicated without permission.

You might need it if: Your email references any trademarks or copyrighted information owned by you or anyone else. This could include references to partners, products, platforms (like the Apple or Google Play stores), and more.

Example: Adobe

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Adobe’s trademark notice is easy to read and comprehensive. It lists the top trademarks protected by law and links to a full list of trademark guidelines.

You don’t need a legal background to understand what it’s saying — don’t use the company’s branding irresponsibly. You can also tell what belongs to Adobe and what does not.

What I like: This tidy little phrase protects Adobe from accidental trademark violation: “All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.”

5. Terms and Conditions/Offer Restrictions

If you run email promotions, this disclaimer is for you.

The terms and conditions in your email footer act as the fine print for consumers. Let’s say that you run a promotion for a free tumbler with every purchase.

You need to let your customer know when the promotion ends and if there are any location restrictions or minimum purchase amount.

You don’t want to take up space in your header and body copy for every detail, but they’re still important to include — hence the email disclaimer.

You might need it if: You sell products or services or are running any kind of a sale, contest, or sweepstakes. Terms and conditions are particularly important if you offer any financial products like credit card offers or are running sweepstakes that might have tax implications.

Example: Primary

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Some promotional disclaimers include big blocks of text with promotional periods, location restrictions, and more offer-specific details.

Instead of unique disclaimers for each promotion, online retailer Primary uses this blanket approach: “All promotions are limited time only, while supplies last. Sale prices as marked and subject to change.”

What I like: To further protect themselves from liability, Primary includes the phrase that they reserve “the right to modify or cancel promotions at any time.”

6. HIPAA Email Disclaimer

If you’re in the healthcare industry, you are no doubt already familiar with HIPAA.

At first glance, a HIPAA email disclaimer looks a lot like a confidentiality notice.

It often contains the same language that the email contains confidential information that is only intended for the recipient.

HIPAA email disclaimers go a step further by describing the different ways the company may communicate with you and share medical information and telling you how to change your preferences if you need to.

Adding a disclaimer isn’t enough to make your email HIPAA-compliant — for instance, customers must opt-in, and emails must be encrypted — but it’s a start.

You might need it if: You’re a healthcare provider or insurer transmitting information electronically.

Example: Ascension St. Vincent

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The HIPAA disclaimer here describes in plain language how the medical practice communicates with patients and examples of confidential information it might send. It gives a clear way to contact them to update communication preferences.

What I like: The disclaimer includes responsibility for the recipient in the case of a mis-send. They need to inform Ascension St. Vincent and then delete it immediately and permanently.

7. Unsubscribe Link

When a customer wants to end the relationship, make it easy for them to find it with an email disclaimer.

A one-click unsubscribe option is the best practice, but you can give other options like unsubscribing by email or an email preferences center.

Keep it light. You can inject a little personality here, like the example below, but don’t take it to the extreme where you’re shaming the recipient.

Pro tip: To prevent unsubscribes, offer context on how the recipient landed on your email list in the first place, for example: “This email was sent to you because you signed up for our newsletter at [website URL].”

You might need it if: You send mass emails. That’s it. Unsubscribe instructions are required in emails by law in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Example: Chubbies

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What I like: Men’s retailer Chubbies adds personality and humor into its unsubscribe text but still makes it clear how to take yourself off the list. If you take the time to get to this portion of the email, you can have a little laugh. This was a clever way to add an extra splash of personality to the newsletter.

8. Combo Disclaimers

In most cases, companies have multiple disclaimers they need to include in their footer.

The more that you have, the more important it becomes to reduce the text and lay out your disclaimers in a way that readers can easily scan and find what they need.

You might need it if: You have more than one disclaimer you need to include.

Example: Ikea

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Ikea works in dozens of countries and hundreds of markets, so it keeps its disclaimers simple and uses links to send users to its contact, privacy policy, and unsubscribe pages.

What I like: Ikea provides exactly what it needs to while keeping its footer clean and to the point. The company blends best practices and several types of disclaimers to create something comprehensive. Don’t be afraid to mix and match.

Getting Disclaimers Right

If you’re like me, writing legal documents is outside of your wheelhouse. Don’t worry. With some outside resources, you can make your email program compliant without compromising quality.

1. Work with your legal department.

I’ve worked for companies regulated by the SEC and FTC whose legal teams wanted to review every single piece of marketing collateral we produced.

Some of the attorneys I worked with were fantastic, while others didn’t get it (one wanted to add disclaimers longer than my ad’s character count).

To avoid conflict and overbearing reviews, be proactive in building a relationship with your legal counsel.

Ask them to educate you on legal issues for email communications, to create a list of terms for you to avoid, and to help create your disclaimers.

2. Avoid legalese.

Legal writing is like its own language. It’s difficult to avoid legalese in writing documents, but it isn’t impossible. Ask your legal team if you can edit some of the disclosures into plain language (think simple words, short sentences, active voice).

While your company’s privacy policy may be out of your control, your emails aren’t. Give a short paraphrase on why your privacy policy matters before linking to it in your email. Here’s an example:

We care about your privacy! That’s why we won’t ever sell your data to a third party. View our privacy policy.

3. Know when to link out.

In emails, particularly on mobile, sentences quickly turn into long walls of text. Email disclaimers should be user-friendly and scannable with a clean design. That way, your readers can find what they need quickly without frustration.

Many companies decide to provide links to their privacy policy, email preferences center, and contact page. For complex businesses, this keeps everything simple, clean, and easy to find.

4. Create a comprehensive compliance program.

Last, remember that email disclaimers are just one way to protect your business. Adding a HIPAA disclaimer isn’t enough on its own to make you HIPAA-compliant, just like adding a privacy policy won’t make you compliant with GDPR.

These disclaimers are one small piece of the big picture which is data collection and management. Put a strategy in place to implement best practices for email marketing and keep your team abreast of regulatory changes.

It’s a big task, but the payoff of greater customer trust and business protection makes it worth it.

One of the most important parts of having a website is making sure your audience can find your site (and find what they’re looking for).

The good news is that Google Search Essentials, formerly called Google Webmaster Guidelines, simplifies the process of optimizing your site for search performance.

After all, getting your target audience to your site and converting them is the whole point of having a website in the first place.

In fact, big-picture marketing strategy is one of the most important conversations I have with clients when they come to me for messaging and website copy.

Sure, I focus on creating conversion-focused site maps and website copy. Still, it’s also about SEO optimization and having an effective long-term content strategy so that cold traffic can find the site once it goes live.

Even though I use best SEO practices on the main pages, optimizing blog content (and future articles) is an ongoing process that requires staying on top of the latest guidelines.

That’s why Google Search Essentials is a helpful tool for anyone with a website. So, let’s dive into what they are and how to use them.

What are Google Webmaster Guidelines?

What’s actually in the guidelines?

More key webmaster guidelines of Google Search Central

Following best practices

What I Learned…

What are Google Webmaster Guidelines?

Because most people don’t use the term “webmaster” anymore, the name shifted from Google Webmaster Guidelines to Google Search Essentials.

And if you have a website, it’s Google pulling back the curtain and giving you a rundown of exactly what it’s looking for when it indexes sites so you can make your site perform better in search results.

Realistically, you can use Search Essentials as a foundation for developing your content and overall marketing strategy.

Sarah Blocksidge from Sixth City Marketing says, “It’s just like having the answers in the back of a textbook or having an open note exam.”

Because Search Essentials unlocks the mystery behind what Google prioritizes, they make it relatively easy to make sure your site is findable, crawlable, and can perform well when people search for related topics.

What’s actually in the guidelines?

If you think of Google Search Essentials as a website 101 primer, you can develop an understanding of how Google works so you can use it to get results.

Because I often look at Google Search Essentials from a writing perspective, I caught up with Michelle Bourbonniere of Words on the Rise, a friend and colleague I often consult for SEO.

“I love Search Essentials — they provide Google’s official documentation for SEO from a technical standpoint,” says Bourbonniere.

She also noted that these guidelines help define what not to do with clear guidelines around what counts as spam and learning actions that will get you in trouble in the long run.

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Ultimately, Google Search Essentials is part of the documentation for Google Search Central and primarily covers the technical requirements, spam policies, and best practices.

Introduction,

The first page you come to on Google Search Essentials reflects basic webmaster guidelines and provides an SEO Starter Guide.

If you’re new to SEO or find it confusing or frustrating, this is a great page to visit to take SEO 101 in bite-sized pieces.

It’s also an excellent reference for anyone who frequently works in SEO to stay on top of updates from Google.

You’ll get an overview of SEO, why it matters, and how to get your website on Google. Also featured on the page:

• An SEO starter guide.
• Tips for improving the way your site shows up on Google.
• An introduction to using Google Search Console to review and monitor performance.

Search Essentials Overview

Because we’re primarily focusing on Google Search Essentials, this page is where you should start. It provides an overview of technical requirements, spam policies, and high-level best practices and gives you links to dive deeper into each section.

The usefulness here lies in the page’s simplicity. I also love that Google includes a reminder that appearing in Google Search results doesn’t come with a financial burden.

Technical Requirements

The technical requirements of Google Search Essentials are simple — and there are only three:

1. Don’t block Googlebot.

If Googlebot can’t find your site or page, it can’t index your site.

2. Make sure your page works.

Google won’t index the page if your URL triggers an error code.

3. Your content must be indexable.

Ultimately, this just means that the text is readable by Google Search and doesn’t violate spam policies.

The site also provides links for more information on how to check your site against these three rules.

Spam Policies

Google’s web search spam policies are considerably more extensive than the technical requirements.

It’s essential to stay current on these policies, as they frequently change as the algorithms (and spammers) get increasingly sophisticated.

While they ultimately boil down to avoiding content designed to manipulate the algorithm, Google spells out its spam policies and behavior patterns that can lead to site demotion or removal from search indexing.

More Key Webmaster Guidelines of Google Search Central

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Because a lot more goes into SEO, Google Search Central features considerably more documentation with five specific sections.

Although not specifically part of Search Essentials, because many areas of these guidelines crosslink, I want to share some additional content you can expect to find (and benefit from).

SEO fundamentals

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As I mentioned earlier, much of what I do as a copywriter focuses on optimizing my writing for SEO.

And yes, part of this involves ensuring the headings are tagged appropriately, the content relates to the title and topic, and important keywords are included logically throughout the copy for each page or article.

Understanding helpful content

Performing well with Google’s algorithms goes beyond following best practices for SEO.

The copy and content have to be good — and by that, I mean it has to be helpful or interesting for the reader. It might be showing them how to do something.

Then again, it might also be about sharing thought leadership and helping you become known.

