Category Archives: B2B

Have you ever heard people refer to themselves as “Apple people,” “Nike people,” or “Trader Joe’s” people?

This is what brand awareness can do for a brand: embed itself into consumer lifestyles and purchase habits so that they don’t have to think twice before becoming a customer — time and time again.

This guide will help you better understand brand awareness, establish it among your audience, and build campaigns that allow it to continually grow and change with your business. Let’s dive in.

Brand awareness might seem like a vague concept, and in truth, it is. For those marketers and business owners out there who like to gauge success with neat and tidy numbers, brand awareness will likely ruffle your feathers.

But just because it isn’t a metric that can be perfectly determined doesn’t mean it doesn’t carry value. Brand awareness is incredibly important for business success and overall marketing goals. Here’s why.

Why is brand awareness important?

Brand awareness fosters trust.

In a world where consumers rely on extensive research and others’ opinions before making a purchase, brand trust is everything. Once a consumer bonds to your brand, they’re more likely to make repeat purchases with little to no forethought — which then bridges the gap between trust and loyalty.

Brand awareness establishes that brand trust. When you put a proverbial face to your brand name, consumers can trust easier. Brand awareness efforts give your brand a personality and outlet to be sincere, receive feedback, and tell a story. These are all ways that we, as humans, build trust with one another. The human/brand relationship isn’t any different.

Brand awareness creates association.

When you’ve had a paper cut, I bet you’ve put on a Band-Aid. When you had a pressing question, I’m sure you’ve Googled it. When you needed to make a few copies, I’m guessing that you Xeroxed them. And when you’ve packed for a nice picnic, I’m willing to bet you grabbed a Coke to drink.

Am I correct? Most likely. But … notice how the some of the words above are capitalized. These are brands, not nouns or verbs.

Speaking in brand-less terms, Band-Aid should be referred to as bandage, Google as a search engine, and Xerox as a copier. But it’s more fun to refer to the brand itself, even if we aren’t using their specific product.

That’s what brand awareness does. It associates actions and products with particular brands, subconsciously encouraging us to replace common words with branded terms. And before you know it, simple paper cuts or picnics are doing the marketing for us.

Brand awareness builds brand equity.

Brand equity describes a brand’s value, which is determined by consumer experiences with and overall perception of the brand. Positive experiences and perception equal positive brand equity, and the same goes for negative notions.

Here are a few valuable things that come from positive brand equity:

• Higher prices due to higher perceived value
• A higher stock price
• The ability to expand business through product or service line extensions
• Greater social impact due to brand name value

How does a brand establish (and increase) brand equity? By building brand awareness and consistently promoting positive experiences with the brand. Brand awareness is the foundation of brand equity.

Once a consumer is aware of a brand, they start to recognize it without assistance, seek it out to make a purchase, begin to prefer it over other similar brands, and establish a loyalty that not only spurs on other purchases but also inspires recommendations to family and friends.

That is why brand awareness is so important. It establishes trust with your customers, creates positive associations, and builds invaluable brand equity that allows your brand to become a household name and consumer staple.

Brand awareness among your audience and the general public doesn’t happen overnight. It also doesn’t happen from a simple advertisement or marketing campaign.

Strong brand awareness is a result of multiple simultaneous efforts that extend beyond trying to get paying customers.

If you expect to raise awareness of your brand by running a few product advertisements on Facebook, you won’t get very far. Not only will the consumer be focused on the product (not the brand), but the ad will also lack impact beyond a simple sale.

Here are some ways to establish a solid brand awareness foundation and make a lasting impact with your audience:

1. Be a person, not a company.

When you get to know a new friend, what do you like to discover about them? I like to learn about hobbies, passions, likes and dislikes, and more. I also pay attention to how they speak, what they like to talk about, and what stuff gets them excited.

These are the traits your brand should determine and promote about itself. To leave an impact with your audience, you’ve got to define yourself as more than a company that sells stuff. How else would you define yourself? What words would you use if you had to introduce your brand to a new friend?

2. Socialize.

Introvert or extrovert, outgoing or quiet, all humans benefit from social contact and spending time with one another. It’s how we stay connected, learn new things, and become known by others.

The same goes for your brand. If you only attempt to connect with others when trying to make a sale or get support, you won’t be known as anything beyond a business with a singular intention (and the same goes for a person).

To raise awareness of your brand, you’ve got to be social. Post on social media about things unrelated to your product or services. Interact with your audience by asking questions, commenting on posts, or retweeting or sharing content you like. Treat your social accounts as if you were a person trying to make friends, not a business trying to make money.

Research shows that over 50% of brand reputation comes from online sociability. Being social leads to greater awareness and simply being known.

3. Tell a narrative.

Storytelling is an incredibly powerful marketing tactic, whether you’re marketing products or promoting your brand. Why? Because it gives something real for your audience to latch onto.

Crafting a narrative around your brand humanizes it and gives it depth. And weaving this said narrative into your marketing inherently markets your brand alongside your products or services.

What should your narrative be about? Anything, as long as it’s true. It can be the narrative of your founder, the tale of how your business had its first product idea, or the little-engine-that-could story of how your small business made it in this big world.

People like hearing stories about each other. Authenticity is impactful, and it can lead to a big boost in brand awareness.

4. Make sharing easy.

Whatever your industry, product offering, or marketing strategies, make it easy for your audience to share your content. This could be blog posts, sponsored content, videos, social media posts, or product pages. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s shareable.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective way to establish trust and familiarity among customers. If someone sees that a friend or family member is recommending a product or service, they’ll take notice of that product … and brand. Is this a brand worth exploring? Do they have other great products I can rely on? What are their social accounts like, and what do they talk about?

If you make it easy to post about your stuff, consumers will raise brand awareness for you by simply clicking “Share”.

Brand awareness is about impact.

It’s about interacting with your audience in ways that don’t only ask for money, participation, or loyalty.

Imagine if you met a new person who wanted to be your friend. If they asked for any of the above, you’d probably laugh and walk away, right? Not only is that a shallow approach to friendship, but it also leaves no lasting impact on you.

The same goes for establishing and building brand awareness among your audience.

You already know how to start building your brand awareness from the ground up. Now, it’s time to put together a simple yet powerful brand awareness strategy that will keep the flywheel turning.

1. Guest blog on other niche websites.

Guest blogging is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness with minimal effort. You can take advantage of the traffic that’s already arriving at another website to get more eyes on your brand while offering helpful and relevant content.

In other words, you’re not just pushing out your product on people who aren’t ready to buy, but rather writing in your brand voice and presenting yourself as human first, company second. Another great alternative to guest blogging would be publishing sponsored content on niche websites.

2. Try co-marketing.

Co-marketing is an excellent way to build brand awareness — not only because you’d be taking advantage of another brand’s audience but because it can highlight who you are and what you offer in the marketplace.

For instance, if your company sells dog leashes and toys, you could potentially partner with a dog walking app. The campaign itself could appear in any number of ways: You could create a shared offer (“download the app and get one free leash”) or host an Instagram live together. No matter what, partnering up with another brand could help you double and even triple your reach.

3. Advertise everywhere.

I know, I know: Advertising many not build brand awareness so much as it builds product awareness, but still — it’s one of the best tools you can use to get people to find out about your brand in a low-touch, unobtrusive way.

Consider Grammarly. It feels like just a few years ago, no one knew about Grammarly. Now it’s one of those brands that you automatically think of when you consider online proofreading software. That’s because they’ve launched robust social, video, and display advertising campaigns that appear nearly everywhere.

You might consider starting with online advertising, which includes paid social media and PPC. If you’re interested in truly appearing everywhere and launching more sophisticated campaigns at a mass scale, you can launch programmatic advertising campaigns.

4. Hire a face or create a mascot for the company.

This may not be doable for smaller companies, but if you do have the budget, consider hiring an actor or spokesperson to represent the company. What do you first think of when you think of Progressive? Flo, who’s even been termed “Progressive girl” for her fun and friendly personality.

This allows you to not only humanize your brand, as mentioned in the previous section, but give a sense of the friendly and knowledgeable service customers can expect to receive.

You don’t have to use a person, either. GEICO is a great example of this. The moment you see that friendly lizard, you know it’s GEICO. Creating an animated mascot may be a cost-efficient but equally effective way to give a face to your brand.

5. Choose an image or symbol that represents you.

Nike is not even Nike anymore. It’s a check mark. The moment you see that check mark, you know it’s Nike. Or how about McDonald’s yello “M”? Or Apple’s bitten apple?

I’m not just talking about a logo, either, though it can certainly be part of your logo. But work with your branding team or a freelance graphic designer to create a symbol that you ubiquitously use in your marketing, advertising, and organic campaigns. You might also consider taking a note from Apple, McDonald’s, and Nike, and incorporating the symbol into your product packaging and design.

6. Create a short, catchy slogan.

Extending the Nike example, you think of the brand immediately when you hear “Just do it.” Creating a short motto or slogan is a cornerstone of a strong brand awareness strategy and is an easy and simple way to increase brand awareness.

It’s definitely tough — imagine condensing everything you’re about in one short sentence. It must explain how you’re different, what you offer, and why customers should choose you. Consider HubSpot’s tagline, “Helping millions grow better.” In four simple words, you understand why our product should be your choice when consider marketing automation tools.

Learn how to write an effective business slogan with this free guide.

Your brand awareness is now effectively off the ground, and people talk about you without needing to see an ad.

What about expanding your established brand awareness and building on that strong foundation? What can you do as a brand to campaign for awareness and constantly increase it?

Here are a few campaign ideas to boost your brand awareness beyond your initial strategy.

1. Offer freemium.

Freemium is a business model that offers a basic product or product line for free, only charging for any products deemed premium or enterprise-level. It’s a popular pricing strategy for software companies, like HubSpot and Trello.

Offering a freemium option allows customers to get a taste of your brand and product before making a purchase. It’s a try-before-you-buy opportunity that can, technically, last forever (as opposed to a free trial period that some companies choose).

It’s common to offer a freemium option with the condition that the brand’s watermark will be shown on any public-facing parts of the product or service. This makes freemium a win-win situation: The consumer gets the product for free, and the brand gets free advertising when consumers use it.

Typeform is another great example of this. Typeform offers a freemium option of its survey software, but customers must include a thank-you page that features the Typeform logo and message.

Depending on your type of business and product offer, Freemium may be the best way to raise awareness of your brand among your audience.

2. Create free content.

Nowadays, creating content is easier than ever … which is a good thing because today’s consumers turn to the internet for any and all questions, concerns, and DIY projects.

Content is a fun way to raise awareness of your brand because it’s the easiest way to show personality and share opinions and positioning on issues — two major components that personify and humanize your brand.

Content doesn’t have to be in written form, either. You can also create videos, infographics, podcasts (which we’ll cover below), and more. Sure, written content like blogs and downloadable guides are arguably the easiest, but they’re definitely not the only option.

Content doesn’t have to live on just your website, either. Guest posting and sponsored content provide opportunities to get in front of new audiences and diversify the type of content you create.

If your brand isn’t creating content, you might be missing out on some major brand awareness opportunities. Content provides an amazing way to authentically connect with your audience while getting your brand name in front of people.

3. Sponsor events.

How many festivals, concerts, fairs, and exhibitions have you attended? These types of events are typically not possible without the help of brand sponsorships. (Take a look at a t-shirt, koozie, or string backpack you likely grabbed from the event. See any brand names?)

Sponsoring events is a surefire way to get your brand in front of hundreds, thousands, or millions of people that likely fall into your target audience. From banners to flyers to water bottles, your brand name will be everywhere if you sponsor an event.

Sponsoring an event also allows you to pin your brand name on an event that matches your personality, interests, and passions, meaning consumers will then associate your brand with that event and its aesthetic and character. It can also gelp your company build brand awareness among highly specialized and qualified audiences. Professionals don’t attend events just for fun. They attend to learn the latest developments in the industry.

It’s more than just being a booth in a sea of booths. By being a consistent event sponsor, you’ll cement yourself in attendees’ minds as a leader in the field. They key is to be consistent in your sponsorship.

Consider Red Bull. Red Bull is an energy drink, and without any brand awareness efforts, we’d simply consider it an energy drink. But, thankfully, Red Bull took their marketing to the extreme — literally — by consistently sponsoring extreme sporting events like cliff diving and motocross. They also sponsor athletes. Now, we inherently associate Red Bull with daring and adventurous … and believe that, if we drink it, we can be the same.

4. Give your brand a personality.

Treating your brand as a person and defining your narrative are the first steps to giving your brand a personality. The next step would be infusing this personality into your marketing efforts.

When you market your products and services with personality, you can’t help but boost your brand awareness because your brand will shine right through. Sure, your consumers will take note of the pants or pasta you’re marketing, but they’ll also experience your personality through your advertising.

This is a great strategy when mixing your traditional marketing campaigns with brand awareness campaigns. They don’t always have to be one in the same, but they definitely can be.

Consider Old Spice. (Did you just picture the man on the horse? I did.) Their advertisements for their hygiene products are overflowing with personality and humor, and they still mention their products throughout. The advertisement not only makes an impact on its viewers, but a mere mention of the “Old Spice man” also sends consumers back to YouTube to watch the commercial … and to the store to buy some deodorant.

5. Produce a podcast.

More than one-third of Americans 12 and older listen to podcasts regularly. There’s no doubt podcasts play an important role in our lives … and marketing efforts.

Podcasts used to be a complicated process, only created by those with a studio and fancy microphone. Now, it’s easier than ever to create and release a podcast, and doing so can do wonders for your brand awareness efforts.

Why? Because podcasts, like written or visual content, provide a way to connect with your audience authentically. Instead of blatantly promoting your product or service (which we’ve agreed isn’t the best way to go about boosting brand awareness), podcasts give you the opportunity to educate, inform, entertain, or advise your audience and build trust by doing so.

