Category Archives: B2B

With mask mandates being lifted and States reopening across the U.S., people are looking forward to the chance to connect in person once again. Despite the eagerness with which some folks and businesses are champing at the bit to get out and about, the Digital-First world is here to stay. But there has to be a middle ground somewhere here, right? 

So what’s the answer?

A hybrid engagement strategy.

What It Takes to Embrace a Hybrid Marketing Strategy

For the past 15 months, things that didn’t require us to show up in person have been done via our desktops, tablets, and mobile phones. While some of these activities will be gladly left in 2020, many of these behaviors and preferences will be with us for the foreseeable future. Because of this, B2B Marketers need to move towards hybrid marketing and engagement.

To break down this trend and explore each way it’s affecting B2B marketing, NetLine joined experts from ON24 and PFL to analyze hybrid engagement and share their top tips for success.

View What’s Trending in B2B Marketing? Hybrid Engagement Strategies On-Demand now.

“The New Normal”

When can things go back to the way they were?

This is a question we’ve heard posed 32,928 ways over the last year and change. We’ve also heard the phrase, “The New Normal” about a million more times. 

“When we moved to a near fully digital world in March 2020,” NetLine’s Chief Strategy Officer David Fortino said, “we did so by necessity—not by choice.” Even though we didn’t choose this path, David views the results of this past year (from a Marketing standpoint) as positive. “So many silos have been broken,” he said. “Everything has been consolidated, based on necessity. I think if Marketing organizations were to look backward, they’d agree that this result is a great thing as it’s really forced everyone to look at things and say, “we used to do X this way and we just accepted that, but maybe it never needed to be that way or perhaps it was just time to make a change.” It forced many of our clients to have fresh eyes about where they were and where they were going.”

One of the most obvious candidates for fresh eyes was anything event-related. By September of 2020, interest in virtual events was at an all-time high, according to Google Trends. (We also learned that virtual events need a lot of TLC to be successful moving forward, but that’s a story for another blog.) NetLine also observed a massive spike in virtual event interest, as we shared in our 2021 Content Consumption Report, with YOY registrations rose 2660%.

But as you can see from this Google Trends chart, interest dropped a bit during the Summer months, especially during mid-June. This was the first moment that hybrid events were considered by event organizers and event companies. Cheri Keith, Head of Strategy for ON24, has a theory on why. “If we looked at the overall share of voice, over the past year, regarding the word ‘hybrid’,” she said, “we would see it weighed a lot more heavily toward event organizers and those directly involved in putting on physical events. Of course, they want people back, their model depends on it.” 

Cheri certainly sympathized with these businesses but put quite plainly that it’s their Marketers’ responsibility to consider, “what they’re going to need in order to make [a return to physical events] successful, especially when the audiences they’re marketing to are going to have varying levels of comfort.” 

Understanding What the Audience Wants

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Marketing to a consumer that lives so much of their life online is more challenging than it would seem on the surface. According to Microsoft’s Work Trends Index, professionals received 40.6B more emails in February 2021 than they did in February 2020. We’re all competing for the same digital real estate with occupants with dwindling attention spans.  

Eva Jackson, Director of Demand Gen Marketing for PFL, expanded upon Cheri’s ideas by sharing that, regardless of how they’re marketing, businesses want to make sure they’re connecting with their target audiences and buyers. “If there’s one thing the pandemic has taught us,” Eva said, “it’s that we can’t have all of our eggs in our delivery mechanism bucket, anymore. So we need to think about marketing more holistically.”

Thinking more holistically means being mindful of where your audience is and where they want to meet you. “Consumers are consuming digital content out of convenience and necessity,” Eva said, “and it’s changing how people interact.” 

Digital marketing is now table stakes and you need to better understand how to capture the attention of your audience in this new world. In short, for your marketing to break through, it needs to not only be extraordinary, it needs to be multi-channel. Hybrid strategies combine digital and human engagement, providing multiple types of engagement opportunities to touch the customer.

The Future of In-Person Events

Some brands are going to be more eager to get back out into the world while others will be happy to remain as virtual as they can afford to be. PFL, according to Eva Jackson, said that the company would be hosting an internal get-together for employees in the coming weeks. Still, they plan on using hybrid components to make it successful for everyone. “It’s definitely a key time to realign our team. As things reopen, businesses are going to try to think about ways that they can create that human connection, whether it’s in-person or virtually.”

While plenty of audiences and businesses are ready to get back to 2019, David Fortino recognizes the folly in this thinking. “There are a ton of companies who are kidding themselves that a return to work—aka “normal”—will happen,” he said. “Most employees, when asked if they want to go back to the office, are saying, “not anywhere near the same way we did in the past.” So why should you, as a Marketer, conclude that all of your prospects would want to attend an event in person? It’s a massive leap and assumption.”

ON24’s Cheri Keith agrees. “I think one of the biggest cautions I’ve seen in the market is when people are so excited to get back that they’re doing so with reckless abandon. Whether that’s ignoring that data that they should be collecting or even just having a backup plan in place if you can’t host that event. Marketers [need to consider the needs of their] audiences.”

Plus, after a year without in-person events, there’s something to be said about the savings it’s offered to businesses. “What is the overall appetite for businesses to spend if they don’t absolutely need to?” Cheri said. “We have the opportunity to do it better moving forward, so we need to be thinking about this as an inflection point.”

David seconded this, adding that many companies won’t be lining up to pay $50-100k for a booth sponsorship, “just because.” “If you’ve been able to innovate through hybrid strategies during this time,” he said, “you now have the tools to execute which leads to better attribution and better ROI.”

While David agrees with Cheri overall, he also acknowledges the opportunity for bespoke events that cater to smaller, more intimate groups. “It controls costs, it’s a controlled environment, and you’re not just throwing darts with Sales at the end of the event saying, “Well, we talked to a lot of people and booked a lotta demos!” I don’t think that’s enough moving forward.”

Creating a Hybrid Engagement Strategy

In addition to these topics, this webinar discusses:

• The common mistakes that companies make when adopting hybrid strategies.
• Why hybrid approaches can open more doors to the C-suite.
• Tactics and approaches that work in building relationships with buyers both physically and digitally.
• The actionable steps you need to take to make your hybrid engagement strategy a success.

This webinar is well worth your time, regardless of where your business sits in the marketplace. 

View What’s Trending in B2B Marketing? Hybrid Engagement Strategies On-Demand now.

There are a few things in life that can earn you that “official” status.

For me, it’s anytime I see someone with a blazer or suit. I think “Oh, that person is definitely handling business today.” Probably because in Miami, the only time anyone subjects themselves to multiple layers in this heat is for official business.

Online, a verification badge gives you some official points. A great-looking website takes it that much further. But a custom email domain? Well, that’s peak official. It signals structure and organization.

Let’s talk about the benefits of getting a custom email domain and how to get one.

Personalized email domains can be used for both your employees and the departments in your company.

There are two types of personalized email domains:

• A regular custom email domain – This includes an inbox and has all the features of a regular email service.
• A forwarding email domain – This is only a customer-facing alias used to forward emails and doesn’t have an inbox. Ex: You set up [email protected] and have all emails sent to that address forwarded to [email protected] or [email protected].

If you’re a small business and don’t anticipate a high volume of emails, you can start out with a forwarding custom email domain. It looks professional and you don’t have to sift through a separate inbox, as all emails will go to another inbox.

However, as your company grows, you’ll likely need to invest in a separate inbox for your business emails.

Benefits of a Custom Email Domain

We’ve already covered how a personalized email domain looks “official,” but let’s talk about what that means in concrete terms.

Back in 2016, GoDaddy ran a survey and found that 75% of Americans think a domain-based email is a key factor in trusting a small ecommerce business. They even ranked it as three times more important than having an active social media channel.

The report also revealed that some consumers (about 24%) would hesitate to share their personal information with a seller using a personal email address.

It’s likely that these figures have gone up recently, given the prevalence of email phishing attacks. Today, consumers may be a little bit warier of a business without a custom email domain and with one that doesn’t match its website.

When you have a custom email domain, it adds to your credibility and serves as another way to show consumers that you are a reputable company.

In addition, a personalized email domain helps you organize your incoming emails based on the various departments within your company.

For instance, you can have [email protected] for consumers to send their general inquiries. You could have [email protected] for order-specific inquiries, and countless others based on your business needs.

This can be incredibly helpful in managing incoming and outgoing emails, especially as your company grows. You may also want to designate a team member to be the directly responsible individual (DRI) for that email account.

Lastly, it’s important to have a separate email domain for your business to streamline your email marketing efforts. As you develop a plan for your email communications with your consumers, You’ll likely invest in email marketing software to manage, track and analyze your activities.

Having a custom email domain will ensure your personal data doesn’t get mixed in with your business analytics and dirty your data.

Before you select your email provider, here are a few things to know and features to consider:

• The cost per user – Some email providers charge by user while others offer unlimited users for one monthly price.
• The storage size – Email providers typically offer various packages, each with a different storage amount, ranging from 5GB to unlimited. Consider the volume of emails you expect to receive and use that to guide which one you select.
• Aliases – If you want to use a forwarding email, look for an email provider that allows you to create domain aliases that can be sent to other inboxes.
• Spam filter – Look for a provider with advanced filtering capabilities to avoid filling up your inbox with spammy emails.
• Your website domain – Most providers require you to have a website domain associated with your custom email domain.

1. Select an email provider.

There are many email providers to choose from, including Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Microsoft 365, Hostinger, and Ionos.

Many web hosting and designing companies like Wix and GoDaddy allow you to create your own custom domain right on the platform (usually from Google Workspace and Microsoft 365) and connect it with your website.

This feature can be included in your current package or available at an additional monthly cost, depending on the platform.

2. Purchase or connect your domain.

Once you select a provider, you’ll likely have to connect it to your website domains.

Google Workspace, for instance, requires users to have a linked website to create a custom email domain.

In most cases, you can connect the provider to an existing domain or purchase one on the spot.

3. Select your users and/or aliases.

Now that you have your personalized email domain, it’s time to select your users.

Let’s say you have employees, you may need to create accounts for them. This is something only an administrator can manage through your admin dashboard. Some providers only allow a certain number of users per plan.

Now, onto the departments. Decide if you want to create aliases for specific departments that get forwarded to other email addresses or want designated email addresses.

For instance, if you’re a small team, you may create a [email protected] email that goes right in your [email protected] inbox. If the volume gets high, you may want to make [email protected] its own user to have a designated inbox for all support-related inquiries.

Knowing what you’ll need ahead of time will help decide which provider and plan best suits your business needs.

4. Choose an email address format.

When you have custom email addresses, consistency and simplicity are key. This makes it easy for people to reach you.

For your employees, you can have the following formats:

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

Select the one that makes the most sense for your business.

For your departments, try to keep it to one or two words. Here are a few examples:

• General inquiries – info@, contact@, hello@, questions@
• Customer service – support@, billing@, shipping@, returns@, orders@
• Sales – sales@, demo@
• Marketing – press@, media@, pr@
• Human Resources – hr@, jobs@, careers@

Getting a personalized email domain for your business is a key step in achieving an “official” stamp from your audience online. It’s a worthy investment that can strengthen consumer trust in your brand and make them more likely to purchase from you.

As businesses and economies closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, consumers also tightened up their budgets.