With that in mind, you can see that this section of Google Search Central is more than webmaster guidelines. It’s designed to help you create content that your audience — and therefore Google — likes.

Google’s E-E-A-T focus elevates content that delivers on experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust — and is helpful to your reader.

Crawling and indexing

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Crawling and indexing go deeper into the technical side of SEO so that sites can crawl and index your site. After all, while SEO-optimized writing is absolutely critical for good SEO performance, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Good SEO practices also relate to the “stuff” that happens behind the scenes, such as on-page coding as well as site structure and design. You’ll learn more about that in this section.

Ranking and search appearance

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Where SEO fundamentals focus on making sure your site is findable by search engines and crawling and indexing is about technical SEO, ranking and search appearance helps you structure your data so that your site appears the way you want it to on Google.

You can go into each section to get tips and best practices for improving how you show up when the algorithm delivers your content to users.

Monitoring and debugging

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Sometimes, there’s a reason your content or site may not perform as well or why it may drop lower in searches.

The monitoring and debugging section walks you through the details so you can analyze what’s going on and find a solution to any issues with your site.

Site-specific guides

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Some types of websites have specific best practices — especially e-commerce, international, and multilingual sites. This section includes guidelines for people whose websites fall into those categories.

Following Best Practices

It’s one thing to understand best practices. It’s something entirely different to make sure your site follows them.

My site ranks well for several keywords, and I work with an SEO expert for on-page support and to help individual articles rank. However, one of the areas that I hadn’t focused as heavily on before writing this was the technical side.

Site Indexing

Sure, I’ve been getting emails from Google Search Console telling me about issues affecting my site and indexing, but I haven’t been taking action.

So I dove into page indexing to find out which pages aren’t being indexed. And there were a lot of them.

Clearly, this is a sign that I need to focus more on doing something about these emails when they come in.

Soft 404 Codes

Since the email was about a soft 404, I decided to choose that option first. Luckily, there’s only one page that falls into that category.

But first, I needed to figure out what a “soft 404” code means. Rather than diving into each section of Search Central, I did a quick search.

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The first result is usually the best, especially when you’re searching within Google’s Search Central for one of its own terms.

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According to the crawling and indexing section on crawler management, a soft 404 code is usually because a URL comes back saying that the page doesn’t exist but also generates a 200 (success) status code.

What does that mean? The page exists. Yet, it doesn’t work at the same time.

Google goes on to explain why and how that happens:

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Fixing Soft 404 Codes

Since it appears that the page content was missing for some reason, I investigated further, clicking on the link.

The reason the link generates a soft 404 error is that it points to an item in my shop that’s not currently available.

The next step involved figuring out how the heck Google found that link in the first place, which meant inspecting the URL.

Eureka! The solution is that a landing page that had been pointing to it never got taken down after the sales window closed. And since the program isn’t currently offered, turning it back on wasn’t a reasonable fix.

Neither was deleting the page since it may be offered again in the future.

That meant I had two options: (1) Delete the landing page or (2) Change the link from a sale to a waitlist.

Instead of deleting the page, potentially causing another error code, I opted to change the link. Problem solved…mostly. All that was left was to let Google know about the changes by following the Search Console prompts.

 

Evaluating Helpful Content through the lens of E-E-A-T

If you’ve been following Google’s updates for the last year, you may have heard about its E-E-A-T framework. Previously, it was E-A-T for expertise, authority, and trust — with the goal of making sure that the content was trustworthy.

Google recently added experience to this, adding a layer to the trustworthiness of content.

Bourbonniere shares that this is an opportunity for writers and brands to distinguish themselves because “humans have something AI writing tools will never have—lived experience and personal stories.”

While most of my content, especially that on my own site, is based on my personal experience, I know there are opportunities to highlight this.

So, I decided to go back to a blog post that performs well to see how I can update it with an E-E-A-T lens.

That article focuses on writing hero headlines. And, to make sure I’m able to maximize this opportunity, I added a bit of content and context on my own.

I ALSO pasted my content into ChatGPT and used this prompt:

“I wrote an article on hero headlines. Here it is:

[insert article]

I want to add more personal experience into this. Can you help me find some places where some anecdotes or stories would add gravitas?”

ChatGPT gave me seven places where I could improve the content of the article and ideas for the types of stories I could tell that would add context and highlight my experience.

While I didn’t take GPT up on all of its suggestions, I found its ideas a great starting point. What’s more, enough time had passed since initially publishing the article that I was able to look at it with fresh eyes and find more areas for improvement while adding over 700 helpful words to it. Additionally, I was able to

• Crosslink more related content on my site.
• Update the CTA to reflect current offers.
• Add context to the content outside of what GPT suggested.

Then, for the purposes of this article, I asked Google Search Console to inspect the URL before submitting it for crawling.

Even though Google will eventually get around to re-crawling, this action makes it a top priority.

What I Learned…

I could go on for hours about how powerful Google Search Essentials is, especially when combined with Google Search Console and all of the documentation in Google Search Central.

While I’ve never called myself an SEO expert, I’m a copywriter who knows a lot about SEO. And although I write for humans first, optimizing for SEO is at the core of everything I do. So, admittedly, most of what I learned related to technical SEO.

That said, I have three main takeaways that I wish everyone with a website knew:

Takeaway 1. SEO can be accessible to everyone

In my experience, lots of people clam up when we talk about SEO. They know it’s important, but it’s some kind of magic that happens behind the scenes, and most business owners I talk to don’t want to take the time to learn how it works.

Alternatively, many of the smaller companies I work with don’t think that SEO is important. But the truth is it’s not just for the big guys. And interestingly, my conversation with Bourbonniere covered similar ground.

She pointed out that many people have a misconception that SEO is just for big sites and that enterprise-level SEO is the only kind of SEO out there, saying:

“Instead, what I see is that a lot of smaller websites do really well in search results, and the way that they do so is by having really A-plus content that follows Google’s E-E-A-T.”

Really, what it boils down to is ensuring that your content ticks the best practices boxes in Search Essentials.

It also means it’s worth your time and energy to make sure you’re optimizing everything for SEO, whether that means doing it yourself or working with a writer or SEO expert to make it happen.

 

Takeaway 2. More isn’t always more

First, one of the most important things to pay attention to in Search Essentials is the spam policies. You don’t want to keyword stuff. You don’t want to confuse Google. And, you don’t want to overuse keywords.

As I was talking with Angela Pointon of 11outof11, she mentioned that one of the biggest things her team sees when it comes to SEO is that more isn’t always more.

She says, “If you focus on the same keywords over and over, your entire website may become redundant instead of useful, and it might confuse Google.”

Pointon recommends using both Google Search Essentials and HubSpot’s SEO Topics functionality to help create clarity around the pages and their individual primary keyword.

In my experience, choosing a single keyword to focus on and creating great content is far better than overdoing things and creating a confusing piece of content.

Takeaway 3. Google Search Console is an answer guru — use it

Personally, I’ve found Google Search Console to be a game changer, especially in the context of actually using it to fix things. I’m not too proud to say that it’s been a head-in-the-sand thing for me in the past.

Until now, I’ve primarily been using Search Console to identify which search terms people are using to find my site and which pages they’re going to first.

While some of the information is available in Google Analytics, Search Console gives so much more context that I use to decide which content to update or write.

Even with my limited use before now, it took me a few years to really get into Search Console, and I’m not alone.

According to Blocksidge, “On social media and forums, I always see people ask why their website isn’t showing up, and the answer can always be found in Google Search Console. Finding the answer is just a matter of looking for it.”

Not only is Search Essentials the bible for making sure your stuff shows up on Google, it’s got step-by-step guides for fixing any problems.

And Hardy Desai of Supple Digital, sums it up nicely, saying, “When you learn about how Google’s algorithm creates results pages, you’ll know how to build and maintain a website that Google ‘likes.’”

Want to learn more about technical SEO? Grab our guide!

Search Essentials is a “How to” Guide for Google

The bottom line?

If your site isn’t performing the way you want it to in search results, going to Google Search Central and Search Essentials (formerly known as Webmaster Guidelines) will help you understand what’s not working and give you a roadmap for fixing it.

And that’s invaluable to anyone with a site, whether you’re a webmaster or site owner.

Today’s consumers have a lot of power. As a business, you must have a deep understanding of who your buyers are and what influences their purchase decisions.

Enter: Market Research.

Whether you’re new to market research or not, I created this guide to help you conduct a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• What is market research?
• Primary vs. Secondary Research
• Types of Market Research
• How to Do Market Research
• Market Research Report Template
• Market Research Examples

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry. But if you ask me, it’s hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers.

Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

How? Consider these two things:

1. Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It‘s very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition’s immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
2. Your customers don’t represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which signifies a strong interest in market research as we enter 2024. The market is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025.

Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are.

As our world becomes louder and demands more of our attention, this proves invaluable.

By understanding your buyer’s problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them.

Market research also provides insight into the following:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What’s trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there‘s demand for the business initiatives you’re investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes.

As a result, you can make better business decisions.

Primary vs. Secondary Research

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get, consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you’re trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market.

Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that’s gathered from public records.

That said, there are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products: primary research and secondary research.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market.

It’s useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas.

Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets:

• Exploratory Primary Research: This kind of primary market research normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.
• Specific Primary Research: This type of research often follows exploratory research. In specific research, you take a smaller or more precise segment of your audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business).

Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors. The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

• Public Sources: These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They’re often free to find and review — like government statistics (e.g., from the U.S. Census Bureau).
• Commercial Sources: These sources often come in the form of pay-to-access market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew, Gartner, or Forrester.
• Internal Sources: This is the market data your organization already has like average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data that can help you draw conclusions on buyer needs.

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions so you can allow for a natural flow of conversation. Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas and shape your entire marketing strategy.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product and provide feedback. This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service’s usability for your target audience.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX, and which aspects of it could be improved.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, and what they need from your business or brand.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics. This way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research helps you define your pricing strategy. It gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for and what your target audience is willing to pay.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what’s doing well in your industry and how you can separate yourself from the competition.

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research gives you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g., loyalty programs, rewards, remarkable customer service).

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations people make when they think about your business.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. The goal is to use these learnings to inform future campaigns.

1. Define your buyer persona.

You have to understand who your customers are and how customers in your industry make buying decisions.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

Some key characteristics you should be keen on including in your buyer persona are:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Job title(s)
• Job titles
• Family size
• Income
• Major challenges

The idea is to use your persona(s) as a guideline for how to effectively reach and learn about the real audience members in your industry.

To get started with creating your personas, check out these free templates, as well as this helpful tool.

2. Identify a persona group to engage.

Now that you know who your buyer personas are, use that information to help you identify a group to engage to conduct your market research with.