Here are some examples of great podcasts produced by brands you know and love:

• Trailblazers by Dell
• The ShakeUp by HubSpot
• The MarTech Podcast by HubSpot

See how these brands have chosen podcast topics that relate to their 1) overall brand message and 2) products or services? Doing this helps them relate the podcast back to their brand and continue to raise awareness, too.

Building and growing brand awareness is a never-ending process, just as maintaining a friendship or relationship never really ends.

Boosting your brand awareness through campaigns gives you a chance to dabble in marketing and advertising opportunities you’d otherwise not invest in — meaning new, powerful ways to connect with your audience.

How to Measure Brand Awareness

How do you know if your brand awareness efforts are working? How do you know if you need to change direction, top the competition, or fix a crisis? Just like any other marketing metric, you measure it.

Wait … I thought you said brand awareness couldn’t be measured!

Aha! You’ve been listening. I appreciate that.

You’re right — brand awareness can’t be measured in the traditional sense. But, you can still review activities and metrics that’ll help you gauge where your brand stands in terms of popularity and consumer awareness.

Here are a few ways to gauge your brand awareness and learn where you can tweak your efforts:

Quantitative Brand Awareness Measures

These numbers can help you paint the overall picture of your brand awareness. To measure quantitatively, check out these metrics:

• Direct traffic. Firstly, direct traffic is the result of people intentionally typing in your URL and visiting your website. Your direct traffic number will tell you how much your marketing is prompting people to visit your website. This is an important metric, as many consumers today discover brands through social media, advertisements, or by typing in keywords related to your brand or product. When consumers go directly to your site, it means they were aware of your brand beforehand.
• Site traffic numbers. This number just reflects overall site traffic, which will tell you how much of the general internet population is checking out your content and spending time with your brand. It won’t quite tell you where people came from, but that doesn’t matter, because they’re aware of your brand enough to check it out.
• Social engagement. Engagement can refer to followers, likes, retweets, comments, and more. It’s a reflection of how many people are aware of your brand and socialize with it, as well as how impactful your content is. For instance, sites like Sparktoro can give you a specific score for your Twitter impact.

Qualitative Brand Awareness Measures

This step is where your brand awareness “score” gets a little murky. But these tactics can still help you gauge who and how many people are aware of your brand. To measure qualitatively, try:

• Searching Google and setting up Google Alerts. Doing this gets you up to speed with how your brand is being talked about online. It will alert you to any news or mentions by third-party press. As your brand grows, its internet real estate will expand beyond your website, so keep an eye on that.
• Social listening. Social listening is monitoring social media management tools for organic mentions and engagement. Who’s tagging your brand, mentioning it in comments, or using your hashtag in their posts? These tools can help you discover that. And the more your audience is discussing your brand on social media, the more they’re aware of it.
• Running brand awareness surveys. This process involves getting direct feedback from your customers and audience and can be incredibly helpful with not only understanding who knows of your brand but also what they think of it. You can release surveys through SurveyMonkey or Typeform and share them on social media or directly with your customers. This guide will help you create and promote them.

These quantitative and qualitative metrics will help you understand your brand awareness among your audience and the general public. It’ll never be a perfect number, but keeping your pulse on this measure will help influence campaigns and stay connected to your audience. Regardless of how you gauge brand awareness for your company, avoid these common mistakes when measuring brand awareness.

Brand Awareness Examples

Not sure what a brand awareness campaign can look like? Let’s take a look at some top examples.

1. HubFans

HubFans is a brand awareness campaign that rewards avid and knowledgeable HubSpot users for spreading their knowledge about the CRM platform. It’s a brilliant campaign because awareness is built not by the HubSpot brand, but by HubSpot customers. That automatically makes the brand seem more approachable and human.

In the same way, you can get your customers to advocate for you by rewarding them if they share knowledge about your product. This will make it easier to build an army of brand evangelists who will effortlessly scale your brand awareness efforts.

2. Apple Events

We all know of companies that release new gadgets and features to keep their product lines up-to-date. But none come to Apple’s level of famousness, and that’s because Apple hosts an entire event dedicated to announcing its new releases.

Even though the updates to the actual products are minimal, Apple has “hyped up” the event to such a degree that you know automatically to watch for the brand’s new developments. That keeps the brand at the forefront of customers’ minds when they’re considering a new tech gadget.

3. Rare Beauty’s Mental Health 101

Having an admirable mission at the core of your company is a great move for building brand awareness — especially if you enable your customers to share resources that can help others.

That’s what Rare Beauty did with its Mental Health 101 initiative. It built a kit that people could share on their social media sites to build awareness about the importance of mental health. By sharing the brand’s kit, users are also sharing the brand itself, which is an excellent way to build brand awareness.

4. Coca-Cola Share a Coke

Coca-Cola doesn’t need more brand awareness, and that’s because it has built it so effectively over time that it has reached iconic status. One such example is its “Share a Coke” campaign, where you can find a Coke bottle with your name in store. Or personalize one with a phrase.

This is a brilliant brand awareness move that capitalizes on customers’ love of personalization, and with it, Coca-Cola ensures it remains an unshakable American classic. This example shows how far personalization will get you in your brand awareness campaign, so try to personalize whenever possible. If your product isn’t disposable, consider giving customers the option to add their name.

5. Beauty Bakerie Matte Lip Whip

If your product does something incredible — such as staying put even under a stream of water — consider filming one or more videos about it. That’s what Beauty Bakerie did with its now-famous Matte Lip Whip products.

I remember when my Instagram feed used to filled with videos of people putting Matte Lip Whip swatches under water and washing them with soap. It was so incredible that I couldn’t help but look at the brand. Behold, I was now aware of Beauty Bakerie, and have been following them ever since.

Show off something about your product that might just shock your audience into learning more about you. It’s guaranteed to work like it did for Beauty Bakerie.

Over to You

Brand awareness is a powerful (albeit vague) concept that can have a major impact on your marketing efforts, consumer perception, and revenue.

Follow these techniques for establishing and building awareness for your brand, and you’ll find yourself with a loyal audience that recognizes your brand among competitors, chooses your products time and time again, and recommends their friends and family do the same.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Think of all the content you create — the good, the bad, and the ones that take a scary amount of time.

Now think of how you organize it. How do you keep track of how content is performing? Do you use those metrics to improve for future campaigns?

If you’re missing this kind of organization for your company, consider investing in a content audit. They are an excellent planning resource and roadmap for future content creation, while organizing analytics so you can refer back to high-performing posts if needed. In this post, learn how you can perform one for your own business, and discover high-quality tools to help you streamline the process.

Content Audit Goals

Running a content audit for your website can prove to be beneficial for your traffic and improve the experience of your readers.

First, content audits help you take note of the areas on your website that aren’t properly optimized for search engine rank. For example, you might add meta descriptions to your blog posts as part of your current strategy, but if that always wasn’t the case, a content audit helps you locate which posts need to be updated.

Content audits also help you identify new SEO opportunities to implement on your website. For example, did you know that adding keywords to the headings on your site gives search engines more clues about what your web page is about?

If search engines have as much knowledge as possible about the content on your website, they’ll be able to suggest your web pages to browsers more accurately.

Running an audit is a chance for you to update the content on your website to improve the comprehension of your site by readers. For example, you might not know the links on one of your product pages are broken, but a content audit provides you with a reminder to update those links. Let’s discuss some additional benefits below. 

Benefits of Content Audits

Your content audit should help you bring your content up-to-date, improve the rank of your web pages, and make the website you present to readers easy to navigate and free of error. In addition, content audits:

• Give data-driven insight into the performance of your content, helping you make informed decisions based on factual information rather than just assumptions. 
• Identify areas for content repurposing or updating where numbers are lower than desired. 
• Identify pieces of content that perform best that you can leverage in marketing materials. 
• Understand more about what your audience likes and dislikes. 
• Content maintenance becomes easier when you have an understanding of what you’re offering. 

To make sure your website content audit is valuable, carve out enough time to complete it. However, you don’t have to be in it alone — there are plenty of templates to guide you through a content audit if you’re unsure of where to start.

Content Audit Template

This template guides you through checking the On-Page SEO of your website. It works for many page types, like a home page, landing page, blog post, or even a form page. There’s a space in the template for you to note the page type to keep the template organized.

Under each section, the template will tell you why it matters for on-page optimization. So, for example, when you note if you have multiple similar pages, canonical tags will make sure they’re grouped together.

Below, we’ll talk about the sections of the template.

In the first column, you’ll specify your page type for each page you’re auditing. Then, you’ll fill in the URL and note any canonical tags your site may have. Remember, you can find canonical tags in your page’s source code.

After that, you’ll note if your page is a part of a sequence of pages to ensure that your code is properly formatted for sequencing.

Next up, you’ll fill in some details about the page’s copy. For instance, the page title. If I included a blog post similar to this one in the audit, for example, I would put “How to Run an SEO Content Audit” in this section, shown below:

This section makes sure you’ll have keywords in your page title, boosting SERP rank. Similarly, in the next section, you’ll define the goal of each page and the focus keywords of that page.

So, for this blog post, I would define the purpose as, “Educating readers about creating a content audit,” and my keywords would be something akin to “On-Page SEO,” and “Content Audits.”

After that, you’ll note the headlines on your page. A good rule of thumb is to make sure at least one keyword appears in an H2 to help your rank. Same thing with meta descriptions, the next section — a short, concise description of your content should also contain a keyword to improve rank.

Once you outline your headings and include your meta description, then you’ll focus on images. First, include the file name of your image and note the alt text. Recall that alt text tells Google what your image is about, so if your images don’t have any, this is a good reminder to add them.

Next, you’re going to focus on links: internal and outbound. Remove broken internal links, and make sure your page has at least 2-3. (Remember, internal links help you to boost the traffic of other pages).

Following your link optimization, note the page speed. If your page takes longer than 2 seconds to load, it might not keep the reader’s attention.

Finally, the last section makes sure your page is available for sharing on socials and is mobile-friendly. These functions of the page improve the accessibility of your webpage.

Content Audit Spreadsheet

This template also offers a spreadsheet checklist. The SEO Audit Checklist is another spreadsheet that makes sure the content of your website is fully optimized and up-to-date. So, the first template helps you update the On-Page SEO of your website, while the checklist gives you an in-depth reference for running the audit:

For example, when you go through the worksheet, you can expect to include information about the On-Page elements of your website. Still, you’ll also be checking for crawling and indexing, ranking factors, the content and link structure, status codes, coding, and internalization.

To use the checklist, you’ll simply mark “Yes” or “No” for each task, and add any notes to refer to.

How to Run a Content Audit

1. Think of your goals.

First, think about what you want to accomplish. When you have your goals in mind, you will have a better idea of how to categorize your audit later.

Ultimately, a content audit identifies engaging content for your audience and can include information on SEO and conversion rates. One goal to consider could be to determine which of your pages need to be SEO-optimized. Alternatively, you might think about finding the most interesting and best-performing content for your website visitors and place that on your homepage or in an email newsletter.

Identifying company goals will ensure your content audit is useful for bookkeeping and updating your strategy with improved tactics. After this is complete, then it’s time to collect your content.

2. Gather your content.

Which content are you going to audit? The types of audits are typically those for product descriptions, blog posts, multimedia, and publications. Decide this, and gather the backlog of all of that content.

To accomplish this, collect the URLs of the web pages you’ve chosen to audit. If you have a small website, you can do this manually and put them in a spreadsheet. However, there are also online tools to do it for you, like SEMrush, Screaming Frog, and HubSpot.

SEMrush and Screaming Frog will provide this information based on your sitemap. A sitemap is a file that has all of your website’s information and can be created for free online. For more information on sitemaps, check out our guide here.

3. Categorize your content.

After receiving your audit, categorize it on the spreadsheet. Some online tools categorize the information for you, but it’s also doable to do it yourself. The categories will keep you organized so you can ensure your content audit meets your needs.

Some categories you can include are content type, author(s), publication date, and content format. Think of categories that are useful to know from different pieces of content. For instance, if you are auditing blog posts, important information to pull would be the date of publication or update, the author, the type of content, and metadata (Such as the title and description).

Another critical category is metrics. Some online tools will include them in the audit, but Google Analytics can also pull data for you. Metrics can provide more information for your analysis later.

At this point, your spreadsheet should have URLs of your content, categories, metadata (if included), and metric data.

4. Analyze your data.

Now, it’s time to look at your data critically. This is the step that will give you a good measure of the state of your content. When analyzing your data, here are some things to take note of:

• Content that’s missing — What is your audience interested in that you haven’t covered?
• Content that’s underperforming — Which pieces of content aren’t getting the numbers you want?
• Outdated content — If you have old content, can it be updated or reworked to maintain optimization?
• Home run content — Content that has performed extremely well.

Based on the results of this analysis, organize them in the spreadsheet. A way to do this is to assign different colors based on what you’re analyzing and highlight the rows with those colors so you have an idea of which category is which, and which ones take up the largest portion of your overall content library.

5. Create action items.

In this step, you will finalize and clean up your audit. You now know what to focus on based on the analysis and can go from there. Think about the posts to delete, update, re-write, or re-structure.

To organize these action items, add one last column to the spreadsheet — one that’s close to the front so you can keep tabs on it. This column will let you know the action to take on a specific URL. For example, are you going to keep, update, delete, or re-write that blog post?

If you plan on ranking by priority or including a timeline for this audit, now would be the time to include that, as well. Some organizations use full-blown content calendars, while others don’t need it. To make a priority timeline that fits in best with your content audit, think back to your goals and which items make sense to execute first.

6. Optional: Choose a content audit tool. 

While not a requirement, choosing a content auditing tool can help you with your process. The most significant benefit of using a content audit tool is that they are fast, helping you save a considerable amount of time. Rather than gathering URLs manually, the tool can automatically aggregate the content you’re looking for and display metrics for you to see. 