According to data from McKinsey, most consumers were more conscientious about purchases than before the pandemic. Because of this, most households primarily budgeted around essential products and services.

But, now, as economies begin to swiftly reopen following mass vaccinations, business owners and marketers might also be wondering what this could mean for the next year of revenue.

Specifically, many business leaders are asking, “Will consumers continue to spend cautiously, or will they spend more freely in 2021?”

To help businesses prepare and navigate for the coming months, I asked nearly 300 random consumers, “Which best describes your budgeting plan for the next year?”

Here’s what they said and tips for how to navigate future spending behaviors.

How Consumers Will Spend Money in the Next Year

As economies reopen, people return to work, and household revenues start to rise again, you might think that people will be racing to online or physical stores to shop for all the things they didn’t have the budget for in 2020.

However, when looking at the results of our small survey, it seems that people are cautiously optimistic about their 2021 budget.

Although one-third of respondents say they plan to “loosen” their budgets and spend more money than they did in 2020, a whopping 43% plan to keep the same budget they had in 2020. Meanwhile, nearly one-quarter of respondents will tighten their budget and spend less money in the next year.

Data Source

If you sell non-essential products or services or rely on your customers to have a larger budget, you shouldn’t panic just yet. Keep in mind that this is just one small survey of a random consumer group. Additionally, had we polled people in different industries, locations, or age ranges, the results might have been different.

However, what this survey does remind us of is that people are still more conscientious than ever about the products and services they’re purchasing — and likely will remain that way for months to come.

Ultimately, to turn audiences into customers, it’s still more important than ever to market your offering’s value — even if you don’t sell something that’s considered “essential.”

Tips for Marketing Your Product or Service in Uncertain Financial Times

1. Make your value proposition a priority.

When someone is on a tight budget, each dollar they spend has to be worth it. This means that the products or services they buy have to help them do something essential, solve a common pain point, save them time or money, or fulfill other major needs.

As a marketer or business owner, it’s important to learn the ins and outs of your buyer persona, their needs, and what motivates them to make a purchase. Then, you must use your messaging to explain why your offering will be worth their money.

2. Differentiate yourself from competitors.

As a budget-minded person myself, I — like many others — do detailed research before purchasing a product or service. When I decide I need to buy something, I look at all the brands that sell it, their reviews, and the product’s cost. While I might buy the cheapest version of something, I also might consider a higher-end version of a product if something about it is better quality than the more affordable option.

For example, I recently helped my parents pick out their first smart TV. While almost all of today’s smart TVs have similar apps and features, we chose a Roku TV because Roku’s marketing emphasized a simple, easy-to-understand user interface and setup. While it was also quite affordable, the UX alone was the reason for purchasing it over other competitors.  

As a marketer, it’s important to remember that people look into many different factors when making a purchase decision — especially when it will be a larger investment. And, sometimes, the price of the product isn’t the only deciding factor. That’s why it’s important to market elements of your product that are different or better than a competitor’s.

3. Leverage customer-generated content.

If you’re struggling to differentiate your product or service, but know you have loyal customers who love your brand, leverage them in your marketing.

Research shows that prospects trust customer reviews, videos, how-tos, and other user-generated content similarly to how they’d trust a word-of-mouth recommendation. Ultimately, when a prospect sees that someone like them has benefited from your brand’s offerings, they trust that you sell something of good quality and value and might be more motivated to buy your product than a cheaper alternative from a competitor with poor or minimal reviews.

Need some examples of how to collect and market excellent UGC, testimonials, or reviews? Check out this guide. 

4. Consider discounts or sales.

If your brand can afford to offer small discounts or sales, this can be a great way to attract people with tighter budgets to your brand. Even if your discounts or sales are temporary, a prospect might purchase an on-sale product, love its quality, and return to the brand later because they’ve gained a sense of trust and loyalty to it.

If it isn’t possible to offer sales or discounted services, you could also consider a customer loyalty or rewards program that allows frequent shoppers to eventually receive a free or heavily discounted product. This way, they might feel like every penny they spend could go towards a reward in the future.

5. Highlight your brand’s mission or purpose.

In 2020, the same McKinsey survey mentioned at the beginning of this post, also found that people were beginning to also shop at brands that shared a similar set of values to their own. With this in mind, it’s becoming more common for brands to invest in purpose-driven marketing, or campaigns that highlight a mission, purpose, or set of values the company is serious about.

For example, Kréyol, a Black woman-run fashion brand, embraces Haitian culture and global female empowerment with its clothing and product lines. The company’s “For women, by women” mission aims to improve the lives of women, artisans, and entrepreneurs around the globe by featuring their clothing and designs on the Kréyol site.

“The whole idea behind Kréyol was for me to be able to provide a platform for artisans, specifically women of color, to be able to highlight the wonderful work that they do,” CEO Joelle Wendy Fontaine said in an interview.

While Kréyol’s marketing and business strategy spreads awareness of beautiful artisan fashion, prospects might also be more driven to support the brand because of its trustworthy and authentic mission to improve the lives of women around the world.

Navigating Changing Purchasing Behaviors

As the world continues to reopen and evolve following the pandemic, so will spending habits. While some people will start to begin spending more, others will remain cautious for the next year or beyond.

As a marketer or business owner, you’ll need to listen to your audiences and continue to follow data about your target persona’s to learn how their approaches to money are changing and what efforts you’ll need to take on to continue to win them over.

To learn more about the latest marketing trends and consumer behaviors, check out our recently published State of Marketing Report.

There are plenty of studies that highlight the importance of customer retention — oftentimes, customer retention has been found to be even more critical to your company’s success than customer acquisition.Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company found as little as a five percent increase in customer retention can result in an increase in company revenue by 25-95%.

Adobe learned that returning customers spend more than newer customers. Why? Because existing customers understand the value of your products and services and they’re invested loyally in your brand. If a customer feels satisfied with their interaction with you, it’s a no-brainer for them to turn to your business for their needs, again and again.

No matter if you’re a team of one or leading a scaling enterprise, you can cultivate a deeper relationship with your existing audience without the typical costs associated with acquiring new customers. The key is strategic relationship marketing.

“But isn’t all marketing relationship marketing?” Not exactly. Some marketing tactics are solely about gaining traffic and conversions to get potential customers into the customer flywheel. From there, you’ll have even more marketing tactics that get that potential customer to make their first purchase.

The perfect time to start a relationship marketing strategy is when the customer has made a purchase (or several). Your goal with relationship marketing is to get these new customers to become brand-loyal patrons of your business. To do that, you’ll want to take a personalized approach and become integrated into their lives in a way that feels natural and genuine.

Here, let’s take a look at some relationship marketing examples and the tactics they use to make this strategy work. Then, we’ll explore how you can implement a strong relationship marketing strategy today.

1. Capital One

Capital One understands its customers deeply — all the way down to the small inconveniences that plague them most. One of those annoyances is the long TSA line at the airport.

Capital One reimburses all venture cardholders up to $100 when they pay the TSA PreCheck fee. All they have to do is pay for it with their Capital One credit card.

TSA PreCheck expires after five years, and this benefit can be used every time the cardholder wants to renew their PreCheck status. This benefit speaks to a relevant pain point for Capital One customers and makes keeping an account open with Capital One well worth it in the long run.

2. Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation

Any homeowner knows that purchasing a home is one of the biggest and most important decisions one can make. Mortgage lenders know this, too. During the process of buying a home, buyers typically shop around for the lowest rate, but they’re also shopping for a reliable team that will make the process as smooth as possible.

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation is a great example of a business that takes the relationship marketing approach to customer relations. When the real estate market is moving quickly, Fairway stands out and offers its buyers more than just low interest rates. For example, I received a birthday email from Fairway which came right around the time I needed to make some decisions about my lender. In addition to that, the loan consultant was sure to send over some marketing documents with their value proposition and benefits for me as a buyer.

All of this showed me that the company was committed to being responsive, respectful, helpful, and most importantly — closing on time. This is a recipe for success in the mortgage industry as referrals are the “bread and butter of any successful loan officers business.”

3. GE

Relationship marketing is ultimately about offering both new and existing customers valuable content regardless of where they are in the buyer’s journey. Good relationship marketing should appeal to the first-time viewer as powerfully as it appeals to your long-term customers to ensure your customers can grow with you over time.

GE does a great job of diversifying its content, and the platforms on which it promotes, to ensure it satisfies as many people as possible. For instance, GE created two sponsored podcasts in the sci-fi genre. It seems strange, but GE positions itself as an “inventor of the future of industry,” so it makes sense that the company might dabble in the world of what-ifs in the sci-fi genre. Additionally, the company has a popular YouTube channel that features historic, innovative stories from the perspective of GE employees. Whether you’re an existing customer or a prospective employee, content like this places GE directly into the lives of customers in a natural, helpful, and even entertaining way.

By consistently offering a diverse range of quality content, GE shows its desire to satisfy its long-term customers even at the expense of short-term wins.

4. Domino’s

In the past couple of years, Domino’s has taken its fair share of risks for the sake of innovation and improvement, including a series of ads called Pizza Turnaround, in which they showcased a series of negative customer reviews, read by real Domino’s employees, before promising a new and improved recipe.

These self-deprecating ads appeal genuinely to viewers but clearly go against any traditional sales playbook… which is why they work. By admitting an area of opportunity, Domino’s re-invented its brand as transparent and honest — and who wouldn’t want to buy from a company like that?

Additionally, Domino’s has conducted other genius marketing campaigns like the Domino’s wedding registry, in which soon-to-be-married couples can create their own pizza registry, and Avoid the Noid, where the company partnered with every state in the US to repair potholes to limit the number of damaged pizzas being delivered. Domino’s has also done a fantastic job tapping into their digital audience — at one point, the company even allowed people to order pizza using a simple pizza emoji. Now, 70% of Domino’s sales are through digital channels.

Ultimately, there are plenty of innovative steps Domino’s has taken to cultivate a loyal, long-term customer base. They accepted short-term losses for long-term gains by slowly and strategically re-inventing their product and their brand while still engaging with their customers on their favorite digital platforms.

5. Panera

Panera’s commitment to health and convenience has resulted in 40 million Panera loyalty members.

In 2014, Panera issued a statement promising its customers it would remove all artificial flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives from all Panera products by the end of 2016. The company remained transparent throughout the process, publishing progress reports to demonstrate a level of accountability and transparency to its customers.

Undoubtedly, it was a risky decision to admit they’d previously used unhealthy ingredients in their food — but it paid off big-time in 2016 when the brand could officially say “100% of our food is 100% clean”.

Additionally, the brand continues to focus on cultivating strong relationships with its customers through personalization. For instance, Panera alerts loyalty members about new food offerings they feel will meet the member’s “flavor profile” based on past purchases.

The company also meets its customers where they are — starting an online grocery business as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Panera even offers home and business delivery, rapid pickup, and catering in an effort to better serve its customers.

6. Marriott

Undoubtedly, a 35-minute film is not the most traditional avenue a hotel can take when it wants to increase sales — and yet, that’s exactly what Marriott chose to do with their film, “Two Bellmen Three“.

This film enables Marriott to appeal to a younger demographic and build brand awareness on dominant platforms like Snapchat. Best of all, their content rarely resembles an advertisement and is typically focused on providing an audience with fun, or helpful, information on various travel destinations.