This should be a representative sample of your target customers so you can better understand their actual characteristics, challenges, and buying habits.

How to Identify the Right People to Engage for Market Research

When choosing who to engage for your market research, you should:

• Aim for 10 participants per buyer persona. I recommend focusing on one persona at a time.
• Select people who have recently interacted with you. Focus on behaviors within the past six months (or up to a year).
• Gather a mix of participants. Recruit people who have purchased your product, purchased a competitor’s product, and decided not to purchase anything at all.
• Provide an incentive. Motivate someone to spend 30-45 minutes on you and your study. On a tight budget? You can reward participants for free by giving them exclusive access to content.

3. Prepare research questions for your market research participants.

The best way to make sure you get the most out of your conversations is to be prepared.

You should always create a discussion guide to make sure you use your time wisely. Your discussion guide should be in an outline format, with a time allotment and open-ended questions for each section.

Wait, all open-ended questions?

Yes — this is a golden rule of market research. You never want to “lead the witness” by asking yes and no questions, as that puts you at risk of unintentionally swaying their thoughts by leading with your own hypothesis.

Asking open-ended questions also helps you avoid one-word answers (which aren’t very helpful for you).

Example Outline of a 30-Minute Survey

Here’s a general outline for a 30-minute survey for one B2B buyer.

Want to make it a digital survey? Use HubSpot’s free online form builder.

Background Information (5 minutes)

Ask the buyer to give you a little background information (their title, how long they’ve been with the company, and so on). Then, ask a fun/easy question to warm things up (first concert attended, favorite restaurant in town, etc.).

Here are some key background questions to ask your target audience:

• Describe how your team is structured.
• Tell me about your personal job responsibilities.
• What are the team’s goals and how do you measure them?
• What has been your biggest challenge in the past year?

Now, make a transition to acknowledge the specific purchase or interaction they made that led to you including them in the study. The next three stages of the buyer’s journey will focus specifically on that purchase.

Awareness (5 minutes)

Here, you want to understand how they first realized they had a problem that needed to be solved without getting into whether or not they knew about your brand yet.

• Think back to when you first realized you needed a [name the product/service category, but not yours specifically]. What challenges were you facing at the time?
• How did you know that something in this category could help you?
• How familiar were you with different options on the market?

Consideration (10 minutes)

Now you want to get very specific about how and where the buyer researched potential solutions. Plan to interject to ask for more details.

• What was the first thing you did to research potential solutions? How helpful was this source?
• Where did you go to find more information?

If they don’t come up organically, ask about search engines, websites visited, people consulted, and so on. Probe, as appropriate, with some of the following questions:

• How did you find that source?
• How did you use vendor websites?
• What words specifically did you search on Google?
• How helpful was it? How could it be better?
• Who provided the most (and least) helpful information? What did that look like?
• Tell me about your experiences with the sales people from each vendor.

Decision (10 minutes)

• Which of the sources you described above was the most influential in driving your decision?
• What, if any, criteria did you establish to compare the alternatives?
• What vendors made it to the short list and what were the pros/cons of each?
• Who else was involved in the final decision? What role did each of these people play?
• What factors ultimately influenced your final purchasing decision?

Closing

Here, you want to wrap up and understand what could have been better for the buyer.

• Ask them what their ideal buying process would look like. How would it differ from what they experienced?
• Allow time for further questions on their end.
• Don’t forget to thank them for their time and confirm their address to send a thank-you note or incentive.

4. List your primary competitors.

List your primary competitors — keep in mind listing the competition isn’t always as simple as Company X versus Company Y.

Sometimes, a division of a company might compete with your main product or service, even though that company’s brand might put more effort in another area.

For example, Apple is known for its laptops and mobile devices but Apple Music competes with Spotify over its music streaming service.

From a content standpoint, you might compete with a blog, YouTube channel, or similar publication for inbound website visitors — even though their products don’t overlap with yours at all.

For example, a toothpaste company might compete with magazines like Health.com or Prevention on certain blog topics related to health and hygiene even though the magazines don’t actually sell oral care products.

Identifying Industry Competitors

To identify competitors whose products or services overlap with yours, determine which industry or industries you’re pursuing.

Start high-level, using terms like education, construction, media & entertainment, food service, healthcare, retail, financial services, telecommunications, and agriculture.

You can build your list the following ways:

• Review your industry quadrant on G2 Crowd. G2 Crowd aggregates user ratings and social data to create “quadrants,” where you can see companies plotted as contenders, leaders, niche, and high performers in their respective industries.
• Download a market report. Companies like Forrester and Gartner offer both free and gated market forecasts every year on the vendors who are leading their industry.
• Search using social media. Social networks make great company directories. On LinkedIn, for example, select the search bar and enter the name of the industry you’re pursuing. Then, under “More,” select “Companies” to narrow your results.

Identifying Content Competitors

Search engines are your best friends in this area of secondary market research.

To find the online publications with which you compete, take the overarching industry term you identified in the section above, and come up with a handful of more specific industry terms your company identifies with.

A catering business, for example, might generally be a “food service” company, but also consider itself a vendor in “event catering,” “cake catering,” or “baked goods.” Once you have this list, do the following:

• Google it. Don’t underestimate the value in seeing which websites come up when you run a search on Google for the industry terms that describe your company. You might find a mix of product developers, blogs, magazines, and more.
• Compare your search results against your buyer persona. If the content the website publishes seems like the stuff your buyer persona would want to see, it’s a potential competitor, and should be added to your list of competitors.

5. Summarize your findings.

Feeling overwhelmed by the notes you took? We suggest looking for common themes that will help you tell a story and create a list of action items.

To make the process easier, try using your favorite presentation software to make a report, as it will make it easy to add in quotes, diagrams, or call clips.

Feel free to add your own flair, but the following outline should help you craft a clear summary:

• Background: Your goals and why you conducted this study.
• Participants: Who you talked to. A table works well so you can break groups down by persona and customer/prospect.
• Executive Summary: What were the most interesting things you learned? What do you plan to do about it?
• Awareness: Describe the common triggers that lead someone to enter into an evaluation. (Quotes can be very powerful.)
• Consideration: Provide the main themes you uncovered, as well as the detailed sources buyers use when conducting their evaluation.
• Decision: Paint the picture of how a decision is really made by including the people at the center of influence and any product features or information that can make or break a deal.
• Action Plan: Your analysis probably uncovered a few campaigns you can run to get your brand in front of buyers earlier and/or more effectively. Provide your list of priorities, a timeline, and the impact it will have on your business.

Market Research Report Template

Within a market research kit, there are a number of critical pieces of information for your business‘s success. Let’s take a look at these elements.

Pro Tip: Upon downloading HubSpot’s free Market Research Kit, you’ll receive editable templates for each of the given parts of the kit, instructions on how to use the kit, and a mock presentation that you can edit and customize.

Download HubSpot’s free, editable market research report template here.

1. Five Forces Analysis Template

Use Porter’s Five Forces Model to understand an industry by analyzing five different criteria and how high the power, threat, or rivalry in each area is — here are the five criteria:

• Competitive rivalry
• Threat of new entrants
• Threat of substitution
• Buyer power
• Supplier power

Download a free, editable Five Forces Analysis template here.

2. SWOT Analysis Template

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis looks at your internal strengths and weaknesses, and your external opportunities and threats within the market.

A SWOT analysis highlights direct areas of opportunity your company can continue, build, focus on, and work to overcome.

Download a free, editable SWOT Analysis template here.

3. Market Survey Template

Market surveys help you uncover important information about your buyer personas, target audience, current customers, market, and competition.

Surveys should contain a variety of question types, like multiple choice, rankings, and open-ended responses.

Here are some categories of questions you should ask via survey:

• Demographic questions
• Business questions
• Competitor questions
• Industry questions
• Brand questions
• Product questions

Download a free, editable Market Survey template here.

4. Focus Group Template

Focus groups are an opportunity to collect in-depth, qualitative data from your real customers or members of your target audience.

You should ask your focus group participants open-ended questions. While doing so, keep these tips top of mind:

• Set a limit for the number of questions you‘re asking (after all, they’re open-ended).
• Provide participants with a prototype or demonstration.
• Ask participants how they feel about your price.
• Ask participants about your competition.
• Offer participants time at the end of the session for final comments, questions, or concerns.

Download a free, editable Focus Group template here.

Market Research Examples

1. TikTok uses in-app research surveys to better understand consumer viewing preferences and ad experiences.

If you’re a TikTok enthusiast (like me), then you’ve probably been served a survey or two while you scroll through your For You feed.

TikTok has strategically started using in-app market research surveys to help improve the viewer experiences.

I’ve received two different types of surveys so far.

The first type typically follows a video or an ad and asks how I felt about the video I just viewed. There are options like “I don’t like this ad,” “I enjoyed watching this video,” or “This content is appropriate.”

The other type of survey I’ve gotten asks if I’ve recently seen a sponsored video or ad from a particular brand. For example, “Did you see any promotional content from the Dove Self Esteem Project in the past two days on TikTok?

TikTok can then use this information to tweak my algorithm to match my preferences or to serve ads that are more in line with my buying behaviors.

2. Taco Bell tests new products in select markets before launching nationwide.

Taco Bell is known for their innovative, consumer-driven menu items. In fact, just last year, they gave Taco Bell rewards members exclusive access to vote on the newest round of hot sauce sayings.

This popular fast-food chain puts a lot of menu decisions in the hands of their target market. Taco Bell lovers ultimately determine which new menu items stay on the menu through voting and, ultimately, their purchase behaviors.

(Let’s all collectively agree that the Cheez-It Crunchwrap deserves a permanent spot.)

Often, this process of releasing a new item is done regionally before a nationwide launch. This is a form of market research — soft launching products in smaller markets to determine how well it sells before dedicating too many resources to it.

The way Taco Bell uses this information is pretty straightforward. If the product is not successful, it’s unlikely to be released on a national scale.

3. The Body Shop used social listening to determine how they should reposition brand campaigns to respond to what their customers cared most about.

The Body Shop has long been known for offering ethically sourced and natural products, and proudly touts “sustainability” as a core value.

To dive deeper into the sustainability subtopics that meant the most to their audiences, the team at The Body Shop tracked conversations and ultimately found their audiences cared a lot about refills.

Using this information helped the Body Shop team feel confident when relaunching their Refill Program across 400 stores globally in 2022.

Market research proved they were on the right track with their refill concept, and demonstrated increased efforts were needed to show Body Shop customers that the Body Shop cared about their customers’ values.