Website Content Audit Checklist

The graphic below is a checklist you can use to ensure you’re on the right track when performing your content audit. 

Now, let’s go over some content audit tools you can use to further automate your content audit process.

Content Audit Tools

1. Screaming Frog

Price: First 500 links free, unlimited for $150/year

Screaming Frog is a website crawler. It collects URLs from your sitemap and create an SEO audit for you. If you have a smaller site, Screaming Frog can audit up to 500 links for free.

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The desktop Screaming Frog website is great because it provides you a ton of analysis about your website, and categorizes it for you. Because the audit is SEO-based, it also gives you information on how to improve your SEO, which is likely useful, depending on your goals.

2. Casted

Price: Contact sales for individual quote

Casted helps you understand how contacts are engaging with your podcast content so you can make actionable business decisions to drive engagement. If you’re a HubSpot user, Casted integrates with Marketing Hub, and you can leverage CRM tools to create lead capture forms to draw in your listeners for further nurturing. 

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3. SEMrush

Price: Free trial, then $199-$449/month

In three steps, users of SEMrush can receive a robust audit. By putting in the desired domain, you’ll get a customized report that shows you where you can improve your site:

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From there, you can connect an analytics tool account, like Google Analytics, if you want to see more information about your sitemap, like posts that are the most engaging for your audience. You can use this information when developing strategy — identifying content that performs well for your audience gives you an idea of what to cover.

4. Google Analytics

Price: Free

While Google Analytics doesn’t give you a traditional audit, it provides good information that will help you formulate your audit. It lets you know who is visiting your website, and from where. Additionally, it gives a rundown on the behaviors of your visitors:

It gives you data about the amount of time visitors are seeing on webpages, the most popular webpages, and different patterns seen in your visitors. One of these patterns could be the most popular blog post in the US from visitors aged 18-24.

5. DYNO Mapper

Price: $99-$450/month

If you’re looking for a sitemap generator, DYNO Mapper has that function available. Also available on DYNO Mapper — a content audit tool. This website is really good at finding potential problems in the SEO of your content.

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DYNO Mapper also keeps a progress report of your audits, so you can monitor how they’re improving and performing. The audits themselves present how your content can be given in the best way to search engines, an excellent metric for content audits.

6. WooRank

Price: $60-$249/month

WooRank has two amazing features for content auditing: SEO monitoring and Site Crawler. SEO Monitoring from WooRank lets you know the state of performance on your landing pages, which is information you can put into an audit. It also lets you know if your website ever goes down and how that affected SEO, another metric to import if you’re tracking web page metrics in your audit.

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The Site Crawl feature lets you know how Google sees your site and interprets the information for search engines. This information is great knowledge to make audits more effective when you’re coming up with action items for the future.

Now that you know ample knowledge about content audits, how to create them, where to source them, and important essentials to include, you are fully prepared to incorporate them into your organization. Give it a try, and use it to elevate your next campaign. Happy auditing!

 

SEO. While this is a strategy we’ve been aware of for a while, did you know that 89% of marketers say SEO is successful?

And since more than 50 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search and 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine, it’s not surprising.

However, what do upmarket companies, with thousands of web pages and keywords, do when they’re in the maturation phase of implementing SEO?

Instead of focusing on the small business and mid-market SEO strategies, they’ll need to begin focusing on enterprise SEO.

In this post, let’s review what enterprise SEO is, what tools to use, and what it looks like in practice.

What makes enterprise SEO different?

The main difference between small business/mid-market SEO and enterprise SEO strategies is that the tactics for larger organizations need to be scalable for thousands of web pages.

While a small business or mid-market company might have a few pages, or a couple hundred, larger organizations have thousands of web pages on their site. And it makes sense that the strategies that work for a small number of pages might not necessarily work for larger sites.

Why is enterprise SEO important?

Enterprise SEO is important because strategies that work for smaller businesses won’t work for larger ones.

One of the main strategic differences between the two is that small businesses usually aren’t targeting highly competitive, short tail keywords, while larger enterprise organizations are.

Additionally, larger companies need a specialized enterprise SEO team to keep track and maintain organic rankings. At smaller companies, the person in charge of SEO is usually also the content marketer and might even be in charge of social media.

When you’re targeting more competitive keywords, and have thousands of pages on your site, you need a dedicated team working on your SEO, instead of one jack-of-all-trades that’s spread too thin.

If you’ve worked at companies and felt like SEO just wasn’t working for you, it’s probably because you didn’t have a dedicated team with experts when your company needed it.

Enterprise SEO will benefit large organizations because their SEO issues will be more complex due to the number of web pages on the site, the number of backlinks already acquired, domain authority already acquired, etc.

As a larger site, enterprise companies usually have great brand authority. But that means you can’t undermine that authority by deleting or redirecting pages that have acquired backlinks and high page authority. You also need to keep this content up to date and fresh. And as you can imagine, the larger the company, the harder that is.

Ultimately, enterprise SEO needs to be smarter, scalable, and more sophisticated.

Now that we know why enterprise SEO is important, let’s discuss some of the more sophisticated strategies you’ll need to implement as a larger company.

1. Maintain page speed.

One of the technical SEO elements that becomes more complex with larger sites is maintaining page speed.

First, you’ll need to test your website speed with a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to see how quickly your website loads for users.

Then, to improve the page speed of individual pages you can compress images, reduce redirects, and cache your web pages.

2. Group content in subdomains.

Another strategy for enterprise SEO is to group your content into subdomains.

A subdomain is a type of website hierarchy under a root directory, but instead of using folders to organize content on a website, it kind of gets a website of its own.

This subdomain is still closely associated with the root directory, but it will usually have a separate content management system, template, analytics tools, and more.

See the image below to get an idea:

This is helpful for enterprise SEO because subdomains can house a lot of content that would be difficult to manage all on one website.

While some SEO experts believe that Google’s crawlers could confuse a subdomain for an entirely different website from the main domain, others say its crawlers can recognize subdomains as extensions of parent domains.

Essentially, subdomains lead to a better user experience, which could result in better engagement rates, therefore improving your SEO. Ultimately, you’ll have to decide what works best for your company and have your enterprise SEO team discuss what would be best.

3. Refresh old content, but protect domain authority and backlinks.

One of the challenges for enterprise SEO teams is keeping content up to date, accurate, and refreshed for current industry standards.

However, you don’t want to delete old content that has high page authority and backlinks. Instead, you’ll want to refresh your content, while balancing the line of adding new information, without taking away secondary keywords that content is ranking for.

With an enterprise company, refreshing content is a delicate process. But it also needs to be scalable for your SEO team to find out which pages need to be updated and what would make them more competitive. The entire point of enterprise SEO is to have a process that’s scalable.

4. Quality content creation at scale.

Of course with SEO, quality content creation is one of the most important components of your site.

Again, on an enterprise level, this needs to be scalable for your SEO team to find new keywords to rank for and handoff to a content creation team.

Usually, your enterprise SEO team will choose target keywords and give writers guidelines on how to make the post competitive, whether that’s including secondary keywords, tips on image alt-text, including snippets, etc.

To implement enterprise SEO, you’ll need a team that is dedicated to creating content instructions and doing keyword research at scale.

5. Strategic keyword selection.

As we’ve been talking about, keyword selection becomes more difficult the more you’ve written about a topic. Sometimes it can feel like you’ve said everything there is to say.

That’s why you need a dedicated enterprise SEO team to conduct regular keyword research and content gap analysis to find new topics to write about.

6. Automation.

So we’ve talked a lot about doing things “at scale.” But how can you do that? One of the best ways for an enterprise SEO team to scale its processes is to use automation.

Automation can help with SEO tasks like keyword research, identifying problematic areas on your site, monitoring the quality of backlinks, analyzing title tags and meta descriptions, and more.

Additionally, you can use workflows to simplify project management. With larger organizations, you might have several locations with distinct websites and SEO needs. This means that your SEO teams should be using the same workflows so the process is scalable.

7. Don’t forget about technical SEO.

Besides page speed, there are more technical SEO elements that your enterprise SEO team will need to manage.

This means that your SEO team will need a scalable process for using 301 redirects, eliminating technical issues that hamper crawlability, etc.

8. Link building.

Again, one of the most important elements of SEO is link building. On an enterprise level, this becomes more complex (as does everything, I suppose).

The more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google. You can use outreach strategies to find unlinked mentions and request to turn the mention into a backlink.

Additionally, you can always do cold outreach as well if you find articles where your site naturally fits. As a larger company, you’ll have the benefit of already having brand authority and recognizability.

9. Internal pillar/cluster content linking.

Another SEO task that will need to be done at scale is internal pillar and cluster content linking. Your enterprise SEO team could either find these internal links for your content creators during the keyword research process or could advise your writers to link to the pillar and any necessary internal content.

10. Create templates for your pages.

When creating new pages for your site, SEO plays a large role. That’s why your team can create templates that your developers can replicate over and over again in line with enterprise SEO needs.

So, now you might be wondering, “What does this look like in action?” Let’s look at some examples below.

Enterprise SEO Examples

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is a great example of enterprise SEO because while we might not have the same amount of employees as other big tech companies, we have over 35,000 pages on our site.

Additionally, our site ranks on the first page of several hundred thousand keywords, and in position 1 for over 30,000 keywords.

Because of the number of pages and keywords we target, this means that we need a highly specialized, dedicated enterprise SEO team to focus on backlinks, comarketing, technical SEO, and to protect our domain authority.

With enterprise SEO, we need to be careful about updating keywords on content that has high domain authority while keeping our content fresh and updated.

2. GitHub

GitHub has an estimated 81 million pages on its site. And the impressive part is that it ranks in position 1 on Google for over 80,000 keywords.

This means that the company is able to manage its site in bulk and focus on maintaining old pages, while still earning links to reinforce its organic rankings for hundreds of thousands of keywords.

3. Microsoft

Enterprise company Microsoft has more than 8 million pages on its site. With several varying products, it’s no surprise that the company ranks on the first page for over 1 million keywords. Additionally, it ranks in the number 1 position for over 450,000 keywords.

A major difficulty with Microsoft’s enterprise SEO is that the team is targeting very different types of keywords because of the variety of products. And they need to protect their domain authority across several industries from business tools to video gaming consoles.

The Future of Enterprise SEO

For large organizations, enterprise SEO is the future. To protect current domain authority and backlinks, while keeping content fresh and updated on thousands of pages, you’ll need a dedicated, sophisticated team of experts.

This means an enterprise SEO team will focus on strategizing how to enhance content, working on comarketing, attaining backlinks and protecting those backlinks, and more. The more pages your site has, the harder and more complex it becomes to maintain your SEO.

What are some advertisements that live rent-free in your mind? As a millennial, ads that will always have a place in my heart include Britney Spears’ iconic run as a Pepsi spokesperson, the enduring”got milk?” campaign (which is ironic considering myself and many others now prefer non-dairy alternatives), and the classic iPod silhouettes.

These ads were not only compelling, but they were also incredibly influential. As marketers, we know that if we want to persuade an audience, we need to evoke an emotional response from them. But how do you actually do that?

Before we discuss how to refine your persuasive advertising strategy, let’s review what it is.

Below, we’ll examine key persuasive advertising techniques you can use in your advertisements, examples you can reference if you ever need some inspiration and informative advertisement examples that are surprisingly just as compelling as the persuasive advertising examples.

1. The Carrot and The Stick

Humans are hardwired to move towards pleasure, like a horse towards a carrot, and away from pain, like a donkey avoids a stick. When people read or watch your advertisements, “carrots”, or promises of gain, can fill your prospects with hope and compel them to pursue that potential feeling of pleasure. “Sticks”, possibilities of loss, evoke fear in your prospects, which will compel them to flee from that potential feeling of pain.

Both tactics can pull your prospects into a narrative and evoke emotions that inspire your desired action. Carrots, like a product’s benefit, entice people to take the desired action. Sticks, on the other hand, like anti-smoking campaigns, evoke fear in people to stop doing a certain action and start doing the alternative. To better understand how to craft advertisements that feature a carrot or stick, check out these insurance copywriting examples below.

Carrot: “15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance.” — Geico

Stick: “Get All-State. You can save money and be better protected from Mayhem like me.” — All-State

As you can see, Geico’s ad uses a small-time investment that could potentially produce big gains as a lure to get you to buy their product. Conversely, All-State’s ad uses the character”Mayhem” to evoke fear into people to stop using their”inferior” insurance and start using All-State’s.

2. The Scarcity Principle

People value objects and experiences that are rare — having something that most people want but can’t have, boosts our sense of self-worth and power. If you use words and phrases that imply scarcity and evoke a sense of urgency, like”Exclusive offer” or”Limited availability”, you can skyrocket your product’s perceived scarcity and consumer demand.

3. One Message Per Advertisement

To immediately hook people and persuade them to read or watch the rest of your advertisement, try sticking to only one message. Spotlighting your product or offer’s main benefit or feature will make it easy for your customers to understand its value and increase the likelihood of their conversion because you’re only conveying one message to your audience: your product’s main feature will benefit your customer’s life somehow, someway.

4. Write in the Second Person

Since your prospects primarily care about how you can help them, and pronouns like “you” and “your” can engage them on a personal level and help them insert themselves in the narrative you’re creating, writing advertisements in the second person can instantly grip their attention and help them imagine a future with your product or service bettering their lives.

5. Give Your Audience a Sense of Control

According to a research study conducted by three psychology professors at Rutgers University, the need for control is a biological and psychological necessity. People have to feel like they have control over their lives.

If you want to give your audience a sense of control, you need to give them the ability to choose. In other words, after reading or watching your advertisement, they must feel like they can choose between the option you suggest or another path. If they feel like you’re trying to force them to buy your product, they’ll get annoyed and disengage from your message.

To give your audience the ability to choose, and in turn, a sense of control, use phrases like “Feel free” or “No pressure” in your advertisements, like this example from Hotwire.com below.