7. ArmorSuit

ArmorSuit’s warranty policy begins like this — “Most warranties are limited to 30 days or one year, but with our Lifetime Replacement Warranty, our customers can request for a replacement screen protector for a lifetime. This way, you never need to purchase a whole new kit when a replacement is needed.”

This way, you never need to purchase a whole new kit — a phrase you’ll likely never hear in traditional sales transactions. ArmorSuit’s lifetime warranty represents the company’s steadfast commitment to keeping its customers satisfied. While it might seem ridiculous to offer a lifetime warranty, it makes sense for building strong relationships with ArmorSuit’s customers — when the company’s customers then need other products related to tech, they’ll most likely check out ArmorSuit’s website first.

Next, let’s explore how you can create a strong relationship marketing strategy for your own business.

1. Provide personalized, customer-focused service.

When you’re creating a relationship marketing strategy and engaging with your customers, your primary concern should never be focused on your product or service. Instead, your concerns should always revolve around the customer — Would the customer want to see this ad? Would the customer be excited about this Instagram post? Does our new product delight the customer?

Additionally, it’s critical that you create channels for direct support when your customers need help. Perhaps you implement a Facebook Messaging Bot for service-related concerns. Alternatively, maybe you answer your customer’s questions via Instagram DM. By meeting your customers on platforms they use most, you’re proving your willingness to help them despite the hassles it might entail for your overall business process.

2. Engage with the customer where they are.

The reason Marriott’s strategy works isn’t only because of the content they create — it’s also where they post that content. Creating videos specifically for Snapchat enables Marriott to appeal to a younger demographic on a platform already popular with that audience.

Research which platforms are most popular for your ideal demographic. By reaching out to them through their preferred channels, you’re demonstrating a level of helpfulness and understanding that will encourage those users to interact with your brand.

3. Incorporate technology to work more effectively.

Technology might seem counterintuitive to building organic relationships that are personalized, but it can be the key to solving customer pain points. As your company grows, it’ll become increasingly more difficult to connect one-on-one with each customer.

Using an automated marketing system can ensure that every customer receives communication from your business and has the opportunity to engage. Tools like HubSpot’s Marketing Hub can automate workflows and email cadences so that you never miss a customer milestone.

4. Offer incentives and rewards for customer loyalty.

To cultivate a long-term relationship with your customers and create lasting brand loyalty, continue engaging with customers even after they’ve purchased a product. Consider what you can offer them once they’ve become customers — perhaps they can get a discount on additional products, or receive personalized recommendations based on their preferences.

By creating a loyalty rewards program, Panera continues to incentivize its customers to purchase additional products and slowly forms a more meaningful relationship by gathering information about each customer and then using that information to offer unique suggestions depending on their individual food preferences.

5. Create valuable content that tells a compelling story.

If a customer has already purchased your product, they don’t need to see additional product advertisements to become brand loyalists — instead, they need to feel your business offers value regardless of their purchase intent.

Marriott’s film isn’t meant to immediately convert a viewer into a paying customer. Instead, its purpose is to increase brand awareness, so that down the road, when that viewer is ready to book a hotel for an upcoming trip, they’ll remember the compelling film they saw once and think of Marriott.

6. Collect feedback regularly.

A relationship works two ways — to truly develop a meaningful connection with your customers, then, it’s vital you ask them for feedback. What do they want to see from your brand? What do they like about your product? What do they wish you wrote about on your blog? This information improves your relationship marketing strategy to best fit the needs of your specific audience.

Play the Long Game With Relationship Marketing

There’s a time and place for quick marketing wins and they’re paramount in hitting goals and KPIs each quarter. However, your marketing, sales, and service teams work much better together at playing the long game. Relationship marketing won’t score you consistent quick wins that you can measure with hard numbers in a dashboard. But you’ll find that staying the course and nurturing the customer will yield happier and more loyal brand advocates for quarters to come.

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

In the first few years of business, small companies come up against a lot of different challenges. Some are harder than others to overcome — and, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of small businesses fail by the end of their first year. By the end of their fifth year, 50% go under; and by the tenth year, that number rises to 80%.

With those survival rates, it’s easy to see why folks face the first few years of business with trepidation. But, many common business problems and challenges are actually fixable. Many times, you’ll find you need to take a step back, assess your pain points, and rethink your strategy. 

In this post, we’ll discuss common challenges that small businesses may face, along with tactical advice about how to fix them.

1. Finding Customers

This first one isn’t just a small business problem. The marketers at well-known companies like Apple, Toyota, and McDonald’s don’t just sit around waiting for the leads to come in — even the biggest, most successful companies have people working hard every single day to find new customers.

But, for small businesses, the challenge is even more significant. How can you find customers when you’re not a household name? And, there are so many channels to focus on for acquisition, but how do you know what to prioritize?

In addition, acquisition costs are incredibly high, and small businesses may not have the same spending power as larger, more established businesses. In fact, the cost of acquiring new customers has increased almost 60% over the past six years. If this is something you’re struggling with, you’re not alone: 49% of companies report that customer acquisition is their primary marketing objective. 

How to Fix It:

Finding customers starts with figuring out who your ideal customer is. Spraying and praying doesn’t work for anybody — you need to make sure you’re spreading the word to the right people.

Craft an idea of what your target customers look like, what they do, and where they spend time online by building your buyer personas. This free guide will walk you through the process and provide customizable templates to fill out and create representations of your ideal customers.

Creating very specific templates can dramatically improve your business results. Once you’ve built your personas, you can begin creating content that caters specifically to your target demographic and share it in the channels you know they’re in, with the messages you know they care about.

2. Increasing Brand Awareness

If your customers don’t know who you are, how will they buy from you? Statistics show that, in terms of success, 70% of brand managers say that building an audience is more valuable than direct sales, and, because of this, marketers in 2021 say that their primary goal for running marketing campaigns is building brand awareness. 

This focus is largely because building brand awareness helps generate trust with your audience, helps them associate your brand with your products and services, and those factors combined help drive sales and build a base of loyal customers. 

As a small brand, it can sometimes seem like today’s biggest names seemed to have popped up out of nowhere. How did they become a household name? How did they grow that quickly? Can your business grow like that, too?

Of course, most of these companies’ hard work, failures, and rejections happened behind the scenes. But, there are strategies for spreading the word about your brand and building an excellent reputation that you can start using right away.

How to Fix It:

There are many ways to spread brand awareness, but the three I’ll touch on here are PR, co-marketing, and blogging.

• PR: Public relations is less about paying for a spot in a news blog and more about focusing your voice and finding your place in the market. I recommend reading this great post from FirstRound Capital on what startups and small businesses often get wrong about PR. The piece also includes some tactical tips on how to figure out who’s covering your industry, building relationships, and working with reporters. You can also download our free public relations kit to learn how to maximize your public relations efforts with inbound marketing and social media.
• Co-marketing: Partnering with another brand will help you inherit some of their image and reputation and create brand evangelists outside your circle. It’s a fantastic way to gain a large volume of new contacts alongside your organic marketing efforts. You can read our ebook on how to get started with co-marketing for more helpful information.
• Blogging: Running a consistent, high-quality blog will also help you build brand awareness. Not only does a blog help drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into leads, but it also enables you to establish authority in your industry and trust among your prospects. It’ll also help you build an email list, which brings us to our next point…

3. Building an Email List

To move prospects along their buyer’s journey to eventually become your customer, you need to build trust through consistent nurturing, staying top of mind, and continuously providing value. Marketers say that one of the best ways to do this is by getting prospects on your email list. 

Email marketing is still ranked as the most effective marketing channel, and for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. In addition, 59% of consumers say that marketing emails can either directly influence their purchasing decisions.

Despite these statistics, the average email marketing database degrades by about 22.5% each year. As a marketing team, it is your job to find ways to maintain and constantly add fresh, new email contacts to your list. 

But, what many people call “building an email list” is buying an email list — and buying an email list is never a good idea. I repeat: Never a good idea. Not only will your email deliverability and IP reputation be harmed, but it’s also a waste of money. If your current strategy is to buy or rent email lists, it’s time to regroup and find better places to put those resources.

How to Fix It:

Instead of buying or renting lists, build opt-in email lists. An opt-in email list is made up of subscribers who voluntarily give you their email address so you can send them emails. These customers are already interested, and interested customers are more likely to make purchases, especially with nurturing.

The act of opting in necessitates website functionality that captures their email address. You can achieve this with a form builder or other conversion tool (more on that later).

You can also leverage social media platforms that you know your audience is already on, like Facebook or LinkedIn, and create enticing content that inspires them to sign up for your email list. 

The other piece of the puzzle is creating demand. As mentioned above, you can do this by creating great blog content and making it easy for people to subscribe. In turn, blogging will help you increase your online presence, build up search authority, and create evangelists from your content.

You can also revive older lists that you think are mostly decayed by creating an engaging opt-in message and sending it to your old list encouraging contacts who wish to re-opt-in, and promising to remove all contacts who don’t respond.

Growing your email list doesn’t necessarily translate into increasing your list of sales-qualified leads, which brings me to my next point…

4. Lead Generation

Another problem most small businesses share is lead generation — specifically, generating enough leads to keep the sales team happy. Marketers also report that this is a top priority, but, at the same time, 58% also indicate that lead generation is a key challenge that business leaders face.  

Given this, generating leads that are both high quantity and high quality is an important objective. A successful lead generation engine turns website visitors into prospective customers and provides a steady stream of sales prospects while you sleep.

How to Fix It:

To make the lead generation process work for your business, you need to first optimize your existing website for conversions. Your website is the most essential tool you have for turning prospects into customers. Look through your website and ask yourself:

• Do each of your webpages clearly guide visitors to take action, or do they leave them wondering what to do next?
• Do you use a tool that automatically pulls the submissions from your forms and puts them into your contact database, like HubSpot’s free lead generation tool?
• Are you creating custom landing pages for every single campaign that you run?
• Do you have lead generation CTAs on each of your blog posts? (Do you have a blog at all?)

Prioritize the most popular pages on your website first. Most businesses have a few specific pages that bring in most of their traffic — often the homepage, “About” page, “Contact Us” page, and maybe one or two of your most popular blog posts. This blog post will help you figure out which pages to prioritize and how to optimize them.

Then, implement conversion tools such as: 

• Pop-ups
• Hello bars
• Slide-ins

Finally, be sure to take advantage of free lead management software and apps for startups. Affording marketing, in general, is a big challenge in and of itself, so finding and implementing the most robust free marketing tools can be a game-changer.

5. Delighting Customers

Customer satisfaction is a great goal, but customer delight is even better: 

• Positive service experiences entice customers to make additional purchases and repeat loyal customers spend more,
• Satisfied customers engage in word-of-mouth marketing, helping you with free acquisition,
• It’s cheaper to retain an existing, satisfied customer than it is to acquire a new one.

Unfortunately, as a small business, it can be tough to delight customers in the way they desire. A lack of employees or dedicated service teams to help customers can make it challenging to keep up and solve their issues. A lack of capital can make it challenging to create programs that customers enjoy, like loyalty programs. 

To achieve true customer delight so that your customers become promoters of your business, you must surpass expectations and deliver an unmatched experience.