Conduct Market Research to Grow Better

Conducting market research can be a very eye-opening experience. Even if you think you know your buyers pretty well, completing the study will likely uncover new channels and messaging tips to help improve your interactions.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

I’ll admit: It wasn’t until I received a company email signed off with “ad maiora” that I paid attention to email footers.

After looking up the meaning of the phrase — it meant “toward greater things” — I went back to the email and noticed the intricate and eye-catching graphic design right at the bottom of it, along with the company’s information.

That’s when I realized that an email footer can be used for much more than a simple address, privacy policy, and an almost indistinguishable unsubscribe button. You can turn your email footer into a marketing asset for your company.

In this article, you’ll learn what an email footer is, what to put in an email footer, and some email footer examples I love (that can also serve as an inspiration as you create your own).

What is an email footer?

An email footer is a section at the end of an email that comes right after your body content and email signature.

This section typically contains contact information, disclaimers, legal notices, an unsubscribe link, and other relevant details about a company.

Usually, when you sign up for an email marketing service, you get a standardized email footer that contains this information by default. So, you might not feel the need to tweak it a bit to reflect your company more.

I don’t blame you; with email marketing, you probably spend your time and energy crafting pristine copy and getting images that accurately convey the message you want to impart to your audience.

While your email footer isn’t what will make subscribers open and read your emails, it can provide a lasting impression that prompts them to take further action or change their minds if they’re thinking of unsubscribing.

What to Put in an Email Footer

An email footer might seem like a place to just add an address and an email, but you can use it for much more than that.

For example, in your email footer, you can add information that will help you turn warm leads into hot leads and prevent lawsuits from being filed against you.

Here are some elements to include in your email footer:

1. Legalities

In your email footer, you’re legally required to include your physical (or mailing) address where customers can reach you.

Depending on your industry or region, you’re also required to include legal disclaimers, confidentiality notices, or compliance information, especially if your company asks for customers’ personal information.

This ensures that you are not breaking GDPR, CCPA, POPIA, CAN-SPAM, and other laws that protect customer data and prevent spam.

These legal disclaimers include a link to your privacy policy and a visible unsubscribe (or email preferences) button.

Here’s how Udemy did it:

Notice how the black background makes the font pop. The Unsubscribe and Privacy Terms links are easy to see, as well as Udemy’s mailing address.

2. Company Logo or Branding Elements

Just like that company email I got, you can infuse your company’s branding into your email footer by including your logo or using your brand colors as the background of that section.

You can also include a concise description of your company to give recipients a quick overview of the problems your company is trying to solve. This way, you’re reinforcing your professional image and facilitating brand recognition.

Here’s Adobe’s email footer:

Notice the company logo on the top left corner and the rainbow-like strip that represents the company’s colors atop it. These elements bring life to what would’ve otherwise been a bland-looking email footer.

3. Social Media Links

If you create content on social media, it’s only right for you to include links to your social media profiles to enhance your online presence and nurture your leads on other platforms.

Cider, the women’s clothing retailer, makes its social media links the focal point of its email footer:

Just like Udemy, Cider uses the black background-white font combo. It includes simplistic icons that link to its Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, Discord, Snapchat, and WhatsApp profiles.

4. Other Contact Information

Your legal obligations to your customers require that you put your physical or mailing address in your email footer.

But you can go further by adding other contact information, including your email address and phone number. This makes it easy for your subscribers to reach you if they have any questions or need support from your team.

5. Calls-to-Action

In addition to your social media profile link, you can also make your email footer a marketing asset by adding calls-to-action (CTA) buttons.

For example, if you want your recipients to refer your product to others, you can add a button that links to your referral program landing page and encourage them to explore it.

On Cowrywise’s email footer are two CTA buttons that link to the download pages on Google Playstore and Apple Store. These buttons prompt email recipients who have not downloaded Cowrywise yet to do so.

Other elements you can add to your email footer include:

• A view-in browser link that allows recipients to view your emails as an HTML web page if it’s not displaying well in their email client.
• A subscription reminder that details how each subscriber got on your email list to prevent false spam claims.

The Best Email Footers

I scoured my overflowing inbox and found five emails with amazing footers.

As you create your email footers, I believe that these emails can serve as a good source of inspiration.

Here are the emails and what I liked about them.

1. Explain your brand purpose like Patagonia.

The connection is a bit fuzzy, but to me, it makes sense that Patagonia, a company that designs outdoor clothing and sports gear, is also dedicated to accessibility.

In this email, there are three images.

So naturally, Patagonia uses the top of its email footer to provide more context to these images so that email recipients can understand why they were used and relate them to information conveyed within the email.

What I liked: What struck me about this email footer — and it may be obvious to you, too — is the link to Yvon’s letter, titled Earth is now our only shareholder (written in solid black ink that stands out among the medium gray letters in the email footer).

Yvon Chouinard is an American rock climber and environmentalist who founded Patagonia in 1973.

In his letter, he explains the origins and purpose of Patagonia: his journey as a craftsman making climbing gear for himself and his friends, his growing concerns about global warming and climate change, his philanthropism, and his efforts to save the planet.

It’s no secret that people love to patronize brands that have a purpose, to know that their money is being used for a noble purpose. Yvon’s letter draws in people and helps them see his vision of a thriving planet and how they can contribute to it.

2. Prompt user action like Supergoop.

Supergoop’s email footer is a masterclass in how to tastefully incorporate CTAs into your email footer. Instead of clogging the footer up with uninteresting, but passable, buttons, Supergoop put its four CTAs into a 2×2 grid:

At first glance, they don’t look like CTAs; they look like simple statements.

But these statements are compelling enough to prompt recipients to click on them, leading them to Supergoop’s website, referral program, product finder quiz, and help center — the quadfecta.

What I liked: In addition to how tastefully done Supergoop’s CTAs are, I also appreciate that the company used its brand colors, blue and yellow, to reinforce its image. Blue and yellow are such bright colors, but Supergoop managed to ensure that they don’t overpower the email footer and, most importantly, the CTAs.

3. Instill trust in your customers like Qatar Airways.

Qatar Airways is one of the most popular and used airlines in the world, flying to over 170 international destinations across five continents.

Despite its popularity and high rating, this airline makes it a priority to show email recipients why customers love its service so much.

On this email footer are stickers that show some of the most recent awards that Qatar Airways has received, including Airline of the Year (for the sixth time), World’s Best Business Class, and 5-Star COVID-19 Airline Safety Rating.

What I liked: Flying is a risky business, and some people are not big fans of it. Qatar Airways knows this, so it uses its email footer to assure potential flyers, by way of social proof, that it is dedicated to keeping them safe while offering top-of-line service during flights.

After showing proof of their top-notch service, Qatar Airways includes three CTA buttons that lead people to download the app on the Apple Store and Google Play store or explore it on AppGallery.

I also like how the airline company used a wavy, purple-gradient shape on the email footer to show its brand image.

4. Collect feedback like Semrush.

As an email marketer, you want to make sure that your subscribers love the emails you’re sending. What better way to collect feedback on your performance than to include an interactive survey question in your email footer?

Here’s how Semrush does it:

At the end of the email, Semrush asks a simple question: “How did we do?” followed by three emojis that represent Bad, Okay, and Great.

Their recipients just have to click the emoji that represents how they feel about Semrush’s emails, and the team at Semrush receives the information and adjusts their marketing efforts if needed.

What I liked: In addition to Semrush’s interactive feedback survey question, I also liked how the company used its email footer to display CTA buttons that linked to its affiliate page and Newsroom. This way, email subscribers can learn more about Semrush and partner up with the company, if they so wish.

Semrush also included a short tagline that describes what the company does and made its Unsubscribe, Email Preferences, Privacy Policy, and View In Browser links noticeable enough for the average subscriber.

5. Nurture your subscribers like Remote Year.

Remote Year is a travel company that helps entrepreneurs, remote workers, and freelancers travel to different countries while they work.

While Remote Year tries to help its customers achieve this on a budget, its 4-month programs can cost as much as $12,000, which is a huge amount of money.

To help its email subscribers make a decision and sign up for one of the programs, Remote Year transformed its email footer into a mini lead nurturing system.

What I liked: At the top of the footer, Remote Year fixed two CTA buttons that prompt subscribers who are feeling indecisive to schedule a call with the company’s customer support team or ask a question.

Knowing full well that its subscribers are wary of falling victim to scams, Remote Year includes the excellent reviews left by over 500 paying customers on Trustpilot.

I love how Remote Year used a bright orange background to draw its subscribers’ attention to the CTA buttons and social proof.

When people click on the CTAs to book a call or ask a question, Remote Year has the chance to sell them on the programs they provide and convert leads into paying customers.

Creating Email Footers that Work

As you’ve seen above, there’s so much you can do with email footers.

You can use them to prompt user action with CTAs, boost trust in your company, collect feedback on your marketing efforts, nurture your subscribers, and more.

However, no matter what you decide to do, there are some best practices you should keep in mind as you create your email footer:

• Keep your email footer simple, clean, and consistent with your overall email and brand design. Use the same font, color scheme, and brand style as your company’s other marketing assets.
• Add any necessary legal disclaimers and compliance information, especially if your business is in a regulated industry.
• Include important contact details, such as your physical (or mailing) address, phone number, and email address. If you use social media, include links to your online profiles.
• Email footers are great for CTAs, so if there’s a particular action you want your email recipients to take, such as visiting your website or scheduling a call, include a CTA button with a hyperlink.
• Keep the size of your email footer moderate. An overly large footer can be distracting and may lead to information overload.
• Ensure that your email footer is mobile-responsive. Many people check their emails on their phones, so your footer should be easy to read and navigate on smaller screens.
• Before finalizing your email footer, send test emails to different devices to ensure that the formatting is consistent across various platforms.
• Periodically review and update your email footer, especially if there are changes to your contact information, web page links, etc.

Whether you’re launching a new business or already running one, I can tell you firsthand that a small business marketing strategy with a strong online presence is essential.

That’s why I’ve collected this list of 50 small business marketing ideas to help you get started.

As the former head of marketing for two small businesses, I’ve learned that e-commerce isn’t going anywhere. In fact, one estimate has projected the number of global e-commerce customers to grow to two and a half billion by 2028.

If you’re a small business owner with little experience in online marketing, creating a strategy to boost your online presence may feel overwhelming. But have no fear — I’ve got you covered.

In this post, I’ll help you build and optimize your small business marketing strategy using inbound marketing, setting you up to attract new clients and grow your business.

Small Business Marketing

Marketing is meant to raise brand awareness and build a pipeline of qualified leads that turn into sales. But getting the word out can be challenging when running a small business.

You’ll likely have less visibility and fewer resources (like budget or time).

However, several strategies can help you scale your small business marketing efforts.