6. Use a Call-to-Value Instead of a Call-to-Action

Call-to-actions are crucial for getting prospects to take the next step, but a “Download Now” or “Call Now” CTA isn’t always going to convince the more skeptical prospects to take your desired action. You need to make sure your ad’s last line of copy or quip is the best of them all.

So instead of writing an uninspiring, final line of copy like “Download Now”, write one that clearly communicates your offer’s value and gives a glimpse into your prospects’ potential life if they take your desired action, like this call-to-value prompting readers to download a blogging eBook: “Click today and be a blogger tomorrow.”

Persuasive Advertising Examples

Ready to see persuasive advertising in action? Check out these examples.

1. Nikol

Showing — not telling — your audience about your product’s benefits is one of the best ways to capture attention and get an emotional response. Obviously, Nikol’s paper towels can’t actually turn grapes into raisins, but this ad highlights the product’s absorbent powers in such a clear and clever way, they didn’t need to write a single line of copy.

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2. Heinz

In relation to food, the word “hot” has multiple meanings: having a high temperature and being spicy. Heinz brilliantly used the connotation of high temperature to highlight the spiciness of their ketchup, and their creative method of communicating the value of their product helped them instantly attract people’s attention.

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3. Mondo Pasta

With this crafty use of guerrilla marketing, Mondo Pasta perfectly aligns their copy with their creative — the guy slurping the noodle literally “can’t let go” because it’s a rope tied to a dock. By designing such a visual, unexpected, and literal ad with a seemingly one-dimensional prop, people’s eyes can’t let go of this ad either.

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4. Bic

Another example of guerrilla marketing, Bic takes advantage of an unkempt field to highlight the power of their razors. By just mowing a small strip of grass on a field, this ad is an unconventional, simple, and extremely creative way to catch people’s attention and spotlight a razor’s shaving capabilities.

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5. Siemens

Siemens’ skillful ad shows the benefits of their product by unexpectedly placing their washers and dryers in a library to show you that they’re so quiet, even a librarian wouldn’t need to shush them.

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6. Pepsi

“More Than OK” poked fun at how Pepsi usually takes a back seat to Coke, especially at restaurants. And by featuring a star-studded cast that included Steve Carell, Lil Jon, and Cardi-B (who hilariously and fervently backed up Pepsi’s OKness) their boldness to call people out for undermining Pepsi’s quality got a lot of laughs and persuaded a massive audience to reconsider their own perception of the soft drink.

7. Match.com

The year 2020 was challenging for countless reasons. Online dating company Match.com channeled the collective feeling towards the year with an ad depicting Satan meeting his perfect match – 2020.

Informative Advertising

Informative advertising is a form of persuasive advertising that focuses more on the facts. The main goal of informative advertising is to educate the audience on why they need your product instead of appealing to their desires.

It highlights how your product’s features and benefits solve your customers’ problems and can even compare your product to your competitors’ products. Although this type of advertising relies on facts and figures to trigger the desired action, the ad’s message is usually framed in a compelling way.

To better understand the difference between informative and persuasive advertising, check out these examples.

1. Miller Lite

After Bud Light took some jabs at Miller Lite for using corn syrup in their beer during their Super Bowl 53 ads, Miller Lite decided to throw a few punches back. A day later on Twitter, they revealed that their beer actually has fewer calories and carbs than Bud Light, which helped them persuade people that drinking Bud Light and Miller Lite actually have similar health benefits.

2. Siskiyou Eye Center

There’s an old folk tale that carrots can improve your eyesight, but science has actually debunked this myth. That’s why this Siskiyou Eye Center ad is such a creative informative advertisement.

While it pokes fun at this common fable, it’s still relying on the facts of carrots not being able to improve your vision and the Eye Center’s ability to provide quality treatment for your eyes to persuade people to do business with them.

3. Burger King

In 2020, Burger King released an ad showing a time-lapse of its famous Whopper over the course of 34 days. While it may seem like an odd choice to show its product in such an unappetizing light, the goal of this ad was to announce the company planned to remove preservatives and other artificial ingredients from its products to differentiate itself from key competitors.

4. Calm

Popular meditation app Calm experienced an increase in downloads by sponsoring CNN’s coverage of the 2020 US Presidential Campaign. Through clever product placement in front of an audience that was experiencing stress, the app was positioned as helpful a resource ready to educate on mindfulness during a turbulent time.

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5. Dove

In addition to creating popular body and skincare products, Dove has set out to educate its audience on the importance of body confidence, and the harmful impact fabricated social media imagery can have on the self-esteem of young people.

In the reverse selfie campaign, Dove depicts how social media users may be inclined to change their appearance for public approval. Other materials provided by Dove also share facts and statistics related to social media usage and body image.

6. Google

Last year, Google released a Black History Month ad called “The Most Searched” that was equally informative and inspiring. Showing clips of famous Black figures, each clip read “most searched” to indicate each person shown and event shown was a history-maker.

 

Persuasive advertising vs. informative advertising: which one is better?

Persuasive advertising and informative advertising definitely focus on different aspects of persuasion, but they still aim to achieve the same goal: convincing your audience to take the desired action. So whether you pursue one advertising strategy or another, remember that if you can trigger an emotional response, regardless of the stimuli, your ad will be a success.

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

As your business scales, your marketing team will grow and evolve too.

While this growth is happening, it’s important to maintain reliable avenues for collaboration and communication on your marketing team. Otherwise, your business won’t be able to perform at the highest level. The good news is that marketing collaboration software can help with this.

In this article, we’ll cover what marketing collaboration software is, why it’s important, and 20 of the best tools currently on the market.

Marketing Collaboration Software

Marketing collaboration software helps marketing teams maintain easy communication, manage projects and campaigns, prioritize tasks, establish schedules and editorial calendars, promote organization and productivity, and more.

Why is marketing collaboration software important?

No matter which industry your business is in, what size your team is, whether you’re in-office, remote, or a mix of both, marketing collaboration can help your team improve in a number of areas — all of which impact your bottom line. Some examples include improved and streamlined…

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Productivity
• Organization
• Efficiency
• Task management
• Scheduling
• Data sharing
• Transparency
• Content creation

Marketing Collaboration Features

Here are some common features found across many marketing collaboration tools today.

• Group communication
• Shared files, documents, calendars, notes, and other assets
• Task management and time/ progress tracking
• Document management
• Campaign management
• Editorial calendar
• Content creation capabilities
• Content, file, and data organization
• Integrations (to connect the marketing collaboration software to your other marketing and business tools)
• Audio and video conferencing
• Marketing automation
• Reporting and analytics

Marketing Collaboration Software

Here are 20 of the best marketing collaboration software available today.

1. HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a marketing automation platform that allows you to attract your target audience, convert website visitors, and run inbound marketing campaigns at scale. Marketing teams can seamlessly collaborate to plan and execute large-scale, omnichannel marketing campaigns.

Marketing Hub also allows for frictionless collaboration with other teams — such as sales — in order to offer delightful customer experiences. This is known as CRM-powered Marketing — HubSpot makes it possible by pairing marketing automation tools with an all-in-one CRM platform.

Pro Tip: Use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub to attract your unique audience, convert visitors into customers, run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale, and automate redundant processes, all via one, easy-to-use platform.

2. Slack

Slack is a platform that allows for easy communication and collaboration on any scale. Slack Channels serve as central communication areas where you and your team can chat with one another and share relevant information, files, tools, and more.

Send messages via chat, host video calls, or speak with your team via voice call all without leaving the tool. There are also over 2,200 integrations and apps, such as Google Drive and Office 365, to help your team streamline workflows.

Additionally, the Slack Connect feature makes it possible to communicate and collaborate with teams at other companies the way you do with your own.

3. Trello

Trello is a collaboration and productivity tool for managing, tracking, and sharing work projects and tasks. The tool organizes your work into Kanban-style lists — that means your work is separated into categories for an easier workflow (such as to-do, work in progress, and complete).

Your team can communicate and tag each other on each project card, share and attach files, add due dates, move cards into different Kanban-style lists to track work, and archive cards once they’re complete.

4. Asana

Asana is a task and project management platform that allows both remote and distributed teams to organize and manage work. Teammates can collaborate on project lists, timelines, or boards, all of which have individual tasks and stages that you can customize, share, and archive. The tool’s messaging feature makes it easy to distribute, assign, and manage work.

Automate various project management tasks to save your team time and integrate your tool with one of 100+ apps that bring together all of your work to improve collaboration and coordination across your team.

5. Monday.com

Monday.com is a work operating system and project management tool that allows you to create workflows for any project. There are over 200 templates workflows available that marketing can use, as well as other departments such as IT, sales, design, web development, operations, and HR and recruiting.

Your team can manage and collaborate on all aspects of a project from a single location. The 200+ templates mentioned above are completely customizable and allow all team members to visualize your project, and its different stages, in a way that’s preferable to your team (e.g. map, calendar, timeline, Kanban-style list).

You can also integrate Monday.com with your other tools and apps to access and manage all parts of your projects and campaigns without leaving the tool.

6. Teamwork

Teamwork is a collaborative project management software meant for managing and delivering client work on time and on budget. You can simultaneously manage multiple projects of varying complexity with Teamwork’s Board View, dashboards, and project health status updates.

Hold all team members accountable for their part of a project or campaign by assigning responsibilities and using time tracking to determine how long certain tasks are taking.

7. CoSchedule

Rather than collaborating and handling your marketing via various spreadsheets, tools, calendars, and emails, CoSchedule’s actionable Marketing Calendar is where your team can see, schedule, and share all aspects of your marketing jobs and campaigns.

You can also share your calendar in a read-only format so higher-ups and other teams can view your project plans and trajectory without having to worry about someone accidentally making an edit.

8. Evernote Teams

Evernote Teams is a collaborative note-taking app ideal for managing, arranging, and organizing your thoughts, ideas, to-do lists, and more. The tool makes it easy to collaborate, sync, and share knowledge, as well as ensure progress is being made on certain projects and tasks.

Evernote’s Spaces provide visibility into progress on team projects as well as relevant workflows and documents. You can make, leave, and search across Spaces for notes and notebooks that you created or other team members created.

9. Sharelov

Sharelov is a cloud-based marketing collaboration platform for brands and agencies to manage their teams, campaigns, assets, projects, and work. No matter what you’re working on or what your creative assets include, Sharelov makes it easy to collaborate, share feedback, and approve assets, plans, and projects.

Use the tool to establish your teams, improve ease of collaboration within those teams, and track team and individual progress in real-time. Team members can provide feedback for each other for every creative — this simplifies the process of managing internal and client feedback and change requests across individual projects.

10. Acoustic

Acoustic is a digital marketing experience platform — the platform’s Marketing Cloud tool helps you better understand your customers and their behaviors at scale.

Acoustic allows your entire marketing team to manage and collaborate on campaigns, content, insights, and personalization, all via a single tool. There are AI-powered analytics and insights features to help you understand customer behaviors and experiences.

11. Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing, cloud phone, webinar, and online events software. It makes team collaboration and communication easy, no matter the industry or whether your team is in office, remote, or a mix of both.

Use one of Zoom’s many available integrations to connect the software with your other business tools (e.g. HubSpot, Google Workspace, Slack, etc.).

Host Zoom Webinars or Events depending on the level of collaboration and engagement you’re looking for. You can also follow up on a discussion topic, share links, or communicate with others in real-time using Zoom’s Chat feature.

12. Lucid Chart

Lucid Chart is an intelligent diagramming software that makes it easy for teams to collaborate on the visualization of complex ideas related to your team’s processes, systems, and organizational structure.

Individuals and teams can map out progress around a certain task and determine what needs to be done next and what’s missing. Then your team can align on and apply all resulting insights using Lucid Chart’s common visual language, which streamlines collaboration.

You can also use Lucid Chart to create, manage, and collaborate on business process maps, user flows, cloud architecture diagrams, scrum teams, and data flows.

13. Canva

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Canva is a graphic design and publishing tool that allows your team to collaboratively plan, design, create, publish, and share a variety of content types including logos, social media posts, documents, graphs and charts, prints, and more.

The tool makes it easy to invite team members to review and edit designs via shareable links, email, or Canva folders. Canva also ensures your team has everything they need to use brand-ready and team-approved assets — there’s a Brand Kit feature where your team can establish and save templates, fonts, colors, images, logos, and more.

14. Click Up

Click Up is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool that aims to bring all of your team’s work — docs, chat, goals, insights, and tasks — together in one place.

Within Click Up, your team can establish, refer to, collaborate on, and customize all aspects of every project including to-do lists, wikis and documents, emails, spreadsheets, events, reminders, goals, time-tracking, screenshots, recordings, resource management, and more.

Then, organize these project elements into one of 15 different views (e.g. list, box, mind map, Gantt) based on your team’s needs and preferences.

15. Funnel.io

Funnel.io is a data mapping and collection tool — it transforms collected data into automated marketing reports for your team to analyze, share, and build off of.

Once you connect all of your data sources — a process that Funnel.io makes easy with its over 500 marketing app integrations — it will be cleaned, organized, and mapped for you.

Then, decide where you want your finalized data and reports to go — whether in Google Data Studio, a data warehouse of your choosing, Google Sheets, etc. There, your entire team can identify insights and collaborate on how you’ll apply the information.

16. Domo

Domo for Marketing combines your marketing team’s data with data from sales, finance, and other departments within your company so you’re able to increase transparency, improve collaboration, and maximize ROI across the company.

Data visualizations and predictive analytics and alerts help marketers identify and pull out the most important insights from the data.

Set alerts for data that deviates and/or hits your goals to accurately track progress. Your team can then create real-time visualizations of data (without any code), and access and collaborate on those insights via any device.

17. Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting software that centralizes your team’s content and tools. It gives your team secure access to all of your files via one location. Your marketing team can collaborate with each other in Dropbox by storing, organizing, sharing, referencing, and downloading files.