How to Fix It: 

It takes work to continue solving for your customer in a way that turns them into raving fans. Here are some steps to get you in the right mindset: 

• Understand why your customers chose you and what they need
• Set concrete expectations at the start of the engagement
• Deliver on those expectations (and satisfy your customers’ needs)
• Innovate how you can provide unexpected extras that go above and beyond
• Continue to measure satisfaction and improve the customer experience

When you understand your customers’ needs, expectations, and cater to their desires, it will pay off, as you will reduce customer churn and instead inspire loyalty. 

6. Hiring Talented People

52% of respondents to a CNBC study stated that the most significant problem facing small businesses was labor quality. This is a tough statistic to consider, especially since most of the challenges on this list can’t be overcome without a fantastic team that understands business goals and can work together to meet them. 

To begin with, 76% of hiring staff say attracting quality candidates is their biggest challenge. In addition, the cost of onboarding can average more than $4,000 per new employee, which is troubling for those operating with smaller budgets. If you have high employee turnover, you’re spending more money hiring talent than you would like.

How to Fix It:

It’s easy to hire with a short-term mindset: send out a job description, screen applicants, and make a decision. But, because of the high costs of hiring, it’s crucial to invest a significant amount of time in the hiring process. Don’t settle for good employees when you can find great ones, even if it takes longer. It’s the great employees that will help your company get to the next level.

Just like you create buyer personas for your customers, create candidate personas for your job candidates. Your personas should be different for each role you’re hiring for but will share some underlying traits around company culture.

Next, take ownership of attracting candidates to your company’s brand and make them interested in learning more. This will help you build a recruiting pipeline that will give hiring the same predictability as sales. Then, turn those leads into applicants.

Employer brand also plays a significant and critical role in hiring and attracting top talent. Well-regarded brands can bring down training expenses by as much as 50%, and 50% of employers and businesses with strong employer brand report more qualified applicants. This helps potential candidates feel excited about the possibility of working for a brand with an established presence, and the employees that you do have will feel proud of the work that they’re doing and proud to represent your business. 

Focusing on branding to help you attract top talent will pay off, as strong branding is associated with a 28% reduction in organizational turnover.

7. Managing Workflow

Once you have the people to make the magic happen, the next challenge is managing workflow. You want to ensure that your team has the processes and tools to do good work and do it efficiently. 

At the same time, you can’t be everywhere at once as a business leader. So how do you focus on the business while ensuring that everyone working in the business has what they need? This is why a common challenge for small businesses is effectively managing workflow, especially as your business scales. The good news is that, when done right, it does pay off: marketing automation can bring more than 400% revenue increment.

How to Fix It:

The best way to diagnose the roadblocks your team faces and increase efficiency is by creating ways for them to provide feedback. You can do this through: 

• Employee satisfaction surveys
• Frequent one-on-one meetings with direct reports
• Ensuring your direct reports implement one-on-one meetings with their direct reports
• Occasional skip-level meetings
• Asking about threats to the business and the issues that give them the most “pain” in their roles
• Finding the commonalities in the feedback you receive and the bottlenecks

Understanding how your employees feel and any roadblocks they may face will help you identify areas that would benefit from automation. As mentioned above, implementing time-saving strategies can be a significant benefit to improving performance and achieving overall business success.

8. Financial Planning

More resources increase ability, efficiency, and quality. Unfortunately, access to many of these resources comes through having capital, but small businesses reported that a lack of capital or cash flow was their number one challenge. 

In addition, small business loan approval at big banks is significantly low – 13.5% as of March 2021. Given this, financial planning with limited resources and a budget can be complex for small businesses.

How to Fix It: 

Every business will be different, but you’ll want to use business credit wisely, cut costs where possible, and manage cash flow by staying on top of invoices and bookkeeping. Business accountants and financial advisors can help you analyze your financial situation and help you make good decisions.

9. Scaling

“There’s this mix of building scalability early, versus doing what you have to do to get it all done,” according to Nick Rellas, co-founder and CEO of Drizly.

This is a tricky one, especially since every situation is different. You’ll see this problem arise in all areas of business: in product development, in marketing and content creation, in hiring, and so on.

For example, many business executives will push growth at all costs. But if you grow your company too quickly, you’ll find yourself having to hire quickly, which directly feeds into the small business challenge of finding and hiring top-quality talent. 

In addition, you may land a large client that makes you feel hopeful for the future, but it then becomes difficult to keep up with their needs. Because of this, a small business challenge is being able to scale and managing the side effects that come with scaling. 

How to Fix It:

Unfortunately, there’s no perfect answer here. “Depending on where you are in your business’ lifecycle,” says Rellas, “the scale will tip one way or the other, but I do think you need both at different times.”

What it comes down to is not obsessing over every detail but the right details. Closely monitoring product perfection, for example, might not be as important as doing so over customer service. It’s better to put your fears aside and launch a product that isn’t perfect because you can always update and improve it. After all, once your products are in the hands of your customers, you can learn much more quickly what’s working and what isn’t.

Obsessing over customer service, however, is worth the extra effort. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos puts it well in his 2016 letter to shareholders: “There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor-focused, you can be product-focused, you can be technology-focused, you can be business model-focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality.”

(“Day 1” is what he refers to as a period of growth and innovation, whereas “Day 2” is stasis, irrelevance, and slow demise.)

While these are just a few of the many business challenges facing small businesses every day, there are many others out there. Many of them can be planned for and mitigated with the proper planning and strategy.

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

If you’re a small business, your website has a big impact on your success. Research shows that roughly a third of people use the web to find local businesses. Honestly, I’m surprised that number isn’t higher.

As a small business, you might not have the budget to hire a designer, bring in a development team, or pay for a suite of design tools for your new site. A basic brochure site will probably have to do for now, right?

But here’s the thing: You don’t need a design portfolio or a branding team to make an effective website. A lot of what makes websites work boils down to clear and intuitive navigation, well-written copy, and tasteful use of color, typography, and images — no design degree necessary.

Still, it’s one thing to talk about good design, and another to actually build a website that delivers on all design fronts. Lucky for us, there are many fascinating websites that have figured out what works. So, for help in your design journey, we’ve compiled our favorite examples of excellent small business websites to inspire your own.

Small Business Website Design Examples

There are, of course, thousands of small business websites you can draw from, but we think these 15 serve as a good starting point whether you’re planning a redesign or wireframing your first iteration. By the way, these are all real businesses, so you can click each link to explore the website yourself. Let’s dive in.

1. Bennett Tea

Starting off our list is a gorgeous example of what you can accomplish with color palettes, animated page transitions, scrolling effects, and creative layouts. The Bennett Tea shop offers just a handful of premium tea options, but each is presented elegantly through this online store’s unconventional format.

Typically, stores display their products as grids with links to product pages. On the Bennett Tea website, however, users scroll down to explore each offering, with a life-sized image of the tea box and descriptions of the taste, aroma, and mouthfeel. It’s the perfect visual palette to complement the company’s variety of tastes.

Also notable is the site’s navigation experience. Upon landing on the website, visitors are shown a splash page stating the company’s mission. They then have the option to continue to the store or go to the About or Contact pages. It may require one additional click to get to the store page, but this choice puts the branding front and center for potential customers.

2. Aroz Jewelry

Belgium-based jeweler Aroz has constructed an immaculate website to showcase and sell their items. Offering a variety of accessories, Aroz first greets visitors with a full-width image, below which they present their pieces in a grid slider.

As users continue scrolling, the website makes frequent use of zoom-in animation, slide-in animation, and fade-in effects for greater visual impact. Each text section establishes the store’s offerings, capped off with a contact form and a social media CTA.

For those looking to learn more about Aroz, the website also includes a blog featuring new collections as well as customer and designer stories. All of these components work to conjure a professional, sophisticated, and unique brand image — a great example of what an ecommerce site can be.

3. Chicago French Press

If a tea shop can have a fantastic website, why not a coffee roaster? Chicago French Press sells a variety of rotating flavors while donating a portion of its proceeds to nonprofits and charitable organizations.

Like Bennett Tea, this website emphasizes the aesthetics of the product packaging. It also implements color backgrounds to distinguish between flavors, as seen in the full-width image slider on the homepage.

The Chicago French Press store is easy to navigate, as visitors can search by different criteria including flavor, brewing method, and bag size. And, if you want to incorporate their flavors with food, the website’s blog includes recipe posts too.

4. Wildwood Bakery

Wildwood Bakery’s website incorporates illustrations in small but stunning ways. The Australian bakery has made a simple but captivating website with little more than some delicate illustrations, a nice orange-and-green color palette, and mouth-watering close-ups of their creations.

On the homepage, visitors can learn about the bakery and click away to the website’s online store or sourdough subscription service. The bottom of the page sports a footer with social links and other useful resources. Note that the footer is more prominent than usual — the large text draws the eye to other important aspects of the business like sustainability and wholesale.

Wildwood’s store page is also worth checking out. Customers can filter products by flavors and quickly add anything to the cart. It’s clear that the designers considered everything, as even the card icon itself is a custom illustration. It’s these details that make this site exceptional.

5. AÃRK Collective

The website for watchmaker AÃRK Collective leaves no question as to what it does — from the start, its timepieces are displayed in full-page, aesthetically pleasing images. The whole thing resembles more of a gallery than an ecommerce site and establishes the brand’s commitment to simple and elegant designs.

But, this is ultimately an online store, and scrolling down reveals AÃRK’s product lines in a masonry grid style. The presentation is quite minimal, but this lets visitors focus solely on the designs themselves. There’s no other information until you click on an item, which sends you to a product page with all the relevant information, plus many more images to be sure you’re making the right watch purchase.

6. Cleenland

Not all websites have to be visually elaborate — this is proven with Cleenland’s online store. The Boston-based company sells low-waste home care and personal hygiene products, and the site wastes no time nudging visitors to visit the physical location.

Visitors can also shop online in Cleenland’s online store, which lists its product categories with images of each product and information about the supplier. This way, you know products are sourced sustainably. There’s even a “popular products” category serving up the best this store has to offer.

7. Ladies Get Paid

Ladies Get Paid is a membership website that offers financial and professional education courses for women. There are online classes, speaker events, and networking events, as well as job postings and online communities, all to fuel career advancement and financial confidence.

From a visual perspective, Ladies Get Paid does a fantastic job of presenting its variety of benefits in a straightforward manner. Its mission is clear from the start, and the page header lets guests view each offering in more detail.

The website also effectively incorporates hints of color in its interactive items. Its cards and buttons match each other for a cohesive feel and incorporate subtle hover effects for a pleasing user experience. Overall, the website is bold but inviting, a difficult but certainly achievable balance.

8. Good Vibes All Purpose Cleaner

Maybe I’m just biased toward sustainable cleaning products, but Good Vibes All Purpose Cleaner presents a simple, effective ecommerce site that manages to convey its philosophy and offerings seamlessly.

Good Vibes has no frill with its product displays — products are shown in a grid format as you might expect. However, the website also prominently features reviews and testimonials from customers below to instill confidence in new buyers.

Each product page includes a description as well as cleaning instructions, ingredients, reviews, and recommended products. It’s enough to make a positive impression without relying on visual gimmicks.

9. Wisr

I never expected to have this much fun on a financial services website, but here we are — Wisr offers personal loans, financial planning, and, above all, an incredibly amusing homepage. As you scroll, you follow the path of a simulated marble course from start to end. With each obstacle, you learn more about what Wisr does.

Whether you think this design choice serves as a metaphor for the often unpredictable financial road ahead, or just a cool thing to look at, this website definitely stands out among the rest.