Whether you’re struggling with a limited budget, a smaller team, or a lack of strategic direction, a marketing plan appropriate for your business can guide you as you scale.

The strategies below can help you generate awareness and revenue for your organization:

1. Know your audience.

A key mistake is thinking that “anyone” is your buyer. Larger companies may be able to appeal to a wide market, but they say “the riches are in the niches” for a reason.

You’ll have the most leverage as a small business owner if you choose a niche. To develop a niche and appeal to buyers within it, you must understand their pains, problems, triggering events, and priorities.

What is pushing them to make a purchasing decision? What does it look like if they succeed? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you craft messaging that resonates and makes a compelling case for your solution.

As SMB Marketing Consultant Tabitha Naylor explains:  

“Developing a customer persona helps frame your marketing messages for a specific audience. It ensures you’re speaking to your ideal customer’s needs, goals, and preferred channels for content consumption.”

To get started, consider your existing customers and who you’d like to work with. Then, create a buyer persona to get into your ideal client’s head.

Download Free Buyer Persona Templates

2. Emphasize your value proposition.

If there’s no difference between you and your competition, there’s no reason why a buyer would be compelled to work with you.

Your value proposition will differentiate you from others in your space and convince your prospects that you’re the provider to choose.

What do you do better than anyone in the industry? Conveying this effectively will help you make a compelling argument.

3. Stay focused on singular goals and objectives.

If you’re exploring the world of marketing, you may have noticed that there are a gazillion directions you can pursue. It’s tempting to do it all at once, crafting a complicated marketing machine in the hopes that you’ll cover all your bases.

Unfortunately, this approach often leads to much more biting off than you can chew. Instead, my experience has taught me that it’s essential to identify where your most significant impact will be.

Where is the most prominent blind spot in your marketing prohibiting your growth?

Set a performance goal around that one key area, and focus all your resources on the activities and tactics to help you achieve that one goal.

Then, once you’ve made progress in that area, you can expand your efforts or pivot to other initiatives.

4. Capitalize on short-term plays.

Start scrappy. As you scale, seeing ROI sooner rather than later is critical. This will give you the momentum and cash flow toward larger projects, long-term plays, and more sustainable growth models.

Tactics that take time to build (such as SEO) generally aren’t a great starting point because they can take a long time to drive noticeable returns.

Of course, if you have the resources to invest longer term, then that can work — but remember not to put all your eggs in that basket.

Instead, identify the short-term plays that could pay off quickly.

For example, if you have evidence that people are taking to Google with purchasing intent for your particular solution, you may find that paid ads will give you that short-term ROI.

5. Double down on what works.

Pay attention to the data once you’ve experimented with a few options and gotten a few initiatives up and running. Time and time again, I’ve discovered that data can offer invaluable insight into what’s working — and what isn’t.

Then, as you scale, you can use those data-driven insights to double down on proven revenue-generation methods.

6. Understand the power of existing customers.

On average, acquiring a new customer costs five times more than upselling to an existing one. You shouldn’t stop marketing to someone just because they’ve already purchased.

To the contrary, identify opportunities for repeat purchases, upselling, and cross-selling. Your existing customers have already purchased, which means they know, like, and trust you.

If you’ve provided a good experience, you’ve given them a reason to do business with you again.

Even if the need doesn’t arise (i.e., one-and-done purchases with no upsell opportunities), you should still delight your customers. After all, word of mouth is a powerful (and free) promotional tool.

7. Use free promotional tools.

Speaking of free promotional tools, it’s important to note that since you’ve committed to a limited goal and scope, there’s no need to inflate your overhead with gadgets.

In my experience, it’s best to use free promotional tools wherever possible. Only commit to paid tools if you know they will drastically improve existing operations or performance.

Here’s a list of marketing tools (some free, some paid) that may be useful.

8. Create a website to own your online presence.

A professional-looking website is one of the most important assets you can create for your small business. This is where you show who you are, what you offer, your location, and how a potential customer can contact you.

It is a marketing channel you will always own. In addition to being a place to send traffic from advertising and other marketing initiatives, it can generate organic traffic.

Your website isn’t just a simple brochure, either. With an understanding of how to convert traffic and turn those leads into customers, you can turn your site into a 24/7 salesperson.

Business Researcher Jennifer Dublino notes that a website can be an incredibly powerful tool for any small business, sharing:

“By presenting clear, consistent and easy-to-find information, your website can help you earn repeat business and foster customer loyalty.”

To get started, consider checking out HubSpot’s CMS — one of the best website-building tools on the market.

9. Consider blogging to attract prospects to your website.

Blogging is a great way to generate organic traffic, particularly for those prospects who have not yet reached a purchasing decision. In addition, it can establish credibility in your space and position you as a thought leader.

To start a blog, you can use an inexpensive or free website tool to make a simple site. These tools even offer templates you can use to get started right away.

Once you start writing, you can add calls-to-action (CTAs) to your posts, encouraging your visitors to subscribe to your blog or receive emails.

Even if you only publish once a week, it will improve your website’s visibility online and help educate your potential customers on why they should trust your company.

You can also check out this beginner’s writing guide if you plan to write the posts yourself.

It can take some work, but a blog is a great way to start collecting leads and offering potential customers who aren’t yet ready to buy a way to learn more about you and your industry.

Download Free Blog Post Templates

10. Promote yourself on social media.

With billions of potential customers using various platforms daily, social media is a powerful business tool. Social media marketing can help you engage with potential customers, build brand awareness, and promote your products.

After all, why wouldn’t you want to be seen where your potential customers spend their time?

Download the Free Social Media Content Calendar Template

11. Collaborate with influencers to create brand awareness.

Influencer marketing is currently one of the top marketing trends. Collaborating with influencers in your niche is a surefire way to get your business in front of your audience’s eyes.

Not only do influencers understand your niche, they also have a knack for storytelling.

That means they’ll be able to tell your business’s story and sell your brand to your appropriate audience — perhaps even more effectively than you are.

12. Create short-form video content.

I’ve learned firsthand that a good small business marketing strategy has to include more than just written content. In 2022, 44% of social media marketers focused on creating video content for TikTok.

Whether you focus on TikTok or other short-form video platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook, adding short-form video content to your marketing strategy mix can be a great way to connect and engage with your audience.

These short-form videos are quick and shareable, empowering you to quickly get your product or service to the right audience — and their friends.

13. Stick to a social media posting schedule.

We all want our businesses to go viral — but you shouldn’t just post once and cross your fingers. Instead, the best marketers stick to a consistent schedule for creating and publishing content.

Notably, that doesn’t mean posting every day just for the sake of posting. Of social media marketers, 83% agree that it’s better to post at a lower frequency with higher-quality content than to share lower-quality, less relevant posts daily.

Instead, take the time to create engaging, thoughtful content. Then, use a social media content calendar to make a regular posting schedule and schedule your posts for the optimal times.

14. Invest in ads.

It takes a while to build organic traffic. So, in the short term, pay-to-play tactics that target buyers with high intent can be a great way to jump-start other objectives.

That may be why 80% of brands use some form of paid advertisement. If your target audience searches the web for your product or solution, Google Ads is likely a good option.

If they aren’t, social media ads may be a better bet. In general, people on social media have less buying intent — but with highly targeted ads and enough impressions, you’ll gain the interest of your audience.

Download the Free Advertising Planning Kit

15. Make sure you’re capturing web prospects’ information.

So far, we’ve been talking a lot about visibility and traffic. But how does all this help drive revenue? A straightforward way to start generating leads or customers from your website is to implement a conversion tool.

A simple, free option is HubSpot Marketing Free. This tool lets you add a pop-up widget to your website to collect potential customers’ email addresses.

From there, you can send out promotions and offers, ultimately converting those leads into paying customers. You can also implement any of these 26 conversion tools to help you optimize your website and use it to drive leads.

16. Use email marketing to nurture leads.

Of course, just because you’ve converted website traffic into leads doesn’t mean those leads are ready to buy. It’s essential to ensure your business stays top of mind for those leads so they’ll eventually move closer to a purchasing decision.

Email marketing is a great way to do that; 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email, and this strategy offers an easy, free, and scalable way to communicate with new and existing customers.

Once you have an email marketing tool in place (many are inexpensive or even free), experiment with emailing out newsletters (perhaps even linking to your sleek new blog posts) and other promotions to your database of leads.

Business Writer Jamie Johnson says it best:

“For small businesses without a sizable marketing budget, email marketing can drive impressive results…[businesses can] use email to connect with their audience, build credibility in their industry, and increase sales.”

I know that as a small business owner, you probably don’t have much free time to devote to digital marketing. As such, you may consider using marketing automation to make this process even more accessible.

To start planning your email marketing strategy, check out this guide and template from HubSpot.

17. Manage relationships with a CRM.

Email marketing works best when you’re sending personalized, targeted emails. You’ll want to use a customer database or customer relationship management (CRM) system to do that.

Your CRM stores information about your leads, prospects, and customers, helping you keep track of customer interactions and identify sales opportunities more effectively.

Not sure where to start? HubSpot has one of the best CRMs out there (and, best of all, it’s free).

18. Lean into word of mouth as a promotion channel.

As I mentioned earlier, delighting customers can significantly impact your business. After all, delighted customers will likely come back — and tell their friends about you, too.

If you provide a great experience, your customers will be more inclined to leave you a positive review, give testimonials, and refer their friends.

While word of mouth sometimes happens naturally, measuring customer satisfaction and proactively encouraging customers to spread the word can help you make the most of this promotional channel.

19. Connect with other local businesses.

Another powerful way to expand as a small business is to connect with other local business owners in your community. Consider partnering with local businesses to create shared discounts, deals, or coupons.

You could even livestream with another business owner during a promotional event or coordinate a giveaway. Then, advertise the promotion or sale on both businesses’ social media channels.

Online Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to take it to the next level. Below, I’ve compiled several tips to help you build on whichever marketing strategies you pursue.

1. Determine your brand’s identity.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has described a company’s branding as “what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

A consistent brand identity will make you look more professional and help you attract new customers.

Importantly, this isn’t just about your brand name.

Your brand combines your brand name, logo, aesthetic, and the design of all your assets, as well as the values you espouse — an element of brand identity that’s becoming increasingly important to consumers.

As John Williams, award-winning branding and design expert and the founder of logo design company LogoYes, explains:

“Your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services and differentiates your offering from your competitors.

Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be, and who people perceive you to be.”

2. Identify your buyer persona.

Imagine a customer searching for your product or service. What are their pain points? Where do they live? What is their job? What are their interests?

Creating a buyer persona that tells the story of your ideal customer can help you optimize a website for them. Once you better understand your target customer, you can craft a website that gives them precisely what they want.

