Category Archives: B2B

As a content marketer, a website audit is vital to my work.

An analogy I like to use is that optimizing an existing website for search engines without conducting a thorough audit is akin to steering a boat without a rudder.

It’s directionless, at the mercy of the wind and waves (or in this case, algorithm changes).

In this post, I’ll cover what a website audit is, the different types of audits, how to conduct an audit, and ways to use information from an audit to improve your SEO and conversions.

I’ve also spoken with some SEO consultants and specialists who’ve shared actionable tips, which you’ll find interspersed in the article.

Table of Contents

• What is a website audit?
• The Benefits of a Website Audit
• How to Conduct a Website Audit
• Types of Website Audits
• Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website
• Website Auditing Checklist
• Website Audit Example

Before I dive into the things you should keep an eye out for, let me go through some of the different types of audits you can perform.

Types of Website Audits

Here are a few common audits among marketers.

1. Competitive Website Audit

A competitive website audit tracks your competitors and their online strategies to help you see what opportunities your brand could be missing out on.

Essentially, a competitive audit allows you to see what’s working for other companies in your market so that you can incorporate those tactics into your own strategy.

Start by performing a SWOT analysis on a competitor’s website. In a SWOT analysis, you track the website’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

For example:

• A strength could be that their website is easier to navigate than yours.
• One weakness could be that their website has slower page loading times.
• Opportunities could be items or tools missing from their website that you can add to yours to give you an edge.
• A threat could be that their website ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) than your own, resulting in your site losing leads.

During this audit, also consider the tools and software they are using to streamline their processes. This can help you discover new ways to run your site more efficiently and make it more accessible for consumers.

2. SEO Link Audit

This type of audit processes the links pointing to your website to find potential issues or opportunities in your backlink profile. By evaluating your links, this audit will help optimize your site to rank for your target keywords.

Link audits consider the URL source, domain, and anchor text to see if value and equity (called “link juice”) are being passed on to your page. This will gauge how much a link is helping or hurting your website’s visibility in SERPs.

Links from well-respected websites are much more valuable than links from smaller, less well-known sites.

To perform an SEO link audit, start by gathering all of your link data. You can do this with Google Search Console by entering your domain and then clicking on “Links to Your Site” under “Search Traffic.”

From there, you can download the latest links and create a link audit spreadsheet. Afterward, you manually evaluate your links by paying attention to factors like anchor text, IP address, and page content.

You can also use tools like Ahref’s backlink checker to take the guesswork out of analyzing the value of the links you gathered.

3. Lead Conversion Optimization Audit

A lead conversion optimization audit analyzes a website’s conversion issues and opportunities. In this audit, you’ll need to analyze how traffic is coming to your website and where it’s coming from.

Google Analytics is an excellent tool for this step. Knowing where your traffic is coming from will help you better understand your audience’s behavior and will help you optimize your site’s content to suit their needs.

Speaking of content, you’ll also need to analyze the content on your website. Make sure the content is helpful, informative, and up-to-date.

Is the latest information about your business uploaded to the site and easily visible? Does your content contain keywords and phrases to boost its ranking in SERPs?

Outdated or irrelevant content can hurt conversions and hurt your SERPs ranking.

Other aspects of your website you need to observe are:

• Forms. Do your forms collect enough information to contact a lead?
• Checkout process. If you notice a lot of shopping cart abandonment, customers are likely having issues with the checkout process on your website.
• Design and layout. Are CTAs clear and visible? Is the copy too small and difficult to read? Is the website easy to navigate?
• Overall user experience. Are there any sources of frustration for visitors to your site?

Pro tip: Veruska Anconitano, an international expansion consultant, recommends the following: “Use behavior flow reports in Google Analytics to find drop-off points. To identify this, look at where users exit most frequently in the flow or where they loop back to a previous page.

Once you’ve found these areas, adjust your CTAs, page design, or content to reduce friction. For example, if users often drop off from a product page, consider simplifying the checkout process or adding more trust signals like reviews or guarantees to keep them engaged.

This approach tackles both SEO and conversion by refining the user experience at critical stages.”

4. Social Media Audit

Your brand’s online performance can also be impacted by social media. If your social media presence isn’t pushing more traffic to your website, then it’s time to conduct a social media audit.