Use the tool to manage team tasks, track file updates, and remain in contact with team members and even clients on projects. You can also deliver completed projects to higher-ups, other teams, or clients — whether they’re large files or a collection of files — with passwords, expiration dates, and delivery confirmation.

18. Wrike

Wrike is a project management software with features meant for increasing transparency and improving team-wide as well as cross-departmental collaboration. It allows you tocollaborate on work in real-time — no more communication across various channels such as email, meetings, and instant messages.

No matter the project, your team can use Wrike to make comments, edit work, set notifications, and build reports, and share insights with each other — all in real-time. You can also view your individual tasks, the responsibilities of other team members, as well as the status of specific projects to track progress.

19. Google Drive

Google Drive is secure, cloud-based storage software that allows you to store, share, and access files and folders — from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more — via your mobile device, tablet, and computer.

Once you upload your content or files to Google Drive, you can create a shared folder for them to live in — this way, your team can access and collaborate on anything in the folder.

Edit and add comments to any of the files in the shared folder in real-time — if your team members aren’t already in the Doc, Slides, or Sheet, they’ll still receive an email notification about your edits or comments. You can also review the edit history on any of your files. And it’s alright if your files aren’t Google files — that’s because the platform supports over 100 file types including Microsoft Office.

20. Brightpod for Marketing

Brightpod is a tool that simplifies marketing collaboration and planning — it’s a project management and time tracking software meant for digital marketing and creative teams.

The tool provides clarity around your team’s projects, campaigns, tasks, workflows, and deadlines. Individual teams can collaborate with each other as well as reference and communicate about other projects that are going on across the team via a single dashboard.

All projects that are listed on your dashboard have milestones and tasks so everyone on the team knows what’s expected of them what progress on each task looks like.

Grow Better With Marketing Collaboration Software

Marketing collaboration software can help your team easily communicate, manage projects, prioritize tasks, organize content, and more. Start using one of these tools to increase team-wide productivity and teamwork.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Keeping your content up-to-date is challenging. The last thing you want is to have to chase down a number of specs scattered across the web for your latest NetLine campaign efforts. 

To simplify your life, as well as to keep everything straight for our own purposes, we’ve put together an always up-to-date collection of specifications for your NetLine campaigns.

Here’s what you need to keep your NetLine campaigns organized.

Everything You Need to Perfectly Fit Your NetLine Campaign

At the core, a first time (or even seasoned) customer really needs to consider three things when launching a campaign: 

• Your content
• Your filters
• And how you want to receive/act upon your leads

Regardless of your industry, goals, or budget, each campaign starts with the same thing: Your own content. 

Here’s what you need to remember when you’re creating or augmenting your campaign.

Adding and/or Editing a Content Offer

B2B Marketers, Publishers, and Agencies are able to use NetLine to amplify their content for a variety of use cases. With the information below, you’ll be able to prepare and launch in record time.

Supported File Types

NetLine’s platform supports a wide range of content formats, including some of the most common files shared across the web.

• .pdf
• .mp3
• .mp4
• .pptx
• .xlsx
• .zip

You can also use web-based links to add to your Content Library or select Alternative Formats to use live or on-demand content.

Bonus Info!

What’s the Largest File Size NetLine Can Support?

Naturally, this is a pretty important item to be aware of. Regardless of file format, NetLine’s platform can support a maximum file size of 40MB.

Describing Your Content

Making sure that your content has a compelling title and abstract give you the best chance to articulate what your materials discuss and why they’re relevant to your target audience. 

Here are some pieces to keep in mind when naming and describing your content.

Titles

As a rule of thumb, NetLine recommends titles containing 80 characters or less. Here’s what you’re going to want your titles to contain:

• Create an engaging title featuring important keywords speaking to your target audience. 
• Add a year or month reference within your title to establish timeliness. 
  • Example: “2021 Content Consumption and Demand Report for B2B Marketers”.
    

Abstract

Another rule of thumb here; we recommend that your abstract has between 700 to 1,200 characters. Nothing more, nothing less.

• Create an easy-to-digest summary of your content citing why the prospect will benefit from reading the content. Include a bulleted list of topics, stats, or other top insights from the content.

NetLine Cover Images

From the time we were children, we were taught never to judge a book by its cover. Well, we all know that, for better or worse, this is something that 100% happens. 

When it comes to giving your content a proper “face”, it’s essential to not only have something that’s relevant, it also needs to be compelling. While NetLine doesn’t specialize in creating killer cover designs, we do highly recommend that your awesome content has an equally awesome cover graphic (plus, our Campaign Success Kit can help you learn more about how to improve your designs based on all of our best practices).

Cover Image Specifications

Regardless of whether you’re uploading an eBook or a webinar, the specifications for our campaign’s cover images remain the same.

• 1200 pixels (width) x 1555 pixels (height)
• Maximum of 1MB
• .jpg, .jpeg, .png, or .gif.
  

Don’t have a cover image for your PDF? Not an issue. While we do recommend having one, you can skip this step and one will be automatically generated for you. 

You can also use our prebuilt Canva template to easily create a cover for your content.

Using NetLine Custom Questions

Adding questions to your campaign is not only a great way to enhance your lead gen efforts, it’s a way to learn more about your  ideal customer’s pain points, urgency, and/or intent

As you’re thinking of the best ways to leverage your custom questions, here are some tips and examples for getting the most out of this feature.

The 5 Types of Custom Questions

There are 5 specific types of custom questions that can be used in a NetLine campaign:

• Text Display Statement (Free)  
• Text Input  
• Single Checkbox Answer  
• Checkboxes—Select one or more answers  
• Dropdown List—Select only one answer  

Conditional Questions

While it’s not included in the list above, conditional questions are another type of custom question. 

A conditional question is a custom question that is tied to a previous question, meaning the rules around custom questions apply to any conditional questions you may opt to use in your campaigns.

How to Use Conditional Questions

Primary questions can have conditional questions (secondary questions) to answers selected from the list provided in the dropdown.

• Secondary questions must be created first so that you have questions to add to the answers selected in your primary question.
• To create these conditional questions, select a ‘Question Type’. Only ‘Text Input’, ‘Single Checkbox Answers’, ‘Checkboxes’, and ‘Dropdown Lists’ are allowed.
• After secondary questions have been created, you can create a primary question. Only ‘Dropdown Lists’ are allowed to have secondary questions.
• For each of the primary answer choices, you would like to ask a conditional question, select the appropriate secondary question from its column.

Additional Info on Custom Questions

Beyond knowing how to use custom questions, there are some additional pieces that all users need to be aware of.

• Campaign cost-per-lead will increase by $3 per custom question added.
• Adding custom questions could increase form abandonment rate.
• Custom questions cannot be used as filters; you will receive all leads despite the custom question answers.

How to Use NetLine’s Filters

NetLine’s filtering capacity is unmatched in the B2B industry. We’ve created an unrivaled audience database that gives context to which types of professionals are actively seeking content in more than 300 industries. 

While the core function of NetLine is as a B2B content syndication network, the core value we deliver to B2B marketers is based on our ability to filter audiences. All told, there are more than 35 million different ways for you to filter our audiences.

Thanks to the voluntary capture of first-party data, we’re able to filter by so many unique career variables because our greatest strength is understanding who is truly consuming your content. 

Let’s take a look at how many “parent” level options are available for each campaign.

Selecting Your Filters

In the image above, you’ll see there are six specific filter categories along with a corresponding dollar value. This means your campaign will add an additional $0-$6.25 premium for each filter chosen within a given filter category. (We have a great example of this in our Answering the FAQs About the NetLine Auction blog post.)

As a reminder, NetLine guarantees that you will only receive and pay for leads that request your content and match your selected filter criteria below. The cost-per-lead will update as filter values are selected.

Important Filter Recommendations and Reminders

While choosing filters isn’t a “requirement” within the Portal, we highly recommend that you do so. Without choosing filters, your campaign won’t reach your ideal audience and will reach your lead goal in record time—likely without being relevant or interested in your products or services. 

Here’s some other information we want to you be aware of before moving on from the Filters tab:

• Each additional filter value selected will increase the campaign cost-per-lead by $0.50 – $14. 
• Secondary level lead filters can be added by expanding the Job Area and Company Industry filters.
• NetLine automatically filters out: students, interns, consultants, and contractors as well as professionals working at companies of 1-4 employees at no cost. To receive these leads, select them in the dropdown menu.
• Country filtering includes individual US states and country selections.
• Filters can be updated at any time, monitor your campaign reports and submit updates to filters as needed.

How to Use NetLine’s Fulfillment Tools

Lead Fulfillment allows you to schedule lead files to be automatically emailed to you and up to ten other recipients. You can access the lead data of all fields that are collected directly in the NetLine Portal Leads tab.

Quick Facts on NetLine Fulfillment

• ‘Daily’ fulfillment is sent at 5 AM PST Monday – Friday.
• ‘Weekly’ fulfillment is sent Mondays at 5 AM PST.
• ‘Incremental’ fulfillment will deliver new leads you have not previously received.
• ‘Cumulative’ fulfillment will deliver all leads in every file.

• ‘Collected’ value is the mapped value to ensure your lead data is consistent with your internal naming conventions.
• ‘Display’ value is what the user will see when answering a question.

How to Setup or Edit Your Fulfillment Connector

While you’re always able to review your lead data within the Portal, NetLine also allows you to receive your leads via your preferred CRM or lead management tool. Whether you’re using HubSpot, Salesforce, ON24,  Marketo, or any other connector, NetLine makes real-time sync simple. 

Please note that by setting up email fulfillment you will be billed at the frequency your leads are delivered unless you are approved for monthly billing.

• Setup or edit the connector for this campaign and map the fields to your CRM. Once your setup is complete, click ‘Send Test Leads’ to confirm leads are mapped correctly to your CRM before submitting your campaign.
• Check out our Connector Resources to learn how to easily integrate the NetLine Portal with your CRM, MAP, or Webinar Platform.

Are We Missing Any NetLine Portal Specs?

This blog is a living, breathing document, so it’s entirely possible that we’re missing some of the latest and greatest information. But don’t worry! We’ll be sure to add updates as they happen and our Portal Support team is always aware of what you’ll need to optimize your campaigns. 

If you have any questions in the meantime, please reach out to [email protected] or use our Drift bot to chat with one of our experts.

Earlier this year, NetLine introduced the open lead gen marketplace—the first and only real-time bidding marketplace where Marketers can purchase B2B leads on their own terms. 

Beyond wanting to make sure that B2B Marketers from all sizes of organizations and sales cycles of varying lengths had access to the most engaged B2B first-party audience population on the web, we also want to provide our clients with every opportunity to get their campaigns to market as quickly as possible. 

This includes answering some of the frequently asked questions about Lead Gen, including knowing exactly how the Marketplace works, how it compares to other competitors, and any specifications your content needs in order to launch your campaign.

Why Did NetLine Create the Open Lead Gen Marketplace?

One of NetLine’s goals as a company is to Democratize Lead Gen for All. Our Chief Strategy Officer, David Fortino, said as much following the release of the product.

Historically, every B2B vendor in the landscape, including NetLine, had charged a fixed price to B2B Marketers based upon specific filters that aligned with their ideal customer persona values. Whether you were an enterprise technology company or a startup with multi-billion dollar valuation aspirations, you were charged the same exact rate for the same type of audience member as they registered for your content. 

Although auction-based pricing has never been used by B2B lead gen vendors prior to NetLine, (Marketers have been using similar features from Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and every other programmatic ad platform for more than a decade), for some reason, B2B lead gen had been stuck in this fixed market dynamic.

The Open Lead Gen Marketplace aims to change that and, technically, has changed it.

How Does the Open Lead Gen Marketplace Work?

Simply put, NetLine’s Open Lead Gen Marketplace allows B2B Marketers to manage their lead generation goals on their own terms in real-time. For the first time, a B2B Marketer can structure a content-centric lead gen campaign with their own pricing economics taking center stage. 

As our Chief Strategy Officer, David Fortino, said when we launched the Marketplace, this self-service model has, “made B2B lead acquisition more efficient, more cost-effective, and easier than it ever has been.” All of this aligns with NetLine’s goal of Democratizing Lead Gen for all.

Targeting

To best demonstrate how the Marketplace works is to walk you through a sample campaign build.

For this exercise, let’s say we’re targeting professionals in the US with a job function focused on those working in the Banking/Mortgage, Business, and Finance/Accounting fields. We’ll also focus on Manager and above (C-Level, Executive VP, Senior VP, VP, Senior Director, Director, Senior Manager, Manager) for the Job Level filters.

Now we can skip ahead to lead terms. You’ll notice here that there is a cool little optimization tip. In this case, it recognized that the campaign has excluded specific filters that would seemingly match the filters we’ve already selected. Let’s accept that recommendation and add it to our filters. 

With your filters chosen, you’ll now see a lead estimate generated for your campaign. At the same time, the performance forecast will also be dynamically generated based upon the viability of the campaign against the filters and known audience populations.

With all of these variables in place, the Suggested CPL is $21.25 CPL. This is where the Open Lead Gen Marketplace gets to flex its muscle: Through dynamic pricing and the CPL Override.

Let’s say, as the Marketer running this campaign, you know that the average selling point of your product is low compared to other products on the market and I need exceptionally high conversion rates in order to support more content-centric lead gen initiatives, the default CPL may not be viable. Historically, this would have been where a company would have walked from running a campaign with NetLine because the math just didn’t make sense. 

With dynamic pricing, you could drop your CPL to $15 within the CPL Override field seen below. While the performance forecast drops below the suggested score threshold, if this is within your budget, this represents a new opportunity for your business or your client.

 

Conversely, if your product or service was more expensive relative to some of the other options in the market or you simply wanted to command a greater share of voice, your CPL threshold will likely be greater. Just to show how much more impactful a higher CPL would be, we increased the Override to $35 and ended up with a performance forecast of 149.