3. Design a logo and other assets.

Peruse color palettes with tools like Adobe Color or Coolors to start getting the creative juices flowing. You can then create your palette or choose a premade one.

Once you’ve settled on your colors, I’d recommend checking out Upwork or Freelancer to find someone to design you a logo.

Free and less expensive options are available online if you want to design your logo, but using a freelancer or agency will often give you a higher-quality product.

Plus, going this route will connect you with a designer who you can continue to work with to update your brand assets as your company grows.

4. Build your website with a CMS template.

You’ll probably want to build your website if you’re a tech-savvy small business owner. A content management system (CMS) makes the process simple.

Most CMSs offer customizable templates for free or for a small fee. These templates come at various skill levels, from beginner to advanced.

Once you’ve created your website, most CMS platforms will also offer plugins to help you optimize your content for search (look for SEO plugins). This will help you rank better in Google (which I’ll discuss later).

5. Draw up a go-to-market strategy.

Once you’ve activated all the tools you need to promote your product or service, you must create a promotional plan that aligns with the customer journey.

Consider which content will attract, engage, and delight your prospects and how you will convert those prospects into customers. To help you plan out this process, consider using this template.

6. Hire a freelancer to help you scale your content.

If you need help creating regular blogs or promotional content, consider hiring a freelancer rather than investing in a full-timer.

Try Upwork for a freelance blogger, videographer, or photographer. For larger projects, you could also consider hiring a marketing agency.

7. Consult agencies or freelancers for web design help.

If you aren’t as tech-savvy and would rather have someone else build you a website for your small business, you can use a freelancer or a marketing agency specializing in web design.

This is also an excellent option for businesses with existing websites that need to be updated and revamped for SEO to help improve their Google rankings.

To find a freelancer or marketing consultant, you can use Upwork (filtering by design/creative), Codeable (for WordPress experts), or Freelancer.

8. Track your site with analytics tools.

If you’ve never made a website and aren’t entirely comfortable with the technical elements, many free tools and services can help you get started.

For example, when you create your website, you can use Google Analytics or HubSpot Marketing Free (both free products) to easily track who’s looking at your site.

9. Boost your Google ranking with SEO.

When you search for yourself or your product/service online, is your business among the first pages to come up in the search results page (SERP)? If not, it might be time to invest in SEO.

SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to strategies to improve your ranking on search engines like Google.

There are a lot of factors that play into why a particular site does or doesn’t appear in the top spots on a SERP, from keywords (and their placement on your site) to the length of your content, the quality of your content, how fast your page loads, how often you post content and more.

At the end of the day, sites like Google use a complicated algorithm to find the best, most relevant content to present to the person searching.

For example, if I’m searching for the best salon in Newport, Rhode Island, it wouldn’t be helpful to find a web page of a salon that has closed down and is located in Newport, Kentucky.

It would, however, be helpful for me to find a salon in my area with great Yelp reviews, an easy-to-navigate website, and contact information readily available.

So, what does it take to get your content to the top of the relevant SERPs? There are three key things to remember: buyer persona research, keyword research, and on-page SEO research.

Once you’ve done this research, check out this comprehensive guide to SEO to learn everything you need to know about structuring your online content in a way that will get your business discovered by the right people.

10. Research keywords opportunities.

Keyword research is an extension of buyer persona research. Once you’ve created your buyer personas, use them to identify the best keywords for your brand.

Then, you can use a tool like KW Finder to find related keywords for your target audience.

Next, do some on-page SEO research and optimization. This is where you put those keywords into all the correct places on your website — like in the meta description, page titles, and H1 tags.

11. Optimize your website for mobile devices.

Today, the majority of Google searches are done on mobile devices. As such, making sure your site looks clean and is easy to navigate when someone enters it on their smartphone is essential.

Plus, some search engines boost your rankings if your site is mobile-friendly, making optimizing your content for mobile is all the more critical.

In her comprehensive article, business writer Julie Thompson discusses the importance of responsive mobile web design, arguing that:

“​​Businesses today must offer customers a seamless mobile experience. A mobile-friendly website can positively impact brand image and sales.”

I know this can sound intimidating. The good news is you don’t have to be a tech expert to build a site that looks good on a smartphone or tablet.

Most CMS platforms (including HubSpot’s) offer mobile-optimized templates that do the work for you!

12. Write optimized blog posts.

Another critical factor in your search engine ranking is your site’s blogs and other content. The more often your desired keywords appear in your high-quality and helpful content, the more likely you will end up high on the relevant SERPs.

Blogging is also a great way to establish yourself as an authority on your topic, product, or service. But don’t just write whatever you feel like. Instead, make sure you’re crafting your content with SEO in mind.

If you’re unsure how to start, I found these SEO tips for bloggers particularly helpful. In addition, a WordPress plugin like Yoast can be a helpful tool to keep SEO front and center as you’re writing.

13. Experiment with photo and video content.

According to HubSpot research, more than 50% of consumers want to see brand videos. Additionally, most social media apps, like Facebook and Instagram, are embracing more visual layouts.

Making a few marketing videos for your business is a good idea to keep up with these trends. And this doesn’t have to require a significant investment — these tips can help you produce videos on a budget.

14. Launch business pages on Facebook and Yelp.

If your business is focused on a local area, Facebook, Yelp, and Google’s business features will be critical for you. Positive reviews on these platforms can boost your authority online and help your search ranking.

To start, claim your business on Yelp, register with Google, and create a Facebook business page.

All three of these are free, and once you’re set up, you can customize your profile, add pictures, update your location and hours, and ask for reviews.

In addition, having up-to-date social media accounts will help prospects find and engage with you. Consider creating a Twitter account, learning to use Instagram, and even making a page on Pinterest.

All these platforms can both help customers find you and help you discover new potential customers.

15. Build out your social media strategy.

While Facebook and Yelp are great tools for local searches and reviews, platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter can offer you even more opportunities to share your posts, content, and promotions.

In addition, if your products or services can be purchased online, these platforms will also give customers another way to find you.

That said, be sure not to spread yourself too thin by joining too many platforms simultaneously. To make strategizing easier, I’d recommend looking at this guide to the five types of social media.

It offers a helpful overview of the wide range of platforms available today and walks through the main pros and cons.

16. Use social media for customer service.

Once you’ve chosen your social media platforms, be sure to answer any questions your customers or followers ask through comments on your posts or via direct messages. This will help your company look responsive and credible.

If you’re unsure where to start, here are some great examples of how brands have used Twitter for customer service. In addition, if you have the resources, consider hiring a social media manager with community management experience.

On top of posting content regularly, community managers respond to your followers’ questions or concerns.

Are you interested in learning more? We published a guide on what it takes to be a great social media community manager.

17. Build interesting landing pages.

A landing page offers your potential customers a free resource in exchange for filling out a short contact information form.

This can be a great win–win, offering people valuable resources that make them even more interested in buying your full product while giving you access to their contact information.

Of course, for a landing page to be effective, it needs to look enticing. I’d suggest looking at this guide to creating a landing page to learn more about what makes this strategy successful.

Then, consider checking out these free, professionally designed landing page templates.

18. Plan an email marketing strategy.

Once you start posting content regularly and building landing pages, you’ll want to share them with the prospects who seem most interested in learning more about your product.

To do so, you’ll want to start by building out an email marketing strategy.

While you’ll want to be careful not to bombard the people who sign up for your email list with too many emails, it is essential to send enough updates to keep your prospects informed and engaged.

I’ve also found that streamlining an email marketing strategy can be hugely important. For example, this blog post explores how HubSpot’s metrics improved after streamlining.

If you’ve never sent regular newsletters before, you can use HubSpot or a number of other affordable tools to create and send emails with a professionally designed template.

In addition, many of these email tools also offer basic analytics that allow you to track open and click rates.

19. Offer coupons in newsletters or on landing pages.

Including a coupon in your marketing emails can be a great way to engage and delight your audience. Plus, customers might be more willing to pay full price after buying a product or service at a discounted rate.

Similarly, if you offer a subscription service, giving prospects a code for a free trial can also be helpful, enabling them to test it out before committing to a paid version.

20. Share your distribution channels on your website.

Once you have a few social media accounts and a newsletter, connect them to your website so your visitors know where to follow you.

One way to do this is to display all your linked social icons and a newsletter sign-up CTA on all website pages, either in the top right corner or in the footer. This way, they’re visible — but not distracting from any content.

 

21. Offer a free webinar.

A webinar allows potential customers to sign up for a short online course you host. These courses are usually between 30 minutes and an hour long, allowing you to provide tips and answer questions about a topic you’re familiar with.

As Kristen McCormick, senior managing editor at the small business advertising firm WordStream, explains:

“If reaching a potential audience in person doesn’t sound like your idea of a good marketing idea, you can always host a webinar.

Webinars are a free way to promote your business by providing helpful information to potential interested customers.”

This strategy can help boost your credibility in your field while offering you potential leads and sales opportunities.

22. Try co-marketing.

Is there a local business in your area that isn’t a direct competitor but offers a product or service to a similar target audience?

If so, consider working with them on a co-branded campaign where you promote each other on social media, via email, or in your blog. This way, you’ll help promote your partnering company while their fanbase will learn more about you.

23. Encourage happy customers to share their experiences.

When a happy customer talks about how great your company is on social media or a review site, other people are likelier to try out your product or service.

Even on social media, word of mouth is still a huge factor in someone’s purchasing decision.

For example, if a prospect sees a friend raving about your business on Facebook or if they post a photo of a meal from your restaurant on Instagram, the prospect might be more likely to go themselves.

71% of consumers are more likely to purchase based on social media referrals. So, if your customers tell you they love your product, encourage them to share the experience on Yelp, Google, or social media.

And if you run a brick-and-mortar business, put up signs with your account handles so customers know who to tag if they post a picture of your product.

24. Try out marketing experiments.

Don’t be afraid to experiment if you’re interested in a new social platform or marketing trend. If an experiment goes well, you could be ahead of the game, and it never hurts to be a thought leader in your industry.

Keep a solid hypothesis or question in mind when experimenting with a new marketing strategy. This will save you focused on the end goal and reduce the desire to chase the next big thing as it comes along.

In addition, I’ve discovered that it’s essential to prepare next steps for both good and bad results. Not every experiment will succeed, but you can learn from them either way.

Check out this quick guide to leading a successful marketing experiment for more details.

 

Small Business Advertising Ideas

Now that we’ve covered some marketing strategy basics let’s look into how you can put your advertising dollars to work. Below are some ideas to help you tackle advertising for a small business.

1. Set up Google My Business.

Creating a free Google My Business profile is a simple first step to helping potential customers find your business. It only takes a few minutes to add your business contact information, business hours, photos, and a list of your services.