To start the audit, create a list of all your company’s social media accounts. Do some extra digging to make sure you don’t miss any you’re not aware of, such as accounts started by other departments.

From there, go through each account to determine if they’re all consistent with the company’s branding — using the same images, logo, tone of voice, etc.

Then, you’ll need to evaluate each page’s performance. What kind of content performs the highest, and which content type performs the lowest? Are these pages being updated frequently?

Finally, use information from the evaluation to better understand your audience and optimize your social media to engage them. You’ll then be able to update your social media strategy to further delight your audience, more effectively attracting them to your website.

5. SEO Website Audit

While an SEO link audit analyzes the links associated with your website, an SEO website audit evaluates all the factors that can impact your site’s performance in SERPs. This includes links but also extends to other aspects such as keyword usage, content, metadata, page speed, user journey, and video optimization.

It‘s possible to conduct an SEO audit on your own, but you’ll likely get more thorough answers in less time by employing an agency.

To perform one by yourself, I would start by understanding the purpose of the audit. Next, crawl and analyze your website using software. Here are some tools to choose from when conducting an SEO site audit (you can mix and match based on your needs):

• Google Search Console (free)
• HubSpot’s website grader (free)
• Ahrefs (paid with certain free tools)
• Semrush (paid but can avail a free trial, also comes with certain free tools)
• SE Ranking’s website audit (paid but can avail a free trial and is more affordable, also comes with allied free tools)
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (limited free use)

Next, assess:

• Technical SEO. This includes insights on crawling, indexing, security, page speed, Core web vitals, site hierarchy, among others.
• On-page SEO. This includes content (review keywords targeted, content quality/depth, search intent, heading structure, images, videos, CTAs) and user experience.
• Off-page SEO. This includes backlinks, domain authority, and local SEO.

Pro tip: If this is your first site audit, I recommend you start with a free tool (or a free trial of a paid tool) along with Google Search Console to get your feet wet and keep expenses low.

6. Data Privacy Audit

A data privacy audit verifies that you’re following applicable data privacy laws and ensures you’re creating a safe space for website visitors. Search engines look for privacy-related pages when determining whether a website is high-authority.

For example, Google’s primary goal is to serve the best and most trustworthy content to users from reputable sources. Sites that comply with data privacy requirements will most likely be viewed as more authoritative than those that don’t have these essential legal policies.

To conduct a data privacy audit, determine what personal information your site collects from visitors, identify the laws you must follow, list all cookies your site uses, and create and publish website policies to meet legal requirements.

Most websites need a:

• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Consent Banner
• Terms and Conditions Agreement

While you can create these on your own, it’s much easier and more efficient to use managed solutions, like a privacy policy generator.

To take the guesswork and hassles out of privacy compliance, use a reputable generator vetted by a legal team and data privacy experts.

It should also include clauses that meet compliance requirements outlined by the most common data privacy laws.

Now that I’ve covered a few different audits you can conduct to improve your website, let’s discuss the perks of an audit.

1. You can compare your website to your competitors.

Conducting a website audit will allow you to compare your website to your competitors. You can analyze how well you’re ranking against competitors for keywords and determine potential new sources of revenue.

You can use tools, like HubSpot’s Website Grader, to perform an audit on your competitor’s websites to gather more insights. You can learn how your competitors are attracting visitors and see how they’re garnering conversions.

Ultimately, this will help you brainstorm new tactics and strategies for your site.

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2. You can improve your SEO.

With a website audit, you will be able to identify any missed SEO opportunities and remedy any misguided or poorly executed SEO pitfalls (e.g., keyword stuffing, exact match anchor text links, etc.) throughout the content of your website.

An audit will also allow you to refocus your SEO efforts on users first and search engines second. This will safeguard you from constantly chasing changes to search ranking algorithms, meaning you won’t be applying misguided practices just to show up at the top of the SERPs.

Pro tip: One great tool that can help keep your SEO details organized is HubSpot’s free On-Page SEO Template.

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3. You’ll optimize conversion rates.

Website audits also enable you to re-evaluate the effectiveness of your website in terms of lead generation and conversion.

As a result, you’ll be able to spot any previously overlooked opportunities to convert visitors into leads by adding relevant CTAs, as well as identify deficiencies in your landing pages so you can optimize them to boost conversions.

Pro tip: Learn more about CTA selection to optimize the CTAs on your website.