The Marketplace is all about flexibility and allowing Marketers to control more of their own success on their terms. This is something that the market as a whole beyond Netline, has really conditioned today’s modern B2B Marketer to expect and we are happy to meet Marketers where they should be met.

How Does the Open Lead Gen Marketplace Compare to LinkedIn?

As you would expect, there are a number of differences between these two platforms. 

Let’s break down each platform to see how they compare and contrast.

Usage

At the core, each platform was developed to deliver leads to Marketers. NetLine is a B2B-exclusive platform while LinkedIn is open to businesses selling directly to consumers, as well. 

Beyond having a focus on generating leads, LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions platform allows Marketers to create campaigns with a variety of objectives, including brand awareness, video and website views, and the ability to promote career opportunities. The Open Lead Gen Marketplace is designed to do one thing and one thing only: Generate First-Party and Fully Permissioned B2B leads. 

Targeting

Targeting is one of the most scrutinized parts of any B2B Marketing platform.

LinkedIn’s Ad Targeting homepage describes its targeting capabilities as integrating your campaign’s, “targeting criteria to build your ideal persona.” NetLine’s Open Lead Gen Marketplace delivers audiences that allow you to target your ideal person. 

As we described in our answer to How Does the Open Lead Gen Marketplace Work?, B2B marketers can launch content-centric lead generation campaigns on a performance basis (CPL) within a self-service and thriving marketplace. In a matter of a few minutes, turn their content and attributable business outcomes beyond ToFu KPIs and traffic generation values. While LinkedIn’s platform might deliver your content to a similar audience, the Open Lead Gen Marketplace has a much greater likelihood of acquiring B2B leads from professionals who are truly interested in your product or service.

Data

For as much attention that LinkedIn gets within the B2B advertising ecosystem, when it comes down to extracting data from their audience, the advertiser is more than likely to receive a predominant supply of personal contact information. This tends to be a HUGE hurdle for Sales organizations to conceptually embrace as they tend to place very little value towards a free email address and/or personal phone number. 

When you consider for a moment that the vast majority of LinkedIn’s audience still views it as nothing more than an online resume, this harsh reality isn’t all that difficult to understand. 

Pricing

Consider the fact that LinkedIn never once attempts to absorb risk and exclusively relies on a mixture of CPC and/or CPM-oriented pricing models. Comically, they love charging you for all those meaningless vanity metrics like clicks and views all while masking that reality behind a message of lead generation. 

In the case of content syndication lead generation, you also receive earned media exposure throughout the duration of the campaign that you don’t pay for (in contrast to a CPM campaign). And in the case of CPL pricing, you are paying for leads which is directly aligned with your lead generation goals. (1+1=2).

“The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”

Effectiveness 

It’s common knowledge that display-oriented channels are rife with poor metrics, banner blocking, browser removal, and general distrust by audiences. Yet here we are: B2B Marketers continue tossing budgets against traffic-oriented initiatives and hoping for the best. This is especially true for those B2B marketers heavily invested in ABM platforms. Whether selecting LinkedIn’s CPC or CPM model pricing model, both have their drawbacks:

• Most CPM budgets will be spent on audiences that never react. Only 0.04%[1] of people that see a banner will click on it. Putting that another way, Marketers are knowingly wasting 99.96% of their budget.
• If using a CPC budget, the vast majority of the CPC budget will be allocated towards sending traffic to a landing page where a lead gen-oriented CTA and form will be presented. Sadly, only 2.35%[2] of the people that arrive at the lead gen landing page will convert into an actual lead. Putting that another way, Marketers are knowingly pouring 97.65% of their budget down the drain.

For these reasons, NetLine has always been focused on one specific outcome for B2B Marketers: High-quality, first-party leads exclusively controlled by a CPL model. By only paying for the leads that meet your exacting criteria, our clients keep the performance of our platform accountable, making it the most attractive option for B2B Content Marketers to generate leads.

While LinkedIn may have the advantage in its utility, the Open Lead Gen Marketplace has the edge when it comes to following through on its promise of delivering quality, first-party B2B leads.

Customer Perspective

Speaking of LinkedIn, we’d like to share Nathan Huet’s story with you and how he got to know NetLine and the power of a CPL-based model.

Formerly DocASAP’s Senior Marketing Manager, Nathan is a data-focused Marketer fixated on driving key objectives and results from his lead gen campaigns. As such, he used many different vendors to try and fulfill the demand needs for DocASAP. During Nathan’s time at DocASAP, NetLine outperformed LinkedIn.

“NetLine provides a tremendous amount of control over lead generation campaigns,” Nathan said, “far above what you could get from other DSPs or even LinkedIn Advertising. This, in addition to the lead knowledge you get, allows you to continually self-optimize your campaigns to only get the leads that meet your qualification criteria.”

“[In the past, we] had been relying heavily on LinkedIn Sponsored Content to generate marketing qualified leads from our content. I ran a small head-to-head test relying on our latest and greatest eBooks, and the results of the test were amazing. Netline drove a 60% lower cost per marketing qualified lead compared to LinkedIn.”

After presenting these results to his Director of Marketing, DocASAP re-allocated budget from LinkedIn Sponsored Content to NetLine, where they’ve been driving leads and further extending the reach of their content ever since.

More NetLine Auction FAQs

We’ll continue to add more FAQs to this blog as time goes along. If you have any questions in the meantime, please reach out to [email protected] or use our Drift bot to chat with one of our experts.

As marketers, we become experts in our target audiences. We know their typical demographic, what they like, the platforms they spend time on, and what they value in a product.

But unlike sales reps — who talk to and learn from their biggest prospects each day — we don’t always know tiny, but crucial, details about the brands or people we most want to sell to. So, how do we bridge the gap to better help our sales teams sell to high-priority clients? The answer to this question could be account-based marketing (or ABM).

While inbound marketing is vital for pulling general audiences and demographics to your site, service, or store, account-based marketing can help you to reel in prospects or qualified leads that are most likely to buy your product.

To show you just how beneficial account-based marketing can be, while also informing you of the challenges it comes with, here are 38 stats you should know in 2021.

37 Account-Based Marketing Stats to Know in 2021

General ABM Stats

• In 2021, 70% of marketers report using ABM, up 15% from 2020.
• 67% of brands leverage account-based marketing.
• “Researching Accounts” and “Identifying Target Contacts” are the top two tactics used by marketers within an ABM model.
• In 2019, the top five account-based tactics were sales development rep outreach, digital advertising, direct mail, marketing email, and events.
• Additionally, marketers strongly agree that personalized content (56%) and advanced data management (43%) are keys to ABM’s success.
• 57% of professionals say their companies target 1,000 accounts or under with ABM.

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• 90% of companies say the top goal of their ABM efforts is new business generation.
• Most organizations intentionally only pursue 38% of their target accounts at one time.
• By 2019, 55% of marketers rated their ABM strategy as “established” compared to just 43% in 2018.
• Primary tactics companies are using around ABM include identifying target contacts, creating custom content, researching accounts, and measuring results.
• Companies dedicated 29% of their marketing budgets to ABM in 2019.
• It’s estimated that ABM budgets saw an average increase of 41% in 2019.
• The most common metric marketers use to track ABM is revenue won.

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• Two other metrics marketers most commonly track to measure ABM efforts are the number of pipelines created and account engagement.
• In 2019, 7% of marketers reported a decrease in dedicated headcount for ABM teams, showing that this strategy is going mainstream and being implemented within regular processes.
• In 2019, 40% of the average marketing team was dedicated to ABM.
• 43% of companies implementing an ABM strategy are in the early stages.
• 57% of marketers say their organizations have implemented ABM for more than one year.

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Benefits and Challenges of ABM

• Marketing and sales teams that take an ABM approach together can be up to six percent more likely to exceed their revenue goals than teams less ABM-advanced.
• According to Rollworks, 87% of marketers say ABM outperforms other marketing activities.
• 62% of marketers say they can measure a positive impact since adopting ABM.
• 80% of marketers say ABM improves customer lifetime values, while 86% say it improves win rates.
• One in five accounts targeted through ABM becomes considered a qualified sales opportunity.
• Organizations with a strong Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) — which is similar to a buyer persona — achieve 68% higher account win rates.
• More than two-thirds (69%) of top-performing account-based organizations now have a dedicated account-based marketing leader.
• 70% of companies that started account-based initiatives in the first six months of 2019 have dedicated ABM leaders.
• Companies with mature ABM strategies credit 79% of opportunities and 73% of total revenue to ABM efforts.
• 42% of companies that missed their account-based objectives don’t have dedicated leadership.
• The most common challenge with ABM is delivering a personalized experience.
• The top three challenges of implementing ABM are delivering a personalized customer experience, knowing how to choose target accounts, and knowing what content to use.

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ABM Technology

• By 2021, over half of all sales phone calls will be analyzed by software.
• The conversational intelligence market was estimated to grow by 3x in 2019.
• Voice assistants will account for at least half of automated data entry by mid-2020.
• An estimated 55% of sales data entry was eliminated by automation by 2020.

Smarketing Benefits and Challenges

• The most common measurement of success for content marketing programs is Total Sales.
• 85% of marketers with an SLA think their marketing strategy is effective.
• Only 7% of salespeople said the leads they received from marketing were very high quality.
• Only 28% of salespeople said marketing was their best source of leads.

Create an Effective ABM Strategy

As a marketer, it’s important to know what makes ABM techniques successful and how they differ from other target audience marketing tactics.

Additionally, you’ll want to learn about the companies you’re interested in marketing to, similar to how you learn about a target audience. For example, before creating an ABM campaign, you’ll want to learn about the pain points of companies in your industry, company missions, and what their top decision-makers value in a product or service.

Once you discover valuable data about the accounts you’d like to market to and feel ready to create a campaign, check out our account strategy templates below.

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

Love learning about business and how some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs and companies are operating? Business podcasts serve as a great way to stay informed (and inspired) on the happenings.

All you need is your smartphone and a pair of headphones to tune in to everything from one-on-one interviews with today’s top leaders to recaps of the day’s most pressing business news.

So whether you’re a seasoned executive looking for something to listen to during your commute or just someone who’s always itching to learn something new, this list of the best business podcasts is for you. From Kai Ryssdals’ Marketplace to Tim Ferriss’ self-titled collection of wisdom, the following seven business podcasts will teach how to strategize, lead, and grow your business. 

12 Best Business Podcasts

1. iDigress Podcast

Troy Sandidge, host of iDigress Podcast, has a track record of generating over $100M for various business ventures. He’ll use his experience to expertly guide you through the world of marketing, moving you away from confusion and towards the techniques and tools that will help you forge a path to business success. iDigress is a great fit for all marketers seeking across the board advice, from how to identify a business direction to finding clarity in your messaging. 

Episodes are 30 minutes or less, making it a great snackable podcast for on-the-go listening. 

 

2. Radical Candor

Radical Candor is all about how to succeed at work without sacrificing your humanity and happiness. Amy Sandler hosts discussions about why it’s important to have honest communication when working (with yourself, management, and coworkers), and how honesty will help you build relationships that will lift you up and help you succeed. 

Topics discussed on the podcast include how to have candid conversations at work, how managers and business leaders can create a culture of guidance and feedback, and how to stand up for yourself in the workplace. 

3. Duct Tape Marketing Podcast

Duct Tape Marketing Podcast features interviews with expert authors and thought leaders who share actionable business marketing tips and resources. As a listener, you’ll learn about various topics like how to maintain happiness at work and best-practices for retaining customers. Fast Company named this podcast “One of the Best Podcasts for Business-Savvy Listeners.”

 

4. The Goal Digger Podcast

Jenna Kutcher, host of The Goal Digger Podcast, is an experienced educator and digital marketer. Described as a live workshop, the show helps businesspeople learn first-hand about how to define their own personal success and chase after their dreams. 

Topics covered include productivity hacks, creating business pitches, improving your website’s SEO, social media tips, and how to build the job of your dreams. Kutcher is often joined by notable guests and industry experts, like entrepreneur Lori Harder.

 

5. CodePen Radio

CodePen is an online tool for web developers to test HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets. Hosted by CodePen employees, CodePen Radio contains personal stories about successes and failures they’ve come across when scaling their company. It’s great for professionals in the software industry, as you’ll gain valuable insight into everything involved in starting and maintaining a web software business. 

 

6. Choose Inclusion

Three hosts, Mike Hess, Nina Baliga, and UB Ciminieri, have authentic and honest conversations about the different ways diversity, equity, and inclusion impact businesses. It’s a great listen for all professionals as they discuss everything from developing a DEI program at your own business to being an active participant in workplace events. 

 

7. The MarTech Podcast

The MarTech Podcast, hosted by Benjamin Shapiro, shares the stories of marketers and the different ways they use technology to achieve growth and business success. Each episode features a different business leader and marketing professional, making it suitable for listeners in all industries. All guests provide insight into MarTech best practices through real-life experiences and recommend tools and tips for success. 

 

8. Brown Ambition

Brown Ambition Podcast features financial advice from two professional finance reporters, Mandi Woodruff-Santos and Tiffany Aliche. Listeners can leverage the host’s experience and learn how to make smart career choices that contribute to financial success personally and in business. 

The hosts also tackle issues commonly faced by communities of color, acting as a resource for groups often left out of financial wellness conversations. They also have entire Q&A episodes dedicated to answering listener questions, helpful for those with a unique situation they want advice about. 

 

9. Happiness At Work

Happiness At Work is an interview-based podcast featuring authors, entrepreneurs, coaches, and leading industry experts that discuss, well, happiness at work. 

It is great for business professionals looking to create a better work-life balance or those simply looking to maintain their happiness levels on the job. As a listener, you’ll learn actionable tips for creating a positive and uplifting workplace culture and the benefits it brings to the workplace. The best summary of the show comes from the creators themselves — “We believe that happiness at work should be the ‘norm’ and not the exception.”