Another perk of having a Google business profile is that you don’t need a storefront to create one. Your profile also has analytics to help you better understand how customers connect with your business.

Additionally, you can check out and respond to customer reviews and learn what keywords brought them to your business page.

2. Consider PPC ads with Google & Bing.

Pay-per-click (PPC) ad programs like Google Adwords or Microsoft Advertising can also help drive customers to your business. If you’re working hard on SEO but are still looking for an extra boost, consider PPC advertising.

With this search engine marketing technique, you use Google AdWords or Microsoft Ads to appear as an advertised listing in search results.

Before diving into PPC, you’ll want to ensure your landing page is as optimized as possible. If you pay by the click and those who click on the page don’t convert, you will lose advertising dollars.

To help you get started, I’d recommend reading through this Ultimate Guide to PPC. Then, use this PPC planning template to create an optimized campaign.

There are also a few handy tools and software solutions you can use to edit, track, and report on your campaigns.

3. Run social media ads.

Most major social media platforms offer affordable advertising options that can help you target your posts to a specific audience.

While many small businesses have been advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for years, Instagram allows brands to promote through its Shoppable tool.

Pinterest is another excellent option for small business advertising since Pinterest users say the platform has more influence on their purchasing journey than other platforms.

Indeed, shopping ads on Pinterest drive three times more conversions than competing platforms — so I’d say it’s a channel worth considering!

4. Sponsor products on Etsy & Amazon.

If you’ve already set up shop on Amazon, you can boost your products by participating in Amazon’s sponsored products program.

This cost-per-click ad program generates ads from your product listings and automatically targets them, making it a great option if you’ve never created a campaign.

Similarly, if you sell your wares on Etsy, consider using Etsy Ads to advertise your products. Etsy Ads is another cost-per-click model with a default minimum daily budget of one dollar.

With Etsy Ads, your products will stand out in Etsy Search, category, and marketing pages.

5. Leverage user-generated content.

Some of the best advertising you can get is from existing customers. Happy customers can vouch for your brand and add social proof to your marketing campaigns.

Ask your customers to leave reviews, or if they’ve already created content on social media involving your brand, ask their permission to share it.

6. Develop a referral program.

Speaking of enlisting the help of your existing customers, I’ve also had great success incentivizing customers with a referral program. Offer them a discount, gift, or other perk in exchange for bringing in new customers.

Mark Zuckerberg famously stated, “Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.”

Referred customers are 18% more loyal than those who aren’t and spend 13% more on purchases. Since these new customers will have been referred to you by someone they know, they’re more likely to have a positive customer experience.

7. Advertise with your local chamber of commerce.

If you have a storefront, advertise with your local chamber of commerce.

Each city is different, but you can typically be featured on local government websites, promoted on their social media channels, and included in their email newsletter for an annual fee.

This can be a great way to get your brand out there and an excellent opportunity to network with fellow small business owners.

Start Marketing Your Business Today

Small business owners looking to track ROI and brand awareness need digital marketing.

Not only is digital marketing a must-have for promoting your products or services, but optimizing your online assets is also critical to your business’s overall success.

You may have a long road ahead to build your online presence, but I’m here to tell you that any steps you can take today to invest in marketing will significantly impact your business long-term.

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

Like most job seekers, I’ve had to answer the dreaded salary expectation question over email.

No matter how many times I’ve done it, it’s still nerve-wracking to put a number out there. What if I undercut myself because my number was too low? Or worse, what if I miss out on the job opportunity because my salary expectation was too high?

Aside from the anxiety I feel thinking about the outcome, the other challenging part of the process is writing the actual salary expectation email (or preparing the script I’d use if this discussion were happening face to face).

I tend to overthink what to say during tough conversations and can find myself writing and rewriting something like a salary negotiation email for over an hour.

So, I asked an expert how to answer salary expectations over email — and then I put ChatGPT to the test to see if it could write the email for me.

Table of Contents

• Deciding Your Salary Expectations
• How to Answer the Salary Expectation Question
• What ChatGPT Wrote for Me
• What I Learned From AI

Deciding Your Salary Expectations

Before you can even discuss salary expectations with the hiring team, you have to come up with your target number.

It’s important to have a desired salary in mind before you start interviewing with a company so you can use it as a guide throughout the process.

Based on my experience, here’s how to come up with a salary expectation in four steps.

1. Check the job posting.

Before you come up with your salary expectation, reference the original job posting.

Recent pay transparency laws in several states, including California and New York, require companies to include a role’s salary range in the job posting. If there is a range listed, you can use that as a baseline for the salary you want to request.

2. Research salary data.

If there isn’t a salary range listed on the job posting for your role, you can research average salaries for the role using websites like PayScale or Salary.com.

If the company is big enough, there may also be data from current and former employees who’ve shared their salaries on websites like Glassdoor.

It’s also important to consider the industry of the role you’re applying for. Tech salaries differ from government or nonprofit salaries, for example, so the industry you’re interviewing in affects your target salary.

3. Evaluate your experience and current salary.

Once you know the salary range for your role, consider your own experience to decide what you want to ask for.

You’ll likely target a salary higher than your current one — or, at the very least, the same rate, assuming this is a role you’re very interested in.

You may also be open to a lower salary than your current one for several reasons.

Maybe you’re making a career pivot or switching roles, and the experience is more important. Or perhaps the company offers benefits that make up for the lower base pay.

Using your research on industry salaries as well as your current salary, you should have a good idea of your target salary. Come up with a range that you’d accept, making sure you have a minimum that you’d be happy with.

4. Prepare a counteroffer.

The salary expectations conversation typically comes up at the beginning of the interview process, but it’s never too early to think about what type of offer you’d be happy with.

Start thinking about salary negotiation and consider what you’d be willing to negotiate on, whether that’s the base salary or other benefits. Things like stock options, more vacation days, or a hybrid work schedule may all be negotiable.

How to Answer the Salary Expectation Question

To find out exactly how to answer the salary expectation question, I talked to Nick Smith, a tech talent acquisition specialist. Here’s what he has to say.

1. Have the conversation early.

Smith emphasizes the need to have this conversation early in the process. “It should be done on your first call with the recruiter or initial point of contact,” he states.

While the salary expectations question is usually asked by a recruiter during the screening process, you could be presented with this question on the job application or in an initial email.

This is why you’ll need to have a script and answer prepared.

2. Establish a minimum.

After conducting research, you should know what the going rate is for your position and industry. Use that number as a baseline and adjust based on your experience and what you know about the role you’re interviewing for.

“Having the hiring team accept the minimum of your compensation window is absolutely critical,” says Smith.

That said, you must be reasonable about your ask. Just like you have a minimum number in mind, hiring managers also have their limit.

“Hiring teams will walk away if you don’t have a grounded number in mind,” Smith states.

3. Communicate your value prop.

Next, you have to be able to communicate to the hiring team why you’re expecting a certain salary range. Justify your desired salary with market research and by demonstrating the value you’d bring to the role and company.

Smith suggests writing something along the lines of this in a salary expectations email:

“Based on the feedback given to me by the hiring team, my projected role and impact on the team/org/company, and market research, I’d gladly accept X and withdraw myself from my remaining interviews elsewhere.”

4. Express gratitude.

If you’re eager for this position, Smith also suggests showing appreciation and a desire to move forward. You can be confident and firm without losing gratitude for the process.

“How you frame things is as important as what you’re saying,” he says.

To express gratitude in a salary expectations email, you can say something as simple as, “I’m excited about the opportunity and look forward to next steps.”

What ChatGPT Wrote for Me

As I said before, writing a salary expectation email is nerve-wracking.

I was curious to see if AI could ease some of the stress of writing this type of email, so I asked ChatGPT to write me several salary expectation emails using the expert tips above as guidance.

For this example, I found a job posting for a position I’d be interested in — a Content Marketing Manager at a tech company called ServiceChannel.

As you can see below, the salary range for this role is wide. It starts at $67,700 and goes up to $125,900.

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1. Salary Expectations Email: Salary Range

Here is the first prompt I gave ChatGPT.

And here’s the chatbot’s response (warning: it’s a long one!):

There are a couple of things I’d do to improve this email.

For starters, it’s really long. While it’s important to communicate your excitement for the role and underscore your qualifications, this email buries the lead, in my opinion.

If I were writing this, I’d cut out some of the fluff and get to the point sooner.

Second, since the salary range listed on this job posting is so wide, I’d personally narrow it down even more.

ChatGPT sort of did this by writing that it’s targeting the “upper range of the stated bracket,” but that leaves some ambiguity on the table.

2. Salary Expectations Email: Setting a Minimum

For my next prompt, I want to narrow down the salary range and create a minimum compensation window, as Smith suggests.

Here’s what I asked ChatGPT to write:

Here’s what ChatGPT wrote. The response was pretty similar to the previous one, so I outlined the section that the chatbot wrote differently:

Aside from the length of this email (I’ll address that next), I think the adjustment to the salary expectation portion is better.

You may not want to throw out a specific number this early on in the interview process. But, doing so lets the hiring team know whether or not to move forward.

It also helps you decide if this position is worth pursuing. If you have an absolute minimum salary range that you’ll accept, it’s worth sharing that early on so you don’t waste your time.

3. Salary Expectations Email: Short Email

Now, it’s time to address the length. I asked ChatGPT to write a shorter email and got specific about the length:

Here’s what it generated:

The length and structure of this email are much better. It’s succinct while checking off all the boxes of an effective salary expectations email.

When talking about salary, I’d personally like to emphasize the value and experience I’d bring to a role. Communicating your value proposition is also something Smith suggests doing when sharing your salary expectations.

4. Salary Expectations Email: Communicating Value

Keeping the above in mind, I gave ChatGPT another prompt:

And here’s what it wrote:

In general, I think this email works well. This is much more aligned with how I’d write a salary expectations email.

It emphasizes my excitement about the opportunity, leads into why I’m qualified for this position, and clearly states my minimum desired salary. I also like that it reiterates my value prop and showcases confidence in my expertise.

Finally, in all of these emails, ChatGPT included a line about being open to discussing other aspects of the compensation package, which communicates flexibility.

If you’re open to negotiation for the right position, this is a smart element to include in your email.

5. Salary Expectations Email: Deflecting the Salary Expectations

For my final prompt, I wanted to see how ChatGPT would write an email in the scenario where I want to deflect the salary expectation question.

As Smith suggested earlier, this conversation is better to have in person as email is “impersonal and lacks nuance.” You may also want to learn more about the role before you share a specific number.