As another cool secondary feature, the website remembers what page you exit from. So, upon a return visit, you’ll see a prompt inviting you back to the page where you left off. It’s a clever use of cookies that can help get prospects back on the conversion path.

10. Cafe con Libros

Intersectional Feminist bookstore Cafe con Libros (Coffee with Books) not only offers espressos with your purchase — it also boasts a fantastic website with everything you need under one domain name.

This site manages to pack its book inventory, merch store, event calendar, and mission onto the homepage alone without overcomplicating things. Visitors can also order any book from the store — physical, e-book, or audiobook — for pickup or delivery through the site.

As if that weren’t enough, the website also maintains an active blog with reflections and book reviews, a newsletter, a monthly book subscription service, and a podcast with an on-site player. It’s an excellent balance of quantity of offerings with quality of design.

11. Reform Collective

Design agency Reform collective features one of the most cinematic scrolling experiences I’ve seen on a website. It combines fixed scrolling with horizontal scrolling to showcase each section in chunks while keeping visitors on the same page.

Each individual section mentions some piece of the company, be it their design style and philosophy, a case study, testimonials, or a contact form. If you’re looking for a long-scrolling website that presents information to visitors in a specific linear sequence, try emulating this trick — it ensures users see what you want them to and in what order.

12. Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams may create CBD and melatonin products for better rest, but don’t sleep on this website. Combining 2D and 3D illustrations, scrolling animation effects, customer reviews, and even interactive graphics, the homepage for this small business does a great job getting visitors in the mindset of their product before promoting the products themselves.

Informational sections are interspersed with product links so that new customers, whether sold or skeptical, know what they’re buying and how these products work. To learn more, the About page includes masterful visuals and copy to put visitors at ease. Given what they’re selling, that seems like the right approach.

13. Panache

The graphic design and branding experts and Panache have proven their abilities with their one-page informational website. This is another example of how scrolling can be much more than a way to traverse the page — here, it triggers colorful transitions and animations that leave a strong impression.

Panache makes this list because, rather than including a separate gallery for showcasing the work, it blends its aesthetic approach into the construction of the site itself. This ultimately gets potential clients down to the contact form more quickly. There are also navigational links along the left side of the page in case visitors wish to return to a particular section.

14. Scott’s Cheap Flights

The goal of Scott’s Cheap Flights is to help U.S. travelers easily and cheaply book vacations to domestic and international destinations. Its membership website is suitably simple: Just sign up and start getting daily emails with the latest discounted flight offerings.

Once signed in, the website places its offers front-and-center — each one occupies a card with a colorful image of the destination. Clicking a card takes you to a page with information about the destination, instructions on how to book, and ticket prices by airport. Some cards are premium, and the “Upgrade” button lingers in the top right tempting users to subscribe.

Additionally, this website also provides a ton of extra value to free and premium users in its blog section. In it, there are tips for booking flights, travel advice, and guides for exploring new cities.

15. Music Audience Exchange

Finally, Music Audience Exchange (MAX) creates partnerships between brands and musical artists for promotional purposes, with a website that conveys class and professionalism.

Since it caters to both artists and companies, it features two pages for both types of clients, with step-by-step guides explaining how the process works. It’s an efficient means to channel both brands and musicians alike toward an application form and a conversion.

Big Design Ideas for Small Businesses

Designing a website is, without a doubt, a challenge for small businesses. But after some perusing, you can come up with a list of your favorite inspiration sites and what makes them pop, then incorporate these features into your own site. Plus, you probably spend a good deal of time on sleek sites already and have a good sense of what you’ll want.

Looking for more inspo? Check out all of our website design resources, including our Website Design lookbook — just click below.

Accomplishing your goals is an incredibly gratifying feeling.

However, it can sometimes be challenging to get that feeling, as achieving your goals takes time, effort, and a structured process. This is why it’s important to create plans of action for meeting the goals that will help you stay motivated and ensure you’re on the right path.

In this post, we’ll go over a goal-setting worksheet created by HubSpot to help you outline your goals with the SMART framework and create a plan for achieving them. The template is broken down into relevant sections to help you through the process, and if you download it, you can follow along throughout the post.

Goal Setting Steps

1. Identify your initial goal.

The first step of the process is to simply identify what your goal is. It doesn’t have to be convoluted, just merely the objective you’re hoping to achieve. For example, if you’re hoping to grow your website, your baseline goal could be “I want to generate more site traffic.”

2.Define your SMART goals.

The second step in the process is to use the SMART framework to elaborate your goals to ensure that they’re clear, measurable and that the process will help you get there. Here are is what each of the element in the acronym stands for:

• Specific: A specific goal clearly outlines what you’re hoping to improve. If you share your specific goals with your team, it should be clear what your intention is.
• Measurable: Making your goal measurable means attaching numbers to your objective that will help you understand what you have to meet, track your progress, and see how long it will take you to reach your end goal.
• Attainable: Making sure that your goals are attainable means that they are realistic and that you have a chance of achieving them. Your goal is not too out of left field or so unrelated to your current practices that you wouldn’t be able to succeed.
• Relevant: Ensuring that your goal is relevant involves answering the question of “Why are you setting the goal that you’re setting?” Your goal should directly relate to your business’ needs and help your business grow.
• Time-Bound: The final aspect of your goal-setting process is to set a timeline. It helps you understand what your schedule should be and stay on track in terms of achieving your ultimate goal.

Goal Setting Template

It’s always helpful to have a worksheet guide you through your process, and the image below is an example.

Download Template Here

Once you’ve finished defining your goals, the next step is to calculate your targets so you know what your final numbers should be and so you can plan your process accordingly, so you’re able to meet those final numbers.

2. Calculate your goal outcomes.

The most challenging part of your plan might be coming up with numerical targets that coincide with achieving your goals. You can just say, “We want to increase blog leads by 25%,” but what would the 25% increase be in numerical form?

When you have these numbers, you can set milestones for yourself and monitor your progress and make changes along the way if necessary.

The image below is an example of a SMART goal calculation.

Image Source

3. Evaluate your SMART goals.

The template’s final step is to evaluate your goals, which helps you anticipate possible roadblocks and develop action plans for dealing with them. If you have multiple goals, aim to ask these questions for each one that you have:

1. What is your SMART marketing goal?
2. Do you feel that this goal is realistically attainable in the time frame you’ve set?
3. How many hours per week can you dedicate to achieving your goal/your goal process?
4. What is the biggest challenge preventing you from achieving this goal? What are possible challenges you may face in achieving this goal? What is the biggest roadblock(s) to achieving this goal?
5. What three steps can you take to reduce or remove that challenge and succeed in reaching this goal?

All in all, following this framework makes your goals explicitly clear for yourself and helps you communicate their importance to all necessary stakeholders, so everyone is on the same page. To get started, download our template for free and start achieving your goals.

Contrary to what your friends’ photos suggest, Instagram isn’t just a social network for selfies and brunch pics. In fact, Instagram has over 200 million businesses that use its platform and 90% of users follow at least one of them, according to 2019 data.

In a time when visual content remains a crucial part of any brand’s marketing strategy, Instagram marketing presents a unique opportunity to showcase your brand identity.

Ready to get inspired? Check out this list of brands that are thriving on Instagram right now, and why their posts set them apart.

Best Brands on Instagram

What makes a brand great on Instagram?

We polled 301 users across the United States, and asked “Which of the following describes the brands you follow and enjoy on Instagram?”

These were their top answers:

Data Source

While this data is from a small sample, it does highlight what we already know about Instagram audiences. They look for:

• Content that relates to their lives: both personal and professional.

• Eye-catching, fun content.
• Product promotions

What you’ll see in the next section is that every brand featured meets these needs, earning them high follower counts and high engagement rates.

Psst – Want to get a stunning Instagram Story auto-magically created for your brand? Check out StoriesAds.com, a free Story generator from HubSpot and Shakr. Click here to get started.

1. Netflix’s Strong Black Lead

Followers: 682k

Here is an example of a brand that has mastered the art of having its own identity while remaining connected to its parent brand.

Strong Black Lead is a sub-brand under Netflix dedicated to amplifying Black stories in media.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Strong Black Lead (@strongblacklead)

The brand’s Instagram page mainly features screen grabs and short clips from TV shows, movies, and documentaries available on Netflix that feature Black actors and/or directors. They stay on-trend, posting relevant content based on current events, holidays, and buzzy topics.

In addition to its appreciation posts for widely loved TV characters, Strong Black Lead also promotes content the brand hosts on other platforms, such as podcasts and YouTube content.

2. Califia Farms

Followers: 303k

Warning: If you’re hungry, don’t head to Califia Farms’ Instagram page.

The brand’s food photography makes it stand out among the rest, showing users how Califia Farms’ products can be used to create dishes ranging from pancakes and nice cream to artichoke dip and fettuccine alfredo.

The brand doesn’t shy away from featuring its product in the images either. You can usually find it somewhere in its visual content, whether it’s the main subject of the photo or more in the background.

3. Anima Iris

Followers: 33.4k

You probably thought this list would only feature enterprise-level brands, huh?

Well, there are a ton of brands that have found the magic recipe on Instagram and Anima Iris is one of them.

What sets this brand apart is the transparency of its CEO.

If you watch one of Anima Iris’ Instagram Stories, you’ll probably see its CEO, Wilglory Tanjong, showing the behind the scenes of running a luxury purse brand, which helps its audience feel more connected.

You’ll probably also see Q&As, surveys, and user-generated content – all strategies that have helped the company build a strong online community and gain brand loyalists.

4. Lorna Jane

Followers: 1M

If your brand were a person, how would you describe its personality? Australian activewear company Lorna Jane has done an awesome job answering this important branding question with its Instagram content.

Spend just a few seconds scrolling through these photos, and you’ll quickly be able to name the target Lorna Jane buyer: a young, sporty, twenty- or thirty-something woman who values looking good while maintaining an active lifestyle.

The images posted by Lorna Jane, which often show the brand’s clothing and accessories, as well as images of women who embody its target buyer persona, are colorful, playful, and inspirational, which is a perfect representation of the brand’s essence.

5. Letterfolk

Followers: 353k

Letterfolk is a small business run by a couple who create and sell beautiful, handcrafted felt letterboards. Each letterboard comes with a full set of characters so people can personalize the walls of their homes, which means endless room for creativity.

Instagram is the perfect platform for them to inspire customers and aspiring customers with real customers’ boards, as well as ideas they’ve come up with and staged themselves. Their Instagram content is funny and relatable – a great recipe for shareability.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Letterfolk (@letterfolk)

Not only is this photo showing a funny and clever message, but it’s also very relatable. That’s why the comment section is rife with Instagram users saying things like, “No truer words have been said” and “The struggle is real.“

6. Apartment Therapy

Followers: 3.1M

Apartment Therapy’s Instagram account really is a source of therapy, if you love the sight of cozy homes.

Here are a few recent posts to Apartment Therapy’s Instagram feed.

From home decor inspiration to fun challenges like their #SmallCoolChallenge contest and trendy user-generated content (UGC), this brand gives its followers plenty of inspiration to personalize their own space and “live happy, healthy lives at home,” as written in their profile bio.

7. Sunday II Sunday

Followers: 20.1k

Sunday II Sunday is another small business with a robust social media presence.