 

10. Inclusion Works

Inclusion Works focuses on discussing the importance of creating a workplace culture that is inclusive to all communities. Hosts speak to seasoned DEI business professionals, like Jiquanda Nelson and Margot Slattery, who provide actionable advice on DEI strategies that work and help businesses thrive. 

 

11. HBR IdeaCast

HBR IdeaCast is a weekly podcast that features notable leaders in business and business management. Rotating hosts give listeners a different experience, and topics range from workplace innovation and productivity to creating a better work-life balance to managing employees. Running between 20 and 30 minutes, episodes are snackable and easy to consume on-the-go, or during work breaks where you’re looking to decompress. 

 

12. TED Business

TED Business is a great podcast for high-quality snackable business content. Host Modupe Akinola talks listeners through getting a promotion, setting realistic goals, and forming positive workplace relationships. You’ll leave with actionable tips for forging your path, as, at the end of every show, Akinola gives a mini-lesson on how to apply the tips discussed within the episode. 

Ready to Listen?

Select the show that best fits your needs, and start listening from wherever you are, whenever you want.

I’d venture to guess you get tons of emails in your inbox every day.

From coupons to daily deal sites, from newsletters to your mother wanting to know when you plan to visit — it’s a lot to sift through, never mind actually open. The average click-to-open rate is a slim 14.1%, so you’re not the only one.

What does it take for someone to actually open an email? Often, it’s the subject line. After all, it’s your very first impression of the email. From that first impression, you’ll do your best to judge the content inside.

So what makes a good email subject line? It’s a message that conveys urgency, curiosity, personalization, and so much more. But it’s up to you to make that distinction of which fits best in your business offer and appeals to your audience.

Let’s take a look at a few examples that, old or new, we’re crazy about — plus what makes them so great. We have 100 awesome subject lines to offer you already, but read on for 50 more that we found eye-catching.

(While you’re at it, check out our Out-of-Office Email Generator to make your email address even more delightful to your contacts.)

Subject Lines for Retargeting

1. “We Saw You Checking Us Out 😏”

Sender: DollsKill

A clothing brand like DollsKill uses cookies to monitor what its customers have been eyeing. By sending an email subject line reminding them of items they admired can reel customers right back into their next purchase. The statement itself has a playful and conversational tone that comes off flirty, a reflection of its company branding.

The emoji also adds more fun and temptation to the message — reiterating that “you know you want to” feeling regarding items they have already clicked on before.

2. “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring”

Sender: Warby Parker

Not too long ago, a HubSpot alum received this email two weeks before he needed to renew his prescription — talk about great timing. And when your eye prescription is expiring, it happens to be an excellent time to upgrade your glasses. By sending an email at the right time, Warby Parker increased its chances of this email getting opened.

But timing isn’t the sole reason we included this example. This subject line is brilliant because it appeared at the right time and with the right tone. Using conversational words like “uh-oh,” keeping the subject line sentence case, and leaving out the period in the end, the subject line comes across as helpful and friendly — not as a company trying to upsell you.

3. “The timer’s going off on your cart!”

Sender: King Arthur Flour

Similar to Warby Parker, this subject line makes use of urgency. If I don’t take action on my King Arthur Flour shopping cart — like actually buying the items — it will be cleared, and I’ll have to start all over again.

Okay, so maybe this is a low-risk scenario. But when it comes to my baking goods, I personally don’t like to take any chance of forgetting what I was going to buy. That’s where the personalization aspect of this subject line comes in: King Arthur Flour — especially its online shop — tends to attract both professional and home bakers who take all things culinary a bit more seriously than, say, someone who only buys flour on occasion from the supermarket. And wouldn’t you know? Those are the same bakers who probably don’t want to spend time building their shopping carts from scratch.

The moral of the story: Know your audience when you’re writing email subject lines. Is there something that they take seriously more than others? If so, incorporate that into your copy.

4. “What Did You Think? Write a Review.”

Sender: REI

I received an email with this subject line about a week after buying a portable stove at REI. I had just gotten back from a camping trip, too. It was perfect timing for them to ask me what I thought of it.

Companies ask satisfied customers to write reviews of their business all the time. But when you specifically send these requests to the people who just purchased something from you, you’re being smart with your mailing list and reaching recipients whose interest is still warm.

Another reason this subject line works? It’s not expecting a good review. REI is genuinely asking me what I thought of the stove I bought. Maybe I hated it (though I didn’t). The company just wanted me to speak up.

5. “A Sneak Peek for VIPs Only.”

Sender: Serena & Lily

Loyal subscribers can preview clothing collections via email, as seen here with Serena & Lily. By offering a “sneak peek”, customers know they have more exclusive access and will want to click open the email to see what they want before the general public can see it.

This concept keeps the customer relationship alive and coming back for more if the email marketing is done right.

Straightforward Email Subject Lines

6. “👗 Free (Cool!) Clothes Alert 👖”

Sender: Clover

First of all, we have a not-so-secret love for emojis in email subject lines. Personally, I’m partial to turquoise — so when I see an email implying that I might somehow be able to obtain free turquoise clothes, chances are, I’m clicking.

That’s part of what makes this subject line work. It draws the recipients’ eye by using visual content (emojis), and it hints at an offer of something free. That hint is an incentive to open the email because there’s something to gain inside.

7. “🐶 Want a Custom Emoji of Tullamore & 6 Months FREE Walks? Book a Walk Today for Your Chance to Win!”

Sender: Wag!

For reference, Tullamore is the name of my colleague Amanda Zantal-Wiener‘s dog. And the subject line she received, written above, is another winning example of perfect emoji placement — especially when it’s a cute dog.

Here’s a great example of how personalization goes beyond the email recipient’s name. Wag!, an on-demand dog-walking app, includes the names of its customers’ pets in a portion of its email subject lines. But this type of personalization is more than just a first-name basis. If there’s anything my colleague Amanda loves more than free stuff and baking goods, it’s her pup. Wag! knows that, and by mentioning Tullamore by name in the subject line — in tandem with an offer, no less — it caught her attention and piqued her interest.

8. “Best of Groupon: The Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)”

Sender: Groupon

It’s hard to be funny in your marketing, but Groupon’s one of those brands that seems to nail it again and again. After all, who can forget this classic unsubscribe video?

This subject line is no exception. The quip, “(Unlike Our Nephew Steve),” actually had us

laughing out loud. Why? It’s completely unexpected. The first part of the subject line looks like a typical subject line you’d get from Groupon, highlighting a new deal. The parenthetical content? Not so much — making this one a delightful gem to find in your inbox.

9. “Rock the color of the year”

Sender: Etsy

In six words, Etsy was able to promote a product solely by its color, and inform you that there is apparently a “color of the year.” The email is truly too intriguing not to open.

Etsy is an e-commerce website for user-created marketplaces, and the reason we were impressed by its subject line was because of the way it uses mystery to drive value into a suite of products. This email isn’t an invitation to buy clothing or jewelry; it’s an invitation to find out what the color of the year is.

10. “How to live at home 24/7”

Sender: Feather

If you’re anything like me, the COVID-19 pandemic had you wearing PJs from day to night, only changing when you had Zoom meetings at work. As a social distancing precaution, you likely used delivery services instead of going out and getting food on your own — which means that you were effectively living at home 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

This email from Feather, a furniture rental store, perfectly encapsulates a frustration many of us faced: How do you live at home 24/7 without feeling like you’re going crazy? With this subject line, Feather promises to help you find a solution by using furniture that makes it easier to stay at home for extended periods.

Try it: Use a “How To” subject line to tell recipients what they can achieve with your products. Then, in your email, include links to the products that will help them achieve those goals.

11. “Take $20 off your order of $25 or more”

Sender: UberEats

You don’t always have to make your email subject line flashy. In this case with UberEats, just the offer alone is good enough to make any hungry customer click.

Your product offering, if it’s appealing, can speak for itself in your subject line. Customers know they can take advantage of the opportunity in the body of the email, as I will for dinner tonight.

12. “Where to Drink Beer Right Now”

Sender: Eater Boston

Okay, you caught me: I’m a beer lover. But that’s not what hooked me here. The subject line arrived in my inbox just at the time I needed it: at 6:45 on a Wednesday evening. Absolutely. Genius.

Think about it: You’re just over hump day and want to decompress with a few coworkers after work. Right as you’re about to head out, you get a notification on your phone that says, “Where to Drink Beer Right Now.” Perfect timing makes this subject line something you can’t help but click on.

For your own emails, think about how timing will affect how people perceive your emails. Even if you send an email in an off-peak hour, you could get higher engagement — if you have the right subject line.

13. “1,750 points for you. Valentine’s flowers & more for them.”

Sender: JetBlue

It’s such a specific number … 1,750 … of course you’re going to open this.

Coming from an airline, an offering of “points” might as well be gold to someone who likes to travel. And, if that recipient also has a significant other, sending this email leading up to Valentine’s Day is a home run.

The best part about the subject line above is how particular JetBlue was about the number of points available. Instead of, say, “20% your next return flight of 1,000 miles or more,” this subject line gives it to you straight: 1,750 points, and all you have to do is buy flowers for your loved one. You’re already wondering how far you can fly with 1,750 points, I can tell.

14. “Free Oversized V-Neck.”

Sender: Los Angeles Apparel

I don’t know about you, but free is my favorite price when it comes to apparel. This brand has a simplistic and straightforward approach to its subject line by letting customers know what they can get in their next order.

And by keeping it short, it makes the subject line even more effective because the only other context the customer can see — is when they click open the email.

15. “Here’s that discount you wanted”

Sender: LAMODA

This subject line almost feels like it’s reading my mind. When I scroll through my endless emails, considering the businesses I want to buy from, I’m waiting for a discount or sale to be announced.

It’s straightforward and knows exactly what its customers want — key to getting clicks.

16. “3 ways to improve your Pins”

Sender: Pinterest

For those who love to curate their social feed, Pinterest is one of the best places to do it. For those trying to grow their following, they’re probably looking for all the advice they can get from the website itself.

Providing a numeric list of strategies to use in the ever-changing algorithm, it can prove useful to click on Pinterest’s emails periodically. This uncomplicated messaging in a subject line presents users with exactly what they’re looking for, right in their inbox.

Attention-Grabbing Email Subject Lines

17. “*Don’t Open This Email*”

Sender: Manicube

Ever been told to not do something? Being asked to refrain from something can actually have the opposite effect — you now want to do that thing even more.

That’s the strategy behind Manicube’s subject line. It’s a simple but effective way to make people curious enough to open your email. (Just be sure that the contents of your email have something worthy of that subject line.)

18. “Important Weather Advisory”

Sender: RCN

Any time we see a weather-related alert, our ears perk up. In RCN’s case, it isn’t just a way to lure recipients into opening an email. The subject line above is RCN’s way of updating its customers to potential power outages and driving attention to the brand that provides them with cable and Wi-Fi — even during inclement weather.

If you can hitch your email marketing campaign to an event you know people pay attention to, and have something helpful to offer in response, you’ll see your email open rate soar.

19. “What Can You Afford?”

Sender: Zillow

Imagine getting this subject line in your inbox from a website showing apartments for rent. It’s both exciting and encouraging (“Here are a bunch of apartments right in your budget. Yay!”), but also kind of competitive — pitting your cash against what the market offers. Would you click it? I certainly would.

Personalizing emails to cater to your audience’s emotions — for which there’s a broad spectrum when it comes to real estate — is key to getting people to open your emails. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know how to take advantage of them, either. In addition to principles like urgency, crafting an email subject line that implies scarcity is another great way to increase your conversion rates.

20. “As You Wish”

Sender: UncommonGoods

When writing emails, you should also think about the recognizable names and references that make people tick. For example, take this subject line from UncommonGoods forwarded to us from HubSpot’s Content Director, Corey Wainwright, who happens to be a die-hard fan of The Princess Bride. Apparently, “As You Wish” is a pretty big reference to that movie, so when she saw this subject line in her inbox, she just HAD to click.

Even though she knew the email was part of a larger-scale send, it almost seemed like it was tailored for her personally — after all, why else would it include a reference to Princess Bride in the title?

UncommonGoods knows its buyer persona like the back of its metaphorical hand. While it may not send emails to individual subscribers with references to their favorite movies in the title, it does have a general understanding of its subscribers and their interests.

21. “Not Cool, Guys”

Sender: BuzzFeed

We love BuzzFeed. If nothing else, its staff knows how to write great copy — and that sentiment includes an exceptional email marketing team. Many of my colleagues have signed up for BuzzFeed’s daily emails, and pretty much any day of the week, itwins for best subject line in their inboxes.

While there are a few of BuzzFeed’s subject lines here and there that aren’t anything to write home about, it’s the combination of subject lines and the preview text that is golden. They’re friendly, conversational, and, above all, snarky.

Here’s the text that followed the subject line above: “Okay, WHO left the passive-aggressive sticky note on my fridge. Honestly, who acts like this?” That conversational tone and snark pull us in over and over again — and it’s the preview text that completes the experience for me.

We’re not all equipped to be snarky writers, but most email platforms have the preview text easily available to edit. How can you use that little extra space to delight your customers (oh, and probably improve your email metrics)? Maybe you could use the subject line as a question, and the preview text area as the answer. Or maybe it’s a dialogue: The subject line is one person, and the preview text is another.

You get the idea. By using that space, you have more opportunities to attract new subscribers.

22. “DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities”

Sender: Thrillist

No matter how humble people are, most don’t like to do things wrong … so why not play on that natural human tendency in an email subject line, especially if you’re in the business of helping clients (or prospective clients) succeed? Thrillist certainly does in the subject line above, and it makes the language even more vibrant by using do not — a great takeaway for B2B marketers.

Instead of using the typical contraction “don’t,” Thrillist spells it out and adds the all-caps for effect. That way, you’ll notice the subject line in your inbox, and then find it harder to resist clicking on it.