Here’s what ChatGPT wrote:

While this email is a little verbose still (to be fair, I never specified a certain tone I want it to emulate), it does a good job of deflecting the question.

The email states that while I’m eager for the role, I want to have this conversation later in the process when I’m more informed about everything this role will entail.

If you want to delay the salary discussion, you could also use this time to ask questions about the salary and budget. That’s something that this AI-generated email didn’t include, but that’s what I’d add if I were writing this.

What I Learned From AI

My biggest takeaway? Using ChatGPT to write a salary expectations email can be good practice if you’re currently job-seeking.

The chatbot can generate responses in seconds and adjust with each prompt you give it, which forces you to think about what you’d write differently.

The AI-generated responses can also provide a framework if, like me, getting started with this type of email is the hardest part.

However, ChatGPT isn’t going to generate the perfect response for your specific situation.

You have to provide the details and let the chatbot know the tone you want to use if you want it to generate something close to send-ready (warning: avoid giving ChatGPT *too much* information about yourself or your position).

Setting Expectations

Setting salary expectations is essential for everyone involved in the interview process. But before you can share your salary expectations, you have to be prepared with a number.

Only you know what salary range or minimum you’d be comfortable with.

Be sure to conduct plenty of salary data research, evaluate your experience and skills, and come up with a script that you can confidently use when the opportunity comes up.

You can use AI to help you form your email structure, but ultimately, you have to fill in the blanks with your own job details and salary expectations.

In 2023, I decided to run a half marathon. As any long-distance runner would do, I found a training plan and set out to crush some practice miles.

But you know what they say about the best-laid plans, right?

My body failed me, and I fractured my hip. Which, unfortunately, resulted in me needing to take a few sick days at work. How was I going to explain this one to my boss?

With a sick day email.

Sick day emails are short, direct emails you send to your boss to alert them of your absence. It’s important to remember that you’re not asking for a day off but rather telling your boss you won’t be in due to medical reasons beyond your control.

Whether you’re like me and you’ve broken a bone, you’re physically sick, or you need a mental health day, you can use ChatGPT to write sick day emails.

Here’s how.

(Hint: Use these ChatGPT prompts below!)

What ChatGPT Wrote Me

ChatGPt is a helpful writing assistant — especially if you’re dealing with writer’s block and unsure how to write a formal sick day email.

I asked ChatGPT to write five sick day emails to use for various scenarios.

Here’s what I got.

The “I’m Pretty Sure I Broke a Bone” Email

Starting with the example of my broken hip, I asked ChatGPT to write an email to let my boss know I would not be in to work due to a potentially broken bone.

This is the prompt: “I need to email my boss to let him know I am sick. I think I’ve broken a bone. Please write an email.”

And here is ChatGPT’s suggested sick day email.

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ChatGPT’s email draft describes the situation without going into detail. The email clarifies that you will take on your missed job responsibilities when you return to the office and extend the offer to work remotely if possible.

But, it also assumes that you have already contacted a medical professional and have been assessed by a doctor. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes, you may need the day off to get an appointment with an orthopedic clinic.

So, depending on your situation, you’ll need to edit the draft to be as honest as possible. In my experience, being honest is much better than trying to hide something.

ChatGPT’s tone of voice is formal. If your work environment is more formal and serious, this draft of a sick day email will work without too many edits.

Some offices and employees are more laid back. If this is your office vibe, you should edit the draft to match your tone of voice and your boss’s expectations.

Pro tip: Always edit a ChatGPT draft email. The tone is likely not your voice, and it will be evident you used an AI writing tool for your sick day emails.

The “I Have a Stomach Bug” Email

If you have a stomach bug, there is no way you can go to work. As a coworker, I wouldn’t want you to come into the office, especially if you are contagious.

So, the best thing to do is use ChatGPT to write a sick day email and explain why you can’t make it to your boss.

I used this prompt to write an email: “I need to email my boss explaining I am sick and cannot come to work. I have a stomach bug, and I am contagious. Please write my email.”

Here’s ChatGPT’s response.

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You don’t need to go into gory details of your illness to tell your boss you’re sick with a stomach bug. Simply saying, “I have a contagious stomach bug,” is enough. Trust me.

ChatGPT does a good job explaining one of the main reasons you should stay home– to prevent the spread of illness to others. And the response is also mindful of the impact your absence will have on the rest of the team.

Again, ChatGPT assumes that you have seen a medical professional about your illness. If you haven’t yet gone to visit the doctor or don’t feel you need to for a 24-hour stomach bug, you’ll need to delete this part of the email before you send it.

Pro tip: Delete any copy from your ChatGPT draft that does not apply to your situation and leave out the gross details of your experience.

The “I Have a Common Cold” Email

The common cold isn’t nearly as severe as it feels sometimes. However, if we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, staying home if you are feeling sick is best.

If you’ve got a cold and you need to stay home from work, use my ChatGPT prompt to write your email to your boss.

The prompt is: “I need to stay home from work today. I am sick with the common cold. Please write an email to my boss to explain I am sick and will be home today.”

Here’s what the response looks like.

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ChatGPT’s response clearly explains that you know you’ll be responsible for missing work. And it acknowledges that by staying home to rest, you’ll be on top of your game much sooner rather than later.

The response also acknowledges the health and well-being of your coworkers. In my experience, bosses appreciate when you stay home to recover so as not to get the rest of the team sick. Too many employees out on sick leave may slow down productivity for the week.

One thing I do not love about the ChatGPT responses, though, is “I appreciate your support during this time” at the end of the email.

To me, the wording is off. This response makes it sound like your cold is a life-or-death situation. In most cases, you’ll fully recover from a cold in just a few short days, so the part about support is unnecessary.

Pro tip: Remove any sentences that make your illness seem worse than it is.

The “I Have COVID” Email

If you’ve been exposed to COVID or the flu and you’re showing signs or symptoms, you absolutely need to take a sick day and stay home. Most likely, you won’t feel up to working anyway.

And, if you’re not feeling well enough to write your sick day email, use this prompt: “I have tested positive for COVID. My doctor has me out of work for five days or until I test negative. Please write an email explaining my absence to my boss.”

ChatGPT’s response will be this:

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The ChatGPT response clearly explains when you’ll be back to work in five days or when you test negative for the virus. Stating this upfront lets your boss know when to expect your return to the office.

The response also mentions providing documentation of a medical visit. In my experience, some HR departments do require documentation of medical notes from your providers, while others do not. If your workplace requires a doctor’s note, you’ll want to keep this part in your email to your boss.

Pro tip: In your ChatGPT query, specify the days you’ll be out of work. This will give you an accurate response that won’t require an edit.

The “I Need a Mental Health Day” email

You know when you’re just not mentally up to going to work? Are you feeling a little burned out, and you know that rest would do you some good?

It’s okay. We’ve all been there, and there’s no shame in taking a mental health day to recuperate. However, writing an email to explain why you need the day off can be tricky — especially if you want to be bothered by work calls while you’re out.

Here’s how to write your ChatGPT prompt to take a sick day for your mental health.

Prompt: “I need to take a mental health day. I am not physically sick, but I am mentally exhausted. I must turn my phone off and not receive work calls during the day. Please write an email to my boss explaining why I will be out of work.”

Here’s the ChatGPT response.

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The ChatGPT response to this prompt is polite but direct. It clearly explains why you need the day off without explicitly stating, “I need a mental health day!”

Instead of offering to work while out remotely, this response also clarifies that you will complete your work obligations before or after your return to the office. Working while you’re out for a mental health day defeats the purpose of your much-needed absence.

This ChatGPT response is, overall, a well-written sick day email. But, as I said before, you’ll need to edit the draft to ensure it matches your tone of voice.

Pro tip: You must tell ChatGPT that you will not accept work calls while you’re out. Otherwise, your generated response will say, “I will complete my tasks during my absence,” which may lead your boss to think you’re up for remote work.

The Perfect Sick Day Email Template

ChatGPT is a great writing resource, but its output might read like a canned response. You’ll need to edit the draft before you email your boss about why you need to be out of work.

Or, you can use a sick day email template to save and quickly edit when needed.

Let’s look at the elements of a perfect sick day email template.

Subject Line

Never leave an email subject line blank. Instead, your subject line should clearly state what the email is about. That way, your boss doesn’t miss the email in their inbox.

A good subject line to use is: [Your Name] Sick Leave Request.

Greeting

In the ChatGPT email response, the greeting says, “I hope this email finds you well.”

This is a great way to start your email to your boss.

Explanation

Your sick day email needs to explain why you won’t be able to make it to work. Include something like, “I just wanted to inform you that I am unwell today and unable to work.”

You don’t need to go into detail about your illness, but you should clearly convey that you are unwell. If you’re contagious, you might want to mention that so your boss understands why you are not in the office.

Return to Work

Your boss will want to know when you’ll return. This is important to include in your email so your boss knows if someone else in the office needs to complete high-priority tasks. Simply stating, “I’ll be back on Tuesday,” is fine.

Availability

If you’re feeling well enough to work from home, include that in your email. Your boss will appreciate your willingness to help the team while you’re out of the office.

But if you’re too unwell to work remotely, you should say that. You can say, “I will take care of my work obligations when I return to the office.”

Closing Statement

You should always end your sick day emails with a closing statement to thank your boss for understanding your predicament. Simply say, “Thank you for understanding!” to close your email.

Sick Day Email Template

In my experience, I’ve discovered saving a draft email template to your inbox or Google Drive is helpful in case of illnesses and emergencies.

Save a copy of this sick day email template to use and edit when needed.

Subject line: [Your Name] Sick Day Request

Good morning, [Boss’s Name].

I hope this email finds you well. Unfortunately, I am feeling unwell today and cannot make it to work. I am afraid I am contagious and am concerned about spreading my illness to my coworkers.

I hope to be back in the office tomorrow!

I am feeling well enough to complete some work tasks remotely. If there is anything you need me to do from home today, please let me know. I’ll keep a regular check on my email.

OR

I am not feeling well enough to work remotely today. I will handle my work responsibilities when I return to the office.

I’ll be back to work soon. Thank you for understanding!

[Your Name]

Taking a Sick Day

Emailing your boss to take a sick day, especially if needed, doesn’t need to add extra stress to your body. If you’re unsure what to say in your email, use ChatGPT to guide you.

It’s important to note that ChatGPT’s response to your query should only be used as a draft— otherwise, your boss might suspect you used an AI tool to write your email, and you risk sounding too formal.

Or, if you’re stuck and ChatGPT isn’t available, use my template. The sick day email template is short, sweet, and to the point. Plus, it doesn’t read like a robot, like ChatGPT responses sometimes do.

Copy, paste, and save the template or ChatGPT response for when you need to rest, recover, and get well.