The brand describes itself as “haircare for active women.” As such, its content revolves around having and managing an active lifestyle.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Sunday II Sunday (@mysunday2sunday)

Sunday II Sunday also does a great job of engaging its followers, asking them questions about their routines, workouts, and hair care habits.

8. Tentsile

Followers: 203k

“Stunning” is the first word that comes to mind when I scroll through Tentsile’s Instagram photos.

Tentsile sells tree tents, what they call “portable treehouses” to elevate your camping experience. Its Instagram page is full of beautiful lifestyle images of their products in just about anywhere in the world: rainforests, mountains, beaches… you name it.

What the brand does well is leveraging its UGC. This saves time and resources, plus giving the brand some social proof.

9. Desenio

Followers: 1.8M

The first thing you’ll notice when you land on Swedish online art print company Desenio’s Instagram page is color blocking.

Every image blends beautifully with the one next to it, creating a cohesive, visually appealing page you never want to leave.

Even when using user-generated content, the brand ensures it fits within its aesthetic. Establishing consistency in your creative assets is key in ensuring brand recognition (i.e., when people see your image anywhere, they know it’s you.)

However, from time to time, Desenio will stray away from its usual look, which creates even more intrigue.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by DESENIO – POSTERS ONLINE (@desenio)

The post above was a simple holiday card from Desenio, but it was so dramatically different from the look and feel of the business’s usual interior design, followers just had to click through to see more.

Many of the comments included exclamations of how beautiful and evocative the post is. One commenter was inspired enough to describe what winters are like where they live.

10. Bolden USA

Followers: 32.1k

Instagram is all about visuals. This means that within minutes of being on Instagram, a user can be bombarded with images.

So, the question is: How do you make sure your brand stands out and is memorable?

One way is by developing a unique aesthetic and remaining consistent. Bolden USA has done just that.

To mirror its green logo, the theme of Bolden USA’s Instagram is green. While the brand features other colors in its images, green is always the primary, standout color – an effective tactic to aid brand recall and recognition.

11. Vans

Followers: 17.4M

Vans is known for its stylish shoes and its Instagram business account is no exception.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by vans (@vans)

The maker of the classic checkered slip-on sneakers has a flashy Instagram feed, featuring both standalone product shots and action photos of people expressing themselves in their favorite Vans gear.

One thing that’s clear by looking at Vans’ Instagram account is that its identity is no longer tied solely to skateboarding. While you’ll still see lifestyle images with skateboarders, you’ll also see surfers, cyclists, and other young, fashionable kids.

So, as your brand identity and messaging evolve, your content should also follow suit.

One of Vans’ most interesting posts was this.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by vans (@vans)

Just because you’re promoting an ordinary product launch doesn’t mean the social media post supporting the launch should be equally ordinary.

Vans’ recent video, above, endorses a line of shoes called ComfyCush, but the video itself is a little, well, weirder. And for a business so dependent on style, the right amount of weird can give Vans an awesome amount of engagement.

12. Grass-Fields

Now, here’s a brand that knows how to show its personality.

This Cameroon-based clothing brand isn’t playing it safe on Instagram with static model shots and sale promotions.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Grass_fields (@grass_fields)

Instead, Grass-Fields showcases its products through fun, vibrant dance videos, and behind-the-scenes content.

The brand also highlights Black business owners, creators, and artists on its page, which caters to Black women.

The key takeaway here is: Don’t be afraid to do things differently than it has been done if that’s what your audience responds to.

13. Finfolk Productions

Followers: 316k

Ever wanted to be a mermaid? You can come pretty close, thanks to companies like FinFolk Productions. Believe it or not, silicone mermaid tails you can put on and swim around in are quite trendy.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Finfolk Productions (@finfolkproductions)

Finfolk Productions’ Instagram feed is full of beautifully shot photos that play into the mermaid fantasy by looking more like mythical art than real people.

One of the brand’s most engaging posts had a personal touch.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Finfolk Productions (@finfolkproductions)

The post above is two things in one: a new product and a sentimental announcement by the company founder, Bryn Roberts.

For most of Finfolk’s followers, the white mermaid fin above isn’t just a different color from the typical fins made by the company. It’s also emblematic of Bryn’s recent wedding, for which she wanted to make a bridal-style mermaid fin that all of Finfolk’s customers would appreciate.

14. Shiseido

Followers: 660k

Shiseido started as Japan’s first Western-style pharmacy 140 years ago and has since developed into selling high-quality brightening and anti-aging skincare, makeup, and fragrance products.

Its mission is to inspire a life of beauty and culture – a mission it portrays beautifully through Instagram content.

Back in late March 2016, Instagram started rolling out the ability to upload 60-second videos – and we’ve seen some amazing Instagram videos from brands ever since, like the one below from Shiseido.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by SHISEIDO (@shiseido)

The one above lasts nearly all 60 seconds and its product demo is curiously satisfying to watch.

Hot tip: Posts featuring faces, especially for a skincare brand, are ideal for boosting social media engagement.

Don’t be intimidated by highly professional Instagram videos like theirs. You can post highly engaging videos on Instagram without a huge video team or a bottomless budget. Here’s a step-by-step guide for making great videos on Instagram without breaking the bank.

15. Sephora Collections

Followers: 835k

Sephora Collections’ brand personality is playful, colorful, and feminine. It does a wonderful job of characterizing this personality in its Instagram content, using bright colors, patterns, and fun captions.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Sephora Collection US (@sc)

In addition to partnering with beauty influencers, the brand also promotes content from everyday makeup users, featuring their tutorials and looks on its feed.

16. Clare

Followers: 93.1k

If you’re renovating or simply moving into a new home, you’re likely looking for inspiration on social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest.

Clare’s Instagram features a collection of carefully curated images that meet that exact need. You’ll find everything from new product promotions to home decor tips – everything in between.

There’s also a beautiful balance of colors on Clare’s Instagram page, creating a cohesive profile that’s s inviting, warm, and inspiring.

17. HoneyBook

Followers: 82.9k

What we love about HoneyBook is how accessible its content is.

Instagram, like many social media platforms, has been slow to develop and promote its accessibility features.

Thankfully, brands like HoneyBook have taken an active approach to make their content accessible by adding captions to their videos and adding image IDs that describe every image the company posts.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by HoneyBook (@honeybook)

For deaf, hard of hearing, and visually impaired users, these extra steps go a long way.

18. Design Essentials

Followers: 139k

Design Essentials knows that hair is more than just something that grows on your body. It can speak to a community, a culture.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Design Essentials – Haircare (@designessentials)

That’s why the brand does more than just promote products on its Instagram page. In addition to product shots, you’ll find inspirational quotes about hair, playful memes about everyday life, and fun reposts from Design Essentials’ audience.

19. Flodesk

Followers: 36.5k

Flodesk’s Instagram is everything you want to see on social from an email marketing platform: beautiful designs and inviting content.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Flodesk (@flodesk)

When you land on Flodesk’s page, you’ll gain tips on how to use its platform as well as general tips to optimize your email marketing strategy. With the use of vibrant colors and playful designs, every post is an attention grabber.

What’s more, almost every post includes a call-to-action that invites the audience to engage. Whether it’s to drop an emoji in the comments or answer a question – engagement done right.

20. Omsom

Followers: 35k

Omsom is another small business that has leveraged its CEOs, two first-generation Vietnamese sisters, to build a community on Instagram.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Omsom (@omsom)

As you scroll through Omsom’s Instagram, yes, you’ll find beautifully crafted images showcasing the dishes you can make using the brand’s food products. However, that’s only one piece of the puzzle.

You’ll also see many posts celebrating Vietnamese culture, and debunking Asian-American stereotypes and biases.

This strategy helps consumers connect with the Omsom beyond the delicious food and understand its broader mission and purpose.

21. Chipotle

Followers: 1.1M

Instead of reeling in consumers with food pictures, Chipotle has chosen another route: hilarious memes.  

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Chipotle (@chipotle)

While you may find the occasional food post, the brand has focused its Instagram strategy on showing its personality. 

Here’s why it works: Memes are shareable and tag-friendly, which helps Chipotle reach new consumers as people tag their friends in funny, relatable posts. 

The common thread in all the brands featured is that they had a consistent brand identity that was reflected in their visuals and a deep understanding of what resonated with their audience.

Ready to populate your Instagram timeline with pics and videos that are as captivating as the content above? We believe in you!

Are you starting to notice some droopy shoulders around the office? It sounds like it’s time to plan a team outing.

Team outings are a great way to facilitate bonding with your team members, reduce employee stress, and give them the chance to get to know one another outside of the office.

And, you know, they’re entertaining.

But how do you find ideas for a great team outing? Maybe you start with a Google search for “team outing ideas” and stumble upon an article that suggests “field trips” and “professional development activities.” It sounds like a starting point, but where’s the real excitement?

Next time you plan an outing for your team, cut the trust-falls and get one of these ideas on the calendar instead. We have something for everyone — from perfect activities for remote teams to large or small in-house groups to events that enhance teamwork and events that all team members can enjoy outdoors.

Why should you do team-building activities for work?

Team building activities can be embarrassing for coworkers, and some don’t even add anything that relates to the workplace. For example, while ‘trust falls’ seems like an excellent idea, forcing it doesn’t improve trust among coworkers, and what is worse, it can result in injuries when pairings are not even.

However, not all team-building activities are detrimental to your workers, as you would see from the ideas we highlight in this post.

One of the most significant advantages of the right team-building activities is that it boosts morale among your workforce. Team members get to work together on exciting and challenging activities and can display their skills and talents.

Team-building activities and games that boost morale can break down barriers among employees and create an environment that is nice to work in, which is vital to a successful and well-functioning business.

The ultimate goal of team-building activities is to get your team members to bond and build trust with each other. People with different backgrounds, needs, ambitions, and personalities make up teams.

By engaging in the right team-building activities, you can bring these different people together to build a bonded, trusting team.

When your team bonds, it results in several benefits for the company. Some of these benefits include:

1. Improved Communication Skills

Communication between staff and departments is essential to a company’s success. Team-building exercises put people in a relaxed environment and encourage them to communicate while completing tasks.

2. Improved Productivity

Better communication skills will have a domino effect on productivity levels. When your employees work together and communicate, there is less work duplication and less friction between workers.

3. Identifies Leaders

Another benefit from team-building exercises is that managers can discover leaders within the workforce while engaging in team-building activities.

Regardless of the type of event that you want to enjoy, here are eight essential things to consider:

1. Define your goals.

You must determine clear areas of focus that you want to enhance during team-building events. Only after selecting the activity’s goals can you successfully choose the activities and challenges that would best fit the occasion.

2. Set a budget.

A budget needs to be determined after you have decided on your priorities. With a realistic budget, you can ensure that the price of the event doesn’t run out of control.

3. Set up a planning team.

As you begin planning, you will discover how difficult it can be for one person to organize a team-building event. There are so many things you need to prepare for, and the best way to deal with these things is to delegate responsibilities.

4. Invite and involve the right people.

Sometimes, it is easy to determine who to invite. Some other times, it can be challenging choosing who to invite. To help you, ask yourself (or the planning team these questions):

• Is it a compulsory event?
• What is the maximum number of people that the budget and venue can accommodate?
• Will remote employees be invited?
• Can anyone attend the event?

Answering these questions can make it easier for you to invite the right people.