Think about how going negative in your marketing might be a good thing. For example, many of us have anxiety about looking silly and stupid, so figure out how you can play to those emotions in subject lines. Of course, it’s important to back up that subject line with encouraging, helpful content, so that you’re not just ranting at people all day.

Getting negative can get your subscribers’ attention — this subject line certainly caught mine.

23. “Everything you wanted to know about email copy but were too afraid to ask”

Sender: Copy Hackers

Here’s another great example of leveraging your audience’s full plate to your email marketing advantage. Who hasn’t refrained from asking a question out of fear of looking silly or out of the loop? Excuse me while I sheepishly raise my hand.

” … but were too afraid to ask” is one of those phrases that, to us, probably won’t go out of style for a long time. People seek insights from Copy Hackers — an organization dedicated to helping marketers and other professionals write better copy, as the name suggests — because, well, they have questions. They want to improve. And when that audience is too afraid to ask those questions, here’s Copy Hackers, ready to come to the rescue with answers.

What does your audience want to know, but might be too embarrassed to ask? Use that information to craft your content — including your email subject lines.

24. “Abra-cord-abra! Yeah, we said it.”

Sender: Quircky

This punny email subject line from Quirky is plain fun. We’re suckers for puns in the right situation.

What we like most about it is the second part: “Yeah, we said it.” The pun in the beginning is great and all — it refers to a new invention featured on Quirky’s site to help everyday consumers detangle their numerous plugs and cords — but the second sentence is conversational and self-referential. That’s exactly what many of us would say after making a really cheesy joke in real life.

Many brands could stand to be more conversational and goofy in their emails. While it may not be appropriate to go as far as Quirky’s subject line, being goofy might just be the way to delight your email recipients.

25. “🔥 Hot freebie alert! 15 free gifts, you pick 5.”

Sender: Shutterfly

Shutterfly, a company that allows you to print your photos on interesting products or other frames, gets visual with its subject lines by occasionally using an emoji. Due to the company’s nature and creative audience, the fire emoji in this subject line draws the eye without feeling desperate.

The email subject line also pops because it has a lot of buzzwords, including “hot,” “freebie,” “gifts,” and “alert.” In just one line, it can give the potential reader a good reason to open it, especially if they love using Shutterfly.

The content inside the email aligns perfectly with the subject line by announcing a freebie promotion. This strong alignment between the subject line and message keeps people from skimming the email.

26. “From chaos to calm ✨🏡”

Sender: Open Spaces

If you’ve ever had a cluttered home, you know how chaotic it can feel. Open Spaces takes advantage of that by suggesting how you’ll feel after you use the company’s products.

Its emoji choices also indicate how your home will look and feel: Sparkling clean. I’m not a huge fan of cleaning, but Open Spaces promises to make it easy in the simplicity of their subject line. The brand also proves that it knows its target customer exceedingly well — if you want to create “open spaces,” you likely won’t tolerate chaos in your home.

In the same way, try to allude to the feelings that your target customers want to feel, as well as their goals and inner desires. You can also let emojis speak for you. For instance, if Open Spaces had used the subject line “From chaos to calm: Get a sparkling clean home,” the focus would be off of the “from chaos to calm” piece, which is what readers most care about.

27. “Welcome Gift! Offer Inside 👀…”

Sender: EyeBuyDirect

When you subscribe to a business you’re new to, you’d hope you can get a perk before your first purchase. EyeBuyDirect makes its statement in a subject line that makes the prospect feel like subscribing was a good choice, and strikes curiosity.

Without specifying what the offer is, the customer has no choice but to click and see what they can take advantage of.

Now that we’ve covered the best subject lines in general, let’s dive into the best newsletter subject lines.

28. “Colorful things for colorful homes”

Sender: Baggu

I can’t speak for you but I’m a sucker for all things bright in color. And what makes this an attention-grabbing email subject line is that this brand is known for making reusable bags (hence the name).

This email makes its customers imagine a new type of product they could be revealing, and when I clicked, I was surprised to see all new items like towels, bedsheets and more.

Newsletter Subject Lines

Newsletter subject lines must work harder to get the recipient’s attention because they allude to information only. In contrast, a subject line offering a discount will automatically make the recipient want to click.

Newsletter subject lines must hook the reader and get them to click. The examples below do an excellent job at it.

29. “China Falls, Sleepy Unicorns, And The Deals Aren’t Bigger In Texas”

Sender: Crunchbase

The Crunchbase Insights email has an interesting way of wrapping details about all the stories it will present you in one subject line. This is eye-catching because it seems like an odd mashup of words, but gets to the point about three complicated stories at the same time.

When it comes to email, Crunchbase is known for its longer, text-based emails. They all read like a more conversational letter to the email recipient and casually discuss and hyperlink Crunchbase’s top stories. While the subject lines feel interesting and eye-catching, the emails often report deeper business news that cut right to the chase.

This subject line shows how you can be punchy, but also fun and creative when trying to pull in your audience.

30. “Watch Out for This Amazon Phishing Scam.”

Sender: WIRED

In this subject line, WIRED includes Amazon, a large company name. Including the name of a big brand can be a great way to boost open rates because people who enjoy or use products from big brands might click into a subject line that discusses them.

Additionally, when a brand name is combined with negative words like “phishing” or “scam,” people might open the email much more urgently so they can learn how to avoid running into the issue being discussed.

WIRED also lists the story last in its newsletter. This is an interesting way to get your readers to scroll through the entire email and see the other stories before they get to the story that led them to click into it.

31. “Buffer has been hacked — here is what’s going on”

Sender: Buffer

Next is a subject line from Buffer. A few years ago, Buffer got hacked — every tech company’s worst nightmare. But Buffer handled it exceptionally well, especially on the email front.

What we admire about the subject line is that it’s concise and direct. In a crisis, it’s better to steer clear of puns, snarky comments, and emojis. People want to see that you’re taking the situation seriously and be reassured that the world isn’t ending.

Because of the way the subject line is worded and formatted, you feel like Buffer is calm and collected about the issue, and is considering your personal safety. That’s pretty hard to do in just a few words.

32. “Google sees smartphone heroics in Oreo. It’s The Daily Crunch.”

Sender: TechCrunch

If you’re subscribed to a newsletter from a publication like TechCrunch, chances are, you signed up because you’re either interested in or want to learn more about technology. To reflect that, the media outlet crafts its daily email roundups (“The Daily Crunch”) with a subject line that reflects one of the latest, most compelling news items in the industry.

Here’s the thing: Staying on the cutting edge is hard, especially with something that evolves as quickly as technology. So, by writing email subject lines that reflect something recent and relevant, TechCrunch is signaling to email recipients that opening the message will help them stay informed and up-to-date on the latest industry news.

Think about the things that your audience struggles to keep up with — then, craft an email roundup and matching subject line that reflects the latest news in that category.

33. “Black Friday shoppers are the worst customers”

Sender: LinkedIn

This subject line is likely the boldest of the Black Friday emails you’d see in your inbox in the days before Thanksgiving. Yes, it’s a bit judgmental, but it actually came in a LinkedIn Pulse newsletter, promoting an article one of its users wrote on the topic of holiday marketing.

And there’s no doubt the title resonates with how some people feel during the most hectic holiday shopping day of the year.

LinkedIn has nothing to sell on Black Friday, so the subject line above does little harm to its business. Nonetheless, commenting on a popular cultural observation can show your confidence and help you relate to your community.

34. “New recipe alert 🚨”

Sender: Hello Fresh

While Hello Fresh is a food service that delivers meal packages to its customers, it also provides customers with home kitchen tips and tricks in email newsletters. These extra resources encourage home cooks to try new things, and being offered new recipe ideas is an exciting opportunity.

Using an emoji here is simple and draws the customer’s attention, while the offer itself can only be viewed in full when clicked — an easy way to draw in more aspiring home cooks.

35. “Tips to increase remote collaboration”

Sender: Asana

This simple subject line from Asana, a project management platform, gets straight to the point: If you open the email, you’ll find remote work tips and beyond. The subject line also effectively capitalizes on an increasingly common trend that rose during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Its simplicity and trendiness ensure that you’ll want to open the email.

And chances are that if you’re using Asana, you’re likely using it to collaborate with colleagues whom you might not see every day, even if you’re not fully remote. Asana effectively appeals to a wide range of potential users and buyers with this subject line.

36. “I got Botox — & THIS is what it looked like”

Sender: Refinery29

Okay, so maybe your business doesn’t involve Botox. But still — are you intrigued? I am, and despite my better judgment, I clicked.

That’s the power of leading your emails with a story: It sparks curiosity, which works in two ways. There are times when our natural curiosity can pique our interest without context, such as the example above. But in this case, the subject line implies that there’s an intriguing story ahead. Why the heck did this person get Botox? And what did it look like? As the saying goes, “Inquiring minds want to know.”

Think of the stories behind your industry, then find ways to include them in email newsletters and frame them within the subject line in a way that piques your recipients’ collective curiosity.

37. “Improve Your Website from Concept to Code 💻”

Sender: Namecheap

Want people to open your newsletter? Tell them how they’ll benefit straight away like in this newsletter subject line by Namecheap. It used this subject line for Inspire, its monthly newsletter, and like in the WIRED example, it left the subject line story last so users would scroll through the entire email.

Like many examples on this list, it uses an emoji to draw the eye and keeps the tone of the conversation more casual and fun. In contrast, the subject line “Improve Your Website from Concept to Code” feels much more wooden and unfriendly.

38. “The best options for grocery delivery”

Sender: Wirecutter

Simple, right? But effective. This newsletter’s subject line from Wirecutter gets straight to the point and solves one of the biggest challenges we faced during the pandemic: How to get groceries while social distancing. If you’d never used grocery delivery services up until that point, you’d likely be at a loss for what services to use.

Wirecutter realizes that and immediately invites you to open the email with a simple and actionable subject like.

39. “Mark your calendar for these key dates!”

Sender: Omaze

Omaze is known for raising money for charities across the globe in the form of raffling once-in-a-lifetime opportunities with each donation. Contributors love to learn more about the charities at hand, and the sweet prizes they could win along with them on a monthly basis.

By announcing its upcoming opportunities, it can help people choose which causes they’ll want to give toward, and be excited to contribute when the time comes.

40. “‘I didn’t realize architecture was so dangerous’”

Sender: Dezeen

Dezeen is an architecture and design publication whose newsletter subject lines always feature a comment from a user. Only one comment is chosen every week.

This approach is brilliant for various reasons: 1) It makes you wonder why the user made that comment and will make you click through. 2) It makes you want to comment on the publication’s posts to potentially get featured. And 3) It takes the work out of writing a subject line. Indeed, Dezeen doesn’t have to write a subject line at all, because its readers do it for them.

Here are a few comments that have been featured of late:

• “Absolute garbage”
• “The cardboard box aesthetic”
• “Meet The Flintstones”
• “Does it come with a smoke machine?”

If you have a publication that’s often commented upon, consider using one of the comments as your subject line.

HubSpot Email Marketers’ Favorite Subject Lines

Above are some of the best subject lines we’ve gathered, but we asked both former and current marketers on our team to give some additional favorites and what makes them so good:

41. “Show them what you’re made of”

Sender: Canva

“Using empowering, positive, and defiant language to leverage the use of Canva tools — love it.”

— Lucy Reddan

42. “Drooling over email designs 🤤”

Sender: Really Good Emails

“Emojis always catch my eye amongst the 100+ emails I receive daily. As an email geek myself, this subject line matched my interests and piqued my curiosity.”

— Ashley Riordan

43. “Can you help me name this dance, [First Name]?”

Sender: Marie Forleo

“It’s personalized and piques my interest because A) I’m being asked for input and B) I want to be in the know about this mysterious dance (#fomo).”

— Christina Perricone

44. “Who you gonna call?”

“If you can make a pun, include a social reference, or even just a familiar phrase, it’ll catch people’s attention.”

— Clint Fontanella

45. “Shoes You Can Wear All Damn Day”

Sender: Everlane

“Swearing is controversial in email marketing, but I think it worked really well in this email from Everlane. Not only was it a clever and concise way to introduce their new line of footwear called ‘The Day Collection,’ but it also aligned with the brand voice they use in other emails and across their website.”

— Anna Fitzgerald

46. “You were on point last week 🎯”

Sender: Grammarly

“Grammarly is so good about rewarding you and making you feel good about your writing.”

— Jordan Pritikin

47. “Hmm…No writing activity last week?”

Sender: Grammarly

“If or when you turn their plugin off, Grammarly’s retention strategy is great. They reach out with subject lines like these that immediately drive me to click through and turn their plugin back on. Very well done.”

— Jordan Pritikin

48. “‘Not intended for swimming’”

Sender: Dezeen

“I’m a sucker for architecture, and Dezeen’s weekly newsletter tells me the top new projects that come up, as well as their reader’s responses to them. My question is: What’s not intended for swimming? And if it’s not intended for swimming, why did the architect build it? Boom, you’ve got my interest. And my click.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

49. “Our #1 most asked question…”

Sender: Supergoop

“What an easy way to get me to click — by trailing off and leaving the rest of the content in the email. Nicely done, Supergoop.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

50. “[First Name]! You’re One of HubSpot’s Top Blog Readers 🎉”

Sender: HubSpot

“No one actually likes taking feedback surveys. Not unless you earn money, and not many of them offer that. When I received the above email from our very own HubSpot blog, I clicked straight through, and voila! There it was: A feedback request. Turns out, flattery does work.”

— Ivelisse Rodriguez

The Best Email Subject Lines are Simple and On-Brand

When writing subject lines for your emails, keep it engaging, simple, and on-brand. Don’t forget to appeal to the emotions and needs of your target buyers, and most importantly, have fun — include emojis, puns, or references to pop culture. Your emails will get opened, guaranteed.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.