5. Select the right activities.

After determining the goals of the team-building event, you should have a clear idea of activities that will align with these goals.

It is best to choose activities that are interactive, engaging and that build collaboration among employees.

6. Choose a great time.

The best time for a team-building event depends on the schedule and personal lives of those you plan to invite. Ensure that invitees are free before you commit to a day and time. You also need to take the weather and season into account when choosing a date – especially if organizing an outdoor activity.

7. Choose a good location.

The location is one of the factors that can make or mar your event. You need to avoid places that’ll not accommodate enough people or that aren’t suitable for the activities you’ve planned.

8. Market the event internally.

Marketing the event internally will likely build excitement among employees. Developing and distributing an “Event Day Agenda” that highlights all the activities employees will enjoy will increase expectations for the day and get folks excited.

Remote Team Building Activities

1. Virtual Break Room

The simple chats that happen on the office floor are sorely missed. Since most members of your team still work remotely, a virtual break room is an excellent team-building activity.

You can create this via Zoom or some other platform where staff can log in and join over their lunch or break – allowing them to catch up with coworkers as they would in a physical office.

You can also keep water cooler moments alive by encouraging workers to share interesting photos or videos.

2. Virtual Escape Room

Since the pandemic made physical escape rooms impossible to visit, a Virtual Escape Room brings the mystery to your workers right in their homes!

Depending on the Escape Room you choose, team members have to pass through different rooms, solve the puzzles they encounter, solve a murder, and so much more!. It is just as fun as it sounds, and what is more, it builds collaboration and communication among staff.

3. Beer Making

In this team-building exercise, team members become brewers for a day right from their homes. The process does not require prior knowledge as Beer Making Experience walks participants through each step of the journey. Kits are also delivered to interested staff.

4. Virtual Scavenger Hunt

You can quickly organize this team-building activity over a Zoom call. On the call, challenge team members to collect different items from around their homes.

The first person to show all the required items wins the hunt!

Source: Scavify

5. Set Competitive Challenges

A little friendly competition never hurts any team – on the contrary, it can strengthen the bonds of unity.

Setting up challenges for your teams can give them a goal to work towards. One popular challenge is the fitness challenge. It provides healthy competition between teams and improves their health.

6. Icebreaker Quizzes

These quizzes are an exciting and safe way to do team-building weekly. You can choose an online ice-breaker quiz like Quizbreaker, which sends out a new round of quizzes weekly to the team. It can work wonders to bringing remote teams closer as they learn more about each other while having loads of fun.

7. Visit Paris Virtually

One challenge many HR departments face is onboarding new hires. Virtually visiting new places with tools like Woyago is a unique and exciting ice-breaker. The virtual tour offered by Woyago has real-life Parisian guiding participants while throwing challenges along the way.

Source: Woyago

Large Group Team Building Activities

8. Scavenger Hunt

Find a beautiful day, break everyone out into groups, and have a scavenger hunt around the city. You can organize one yourself or use a creative service like The Go Game (which lists companies like Netflix, Facebook, and HBO among clients) or Stray Boots.

Your team members will feel nice and rejuvenated after some fresh air and fun challenges. Be sure to take plenty of silly pictures — you can even have a slideshow when everyone regroups at the end.

Alternatively, you might try a “Random Acts of Kindness” hunt. For instance, Outback Team Building & Training offers this team building activity, which requires teams to split up into groups, download Outback’s app, and complete a series of challenges to benefit strangers in the community.

Image credit: The Go Game

9. What’s My Name?

You might have seen this game played before. It goes by different names, and the more people who play, the better it is.

What’s My Name is an activity where each player is assigned the name of a person — dead or alive — and displays that name on their back, head, or part of their body such that only the other players can read the name. You can write these names on index cards or Post-it notes.

Once team members have been assigned a name, the players mingle with one another, treating their coworkers the way they’d treat the person listed on that coworker’s card. They can also ask questions about their own hidden identity until they correctly guess who they are.

What’s My Name has no complicated rules or potential for competitiveness. It’s simply an empathy-builder — a critical ingredient of good company culture — allowing team members to find out what it would be like to be treated the way someone very different from them might be treated every day.

10. Cook-Off

Here’s a culinary team-building activity that could end in dessert or disaster — in a fun way. Creating new dishes together requires creativity and will require everyone to put their team and leadership skills into action.

Divide your team into smaller teams, pick a food category, and challenge each team to whip up something delicious. The category could be anything from ice cream, to salsa, to pizza.

One fun twist you could add? Pick a single ingredient that all teams must use, like maple syrup or Oreos. Or, have each team get creative thinking caps on with the shape of its food — you can make pizzas into almost any shape.

11. Sneak a Peek

What do you get when you add a test of memory to a game of Pictionary? Sneak a Peek. In this game, team members break off into groups of at least four and take turns recreating objects from memory.

Using LEGOs, clay, building blocks, or a similar set of construction items, one game leader will craft an object or structure for every group to recreate. A member of each group then has 10 seconds to “sneak a peek” at the structure (which is hidden), return to their groups, and describe what they saw to the rest of the group so they can recreate it.

Each group has its LEGOs, clay, or building blocks. If it isn’t complete after a minute of recreating the structure, another member of each group sneaks a 10-second peek at the game leader’s object and comes back to instruct the group further.

This rotation continues until a group is confident they have recreated the item. The object of the game? Be the first group to recreate it.

Not only does this game help team members practice project management, but it shows you how to accomplish tasks using input from a variety of sources. It’s also just a fun way to see how good your coworkers are at retaining information.

12. Board Game Tournament

Here’s one way to spark your team members’ competitive sides without having to leave the office. Organize a team-wide board game tournament.

Especially if your team is pretty big, it might be easiest to pick a single game, then have one team member sign up for specific time slots when they’re free to leave their desks and spend some time playing the game.

Some great games with reasonable play times include Boggle, Jenga, or even games using good ol’ playing cards. Don’t forget to incentivize with prizes for first, second, and third place.

13. Office Trivia

Who says trivia night only takes place at the bar? Office trivia is the perfect way to bring a large group of colleagues together and challenge the brain in areas that don’t necessarily apply to their daily jobs. Break the company into teams of four or more and offer small prizes for the teams who score the most points.

Want to write your own trivia questions? For reference, trivia questions are generally sorted into categories — four or five trivia questions per category — with optional bonus questions at the end of the game.

While you can give each question a point value, you can also assign each team a certain amount of points per category that they can bet, instead. Each team can then bet as many or as few points as they want per question until they’ve used all their points for that category.

Not prepared to create your own trivia questions? Hire a trivia organization to host a trivia night at your office. There are tons of national trivia companies who’d be happy to host an event right on site — District Trivia, The Trivia Factory, and the Big Quiz Thing are just a few of them.

14. 4-Question Mingle

This activity has each team member moving around and meeting each person individually. It is excellent for teams that have spent some time apart or groups that have just been formed. Armed with four questions, each person gets to know coworkers better.

Small-Group Team Building Events

15. Improv Workshop

Comedy and improv events are fun, interactive experiences that’ll have your employees roaring with laughter while teaching them useful communication and soft skills, like focus and trust.

Depending on your budget, you could do anything from simply playing improv games with your employees to bringing in professionals to run competitive, fast-paced activities.

16. Two Truths and One Lie

This is a classic house party fun activity, but it’s also an excellent ice-breaker when integrating coworkers who don’t yet know one another.

Two Truths and a Lie is simple: Start by organizing the entire group into a circle and give each person the floor to introduce themselves. In addition to providing their name, however, every team member also says three things about themselves —only two of which are true. It’s up to the rest of the group to guess which statement is the lie.

17. Karaoke Night

What better way to get your employees to break out of their shells than to have them get up and sing some karaoke? You can even have a contest for the best group karaoke performance.

Bonus points if there are feather boas and cowboy hats involved. This activity works best for a more extroverted group, so if your team isn’t into strutting their stuff on stage, consider an idea on this list that caters more to those personalities.

Source: derekgavey

18. The “Suddenly” Story

If you’ve ever told stories around a campfire, you might have narrated a variation of The “Suddenly” Story. This activity is the choose-your-own-adventure book of team-building.

However, putting activities. You’re not just telling a story — you’re piecing a story together using the (often hilarious) imaginations of your coworkers.

To tell The “Suddenly” Story, gather your team in a circle, and offer the opening three sentences to a story about anything. At the end of the three sentences, say “Suddenly …” and pass the story onto the person next to you.

It’s their job to take your three sentences and build on the story with another three sentences, followed by “Suddenly …” Each mention of “Suddenly” allows the story to take a turn. What that turn looks like is up to the next person in the circle.

The “Suddenly” Story helps people find ways of building on existing content while also being creative when all ears are on them. Try it the next time you want to get your department together for a break, and you’re sure to get everyone laughing.

19. Go-Kart Racing

There’s nothing like a bit of competition to bond a group together. An adrenaline-pumping activity like kart racing is a great way to get employees to interact with one another in a totally new and fun way. Just make sure everyone pays attention during the safety lecture.

20. Concentration (Marketing Edition)

Here’s a professional spin on the 1960s game show. The original game show, called Concentration, put 30 numbered tiles up on a board, each tile with an identical tile somewhere else on the board. What made them similar? They had matching prizes on the back.

Over time, as contestants opened up more tiles, they had the opportunity to select tiles they knew would match up and win the prize written on the back.

Businesses — especially marketing departments — can have a field day putting logos, slogans, and company names on the back of their own tiles and having players match up every piece of the brand.

As your business grows, you can even put the names of your products, employees, and job titles on the backs of your tiles to see how well your coworkers know the company they work for.

21. Sales Exercise

This activity is perfect for your marketing team but can still be enjoyed by all types of teams and encourages creative thinking. In this building exercise, each group is given an item, from the mundane to the strange. The teams each have five minutes to come up with a creative advert. The team with the most creative advert wins each round.

Teamwork Team Building Activities

22. Professional Development Workshop

Want to encourage team bonding while providing each team member with an opportunity to learn and further their career?

Offer a shared learning experience either at your office or at an off-site workshop or conference. The activity could be specifically related to your employees’ jobs, or it could be something broader, like a negotiation or leadership skills workshop.

23. Jigsaw Puzzle Race

Jigsaw puzzles can be a tedious thing to put together alone. Maybe you have one set up at home and make progress on it for a couple of hours every weekend.

However, putting your numerous brilliant colleagues on the case makes a jigsaw puzzle an enjoyable problem-solving activity. Break the company into teams for a multi-puzzle race, and suddenly you have a test of teamwork that electrifies the entire office.

Grab several copies of the same puzzle and turn your weekend activity into a contest to see which team can complete the puzzle first. Offer prizes just like you would in a game of office trivia.

Just be sure each team has the same number of people and choose your puzzle size wisely. A 1000-piece puzzle, for example, might be a bit time-consuming for a team of just five or six people.

24. Room Escape Games

Here’s a great bonding activity that requires leadership skills, teamwork, logic, and patience. Room escape games — Escape the Room, Puzzle Break, AdventureRooms, etc. — have become a wildly popular team-building exercise for groups around the globe.

Here’s how it works: A group of people gets “locked” in a room for one hour. During that time limit, they have to find hidden objects, solve puzzles, and figure out clues to locate the key that will set them free. And it’s not easy: Only 20% of players actually make it out before the hour is up.

If you’re not sure how to convert your office space into an escape room, you can always hire a service to do it for you. Companies like Outback Team Building & Training host events that turn your office into a team-building escape challenge. And, this can invoke some great, positive memories into a space where your team works every day.

25. The Egg Drop Challenge

Chances are, you played this in school or summer camp. The Egg Drop Challenge is a beloved tradition that challenges teams of kids to create small structures around an uncooked egg to protect the egg from a high fall onto hard ground.

Each group is given specific items to build the structure that protects the egg, but nothing more. So, why not offer the same challenge to your coworkers?

Straws, newspaper, tape, and cardboard are just some everyday items provided during the Egg Drop Challenge — as you can see in the sample egg fortress below. However, consider making it even more challenging for your coworkers and allow them to use simply anything available in the office.

The height of the fall is up to you. But ensure to set an altitude that’s consistent with the materials each team has to work with.

Source: Buggy and Buddy

26. Laser Tag

Another great way to get your adrenaline pumping? A good old game of laser tag. Not only is it great fun, it’s also an opportunity for employees to exercise their strategy and logic skills, as well as teamwork skills. Bonus: Determine teams ahead of time and have people dress up.

27. Catch Phrase

In this classic party game, players team up and take turns describing words and phrases to their teammates without saying the word or phrase itself. Phrases can include celebrities, expressions, or just simple things found around the house.

If my phrase is “needle in a haystack,” for example, a clue I might give to my teammates could be “a pointy object buried inside farm equipment.”

Catch Phrase is the perfect way to get your employees together and teach them how to communicate with one another. (Don’t worry, everyone will be having so much fun, they won’t realize that’s what you’re doing.)

This game is often played with a basket of phrases on slips of paper, but it became so popular, Hasbro made an electronic version.

28. Game of Possibilities

To play this game, give an object to anyone in each group. Then ask each person to demonstrate in front of their group — without talking — what the object is used for. The rest of the team has to guess what object the person is demonstrating. Demonstrations must be creative and original. It can be played in small groups and only requires random objects.

Outings and Events Team Building Activities

29. Volunteer

Giving time to support a good cause isn’t just good for the soul; it’s also an excellent way for your team members to bond. Place-based volunteering ideas include volunteering at a local soup kitchen, helping build a Habitat for Humanity house, or delivering gifts to children’s hospitals during the holidays.

Skill-based volunteering is a terrific way to stretch your employees’ expertise: It’s when your team volunteers its time and uses its professional skills — anything from marketing to app development to writing — to help a nonprofit.

Try VolunteerMatch.org for either type of volunteering opportunity and Catchafire.org for skill-based volunteering opportunities.

30. Mystery Dinner

Mystery dinners are one of the most beloved traditions here at HubSpot. On a single night, you send a group of folks from different teams within your company to dinner somewhere in your city (or at someone’s house).

The dinner is hosted by one of your company’s leaders and paid for by the company. These dinners allow random groups of people from the same company to spend an evening chock full of good food and conversation together.

What makes them a mystery dinner? The only thing participants should know about the dinner ahead of time is the date and time. Send each group an email with the name of the restaurant they’re going to and who they’ll be going with, so they can arrange transportation together.

Optional: Give every dinner host the name of a restaurant or bar to invite everyone to congregate once the dinners are over.

31. Kayaking/Canoeing

Nothing says “let’s work together,” quite like trying not to end up in the water. Want to take advantage of the outdoors? Grab a paddle and head down to the closest river for a great spring or summer outing.

Many public rivers and ponds have boat houses where you can rent kayaks and canoes — and you can encourage folks to rent multi-person ones and pair up with people they don’t usually work with.

32. Trampoline Park

Hey, who says trampolines are just for kids? Take your team to a trampoline park for some jumping fun and a chance to work off the day’s stress. Many cities have local places with trampoline activities — if you’re in the Boston area, check out Skyzone for trampoline dodgeball and basketball games.

33. Something Touristy

Embrace your city! Pick a hot tourist destination and go as a team. You can even do a Segway tour. (Fanny packs: optional.) It’ll be nice to laugh at how silly it feels to be a tourist in your own city, and you might even learn something new.

34. Painting Class

If you’re looking for a slightly more relaxing activity, take a group painting class. Paint Nite hosts painting classes by local artists at various bars throughout major cities for painting on canvases, wine glasses (like in the picture below), and so on. It’s a great way to let your team members unwind, catch up over some drinks, and express their creativity.

35. Cooking Class

In the mood for something a little more culinary? Change up the usual outing to a bar or your local restaurant, and try a cooking class. Through a service such as Kitchensurfing, you can hire a professional chef to cook a fancy meal for you in your home or office kitchen.

Between the multiple courses prepared before your eyes, your team will have plenty of time to strike up a conversation and enjoy the delicious aromas.

36. Explore a New Place

Few things are more fun than getting out of the city and exploring for a day. So, why not do it with your team?

For bigger events — maybe every quarter, when you have more budget to use for outings — charter a bus and take your team to a new place. You can all take a historical tour of the new place, grab lunch at a restaurant serving the town’s finest, or take in a local attraction together.

37. Sports Game

Round up the team and head out to a sports game. What a fantastic way to rev up team spirit while combining both competition and camaraderie.

38. Go Camping

Get away from the hustle and bustle of work and city life by heading out to a camping site in your area.

Bond with your coworkers over camp stories, marshmallows, and campfires. Walk into the woods as coworkers and come out as friends!

Bring Fun To The Workplace!

These are just some fun team-building activities that you can use to get the best out of your team. Be sure to use any of the activities listed above to build a firm foundation of trust and purpose between your employees.

Now you’re ready to show your team a great time while increasing their happiness and creating a great company culture. And hey, you might just be the “cool boss” now. How cool would that be?

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

There’s a frustrating truth that every business deals with early into its growth: More money, more problems.

It seems counterintuitive — if sales and revenue are up, isn’t that a good thing? How are bigger profits a potential problem?

Put simply, it all comes down to the fact that the more you sell, the more money you need to spend. This includes marketing and sales campaigns to reach more customers, the production costs of more goods, and the time and money required for new product development.

Known as variable cost, this sales/spend ratio is something every business owner should understand, but online advice listicles and action plans often assume readers have an intrinsic knowledge of this concept rather than providing a working definition.

In this piece, we’ll clear up variable cost confusion: Here’s what you need to know about variable costs, how to calculate them, and why they matter.

Let’s examine each of these components in more detail.

Variable Cost Per Unit

The variable cost per unit is the amount of labor, materials, and other resources required to produce your product. For example, if your company sells sets of kitchen knives for $300 but each set requires $200 to create, test, package, and market, your variable cost per unit is $200.

Number of Units Produced

The number of units produced is exactly what you might expect — it’s the total number of items produced by your company. So in our knife example above,if you’ve made and sold 100 knife sets your total number of units produced is 100, each of which carries a $200 variable cost and a $100 potential profit.

Variable costs earn the name because they can increase and decrease as you make more or less of your product. The more units you sell, the more money you’ll make, but some of this money will need to pay for the production of more units. So, you’ll need to produce more units to actually turn a profit.

And, because each unit requires a certain amount of resources, a higher number of units will raise the variable costs needed to produce them.

Variable costs aren’t a “problem,” though — they’re more of a necessary evil. They play a role in several bookkeeping tasks, and both your total variable cost and average variable cost are calculated separately.

Total Variable Cost

Your total variable cost is the sum of all variable costs associated with each individual product you’ve developed. Calculate total variable cost by multiplying the cost to make one unit of your product by the number of products you’ve developed.

For example, if it costs $60 to make one unit of your product and you’ve made 20 units, your total variable cost is $60 x 20, or $1,200.

Average Variable Cost

Your average variable cost uses your total variable cost to determine how much, on average, it costs to produce one unit of your product. You can calculate it with the formula below.

Total Variable Cost vs. Average Variable Cost

If the average variable cost of one unit is found using your total variable cost, don’t you already know how much one unit of your product costs to develop? Can’t you work backward, and simply divide your total variable cost by the number of units you have? Not necessarily.

While total variable cost shows how much you’re paying to develop every unit of your product, you might also have to account for products that have different variable costs per unit. That’s where average variable cost comes in.

For example, if you have 10 units of Product A at a variable cost of $60/unit, and 15 units of Product B at a variable cost of $30/unit, you have two different variable costs — $60 and $30. Your average variable cost crunches these two variable costs down to one manageable figure.

In the above example, you can find your average variable cost by adding the total variable cost of Product A ($60 x 10 units, or $600) and the total variable cost of Product B ($30 x 15 units, or $450), then dividing this sum by the total number of units produced (10 + 15, or 25).

Your average variable cost is ($600 + $450) ÷ 25, or $42 per unit.

Variable vs. Fixed Cost

The opposite of variable cost? Fixed cost. Fixed costs are costs that don’t change in response to the number of products you’re producing.

Some common fixed costs include renting or leasing a building, utility bills, website hosting, business loan repayments, and property taxes.

Worth noting? These costs aren’t static — meaning, your rent may increase year over year. Instead, they remain fixed only in reference to product production.

To calculate the average fixed cost, use this formula:

Both variable and fixed costs are essential to getting a complete picture of how much it costs to produce an item — and how much profit remains after each sale.

To calculate variable cost ratio, use this formula:

Let’s put it into practice. If you’re selling an item for $200 (Net Sales) but it costs $20 to produce (Variable Costs), you divide $20 by $200 to get 0.1. Multiply by 100 and your variable cost ratio is 10%. This means that for every sale of an item you’re getting a 90% return with 10% going toward variable costs.

Combining variable and fixed costs, meanwhile, can help you calculate your break-even point — the point at which producing and selling goods is zeroed out by the combination of variable and fixed costs.

Consider our example above again. If your variable costs are $20 on a $200 item and your fixed costs account for $100, your total costs now account for 60% of the item’s sale value, leaving you with 40%.

Put simply? The higher your total cost ratio, the lower your potential profit. If this number becomes negative, you’ve passed the break-even point and will start losing money on every sale.

So, what’s considered a variable cost to the business?

Some of the most common variable costs include physical materials, production equipment, sales commissions, staff wages, credit card fees, online payment partners, and packaging/shipping costs.

Let’s examine each in more detail.

Physical Materials

These can include parts, cloth, and even food ingredients required to make your final product.

Production Equipment

If you automate certain parts of your product’s development, you might need to invest in more automation equipment or software as your product line gets bigger.

Sales Commissions

The more products your company sells, the more you might pay in commission to your salespeople as they win customers.

Staff Wages

The more products you create, the more employees you might need, which means a bigger payroll, too.

Credit Card Fees

Businesses that receive credit card payments from their customers will incur higher transaction fees as they deliver more services.

Online Payment Partners

Apps like PayPal typically charge businesses per transaction so customers can check out purchases through the app. The more orders you receive, the more you’ll pay to the app.

Packaging and Shipping Costs

You might pay to package and ship your product by the unit, and therefore more or fewer shipped units will cause these costs to vary.

Expect the Unexpected

While variable costs, total variable costs, average variable costs, and the variable cost ratio often seem complicated on the surface, these terms are simply ways to represent the changing nature of costs to produce new items as your business grows.

By understanding the nature of these costs and how they impact your current and projected revenue, it’s possible to better prepare for evolving market forces and reduce the impact of variable costs on your bottom line.