4. You can optimize your website performance.

Website audits usually evaluate a site for its content and technical performance.

As a result, an audit will give you a chance to inspect the robustness of your website’s technical framework and infrastructure.

It will also evaluate how friendly your website is to search engines and determine how easy it is for users to navigate your website to find the content they are looking for.

5. You can identify issues early.

Finally, a website audit finds issues that are hurting your SEO and conversions such as broken links, hidden content, and long page load speed times. Identifying these issues will help you address problems that are diverting traffic.

Assessing both the content and technical aspects of your website will open up opportunities to drastically improve the traffic and conversions your website generates.

Now that I’ve gone over what a website audit is and why you should do one, let’s look at how to conduct one.

1. Run the website URL through a site audit tool.

I’d start with a website auditing tool to help analyze how my site is performing. This can help test various important facets of a site and then provide specific recommendations.

2. Find technical errors.

Technical errors like ones related to performance, SEO, mobile, and security, can negatively impact a customers‘ experience on your website. If I notice visitors aren’t staying on a site for long, or I see a lot of abandoned shopping carts — a website audit is a great way to find out why.

3. Analyze design and UX.

How is the website design working for visitors and customers? Some software have heatmaps showing what parts of a site design draw the most attention. This type of analysis helps communicate how the overall design and user experience impact visitors.

Pro tip: Raquel González, SEO consultant and CEO/Founder at MintyConnect, recommends doing some hands-on work too: “While auditing tools are valuable, they may overlook critical UX elements. Complement their analysis by personally navigating the entire website. This hands-on approach reveals non-functional elements and user journey issues that automated tools might miss, ensuring a more thorough site evaluation.”

4. Assess website content.

An audit also helps me evaluate website content such as blogs, landing pages, product/service pages, among others.

During an audit, I’d want to know how the current pages are stacking up, identify areas of improvement, and ensure that the content targets readers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Going deeper, I’d also look at meta descriptions and review image alt text. Additionally, I’d ask: “Is my content ranking well in search engines?” and “Is my on-page SEO and performance aligned with my traffic numbers?”

5. Create a website audit report.

Creating a website audit report that clearly communicates the site issues found (and what to do about them) is an easy job when you have the right tools.

There are a number of choices available, and HubSpot’s Website Grader is one of the most user-friendly. It quickly and automatically generates a report after entering the web address you want to have crawled along with an email address.

For those with more technical experience, Semrsh’s Site Audit Tool is a very thorough reporting option, but getting started for free does require jumping through a few hoops.

You would need to create an account, answer some questions about yourself, and choose to skip a trial in order to create the free audit report.

Their in-depth report can look overwhelming unless you’re coming to the game with some technical chops.

Whichever reporting product you choose, it should provide a clear display of important website categories — such as SEO performance and the effectiveness of your security measures — and then list the individual issues along with recommended fixes.

Having a full website audit report in your hands enables you to start making improvements yourself or to efficiently send the information to the appropriate teams within your organization.

Pro tip: Preeti Gupta, B2B SaaS SEO consultant and founder of Packted, shares the following advice: “When presenting an audit report, I find it important to prioritize the recommendations based on the input you collected. I do this as simply as assigning priority to each task based on the resources it will take, the impact it will have, and more.”

Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website

First, go ahead and enter your website into HubSpot’s Website Grader — this will give you a general overview of your website’s strengths so you can gauge your focus on each of the assessments that follow in this article.

Check out HubSpot’s Website Grader

How’d you do? Got an idea of which website audit benefits you need the most? Here we go!

1. Website Performance Assessment

In the first part of your website audit, I’d focus on how users navigate your website — from your homepage to blog posts, to landing pages, and any related content in between.

Make a list of the pages on your website and ask yourself the following questions to evaluate them for optimization opportunities:

Is your website optimized for maximum usability?

The more visitors you can attract to your website, the more opportunities you’ll have to generate leads and, ultimately, customers. But only if your website performs well.

Just having a website does not guarantee results. As part of determining the overall efficiency of your website, your audit should check to make sure your site is designed with your visitors in mind.

The design and overall navigability of your website should correspond with what a person would come to the site to seek out, such as more information on a business-related topic, resources, product/pricing information, testimonials, etc. This will largely depend on your individual business.

The main goal here is to make it easy for people to get the information they‘re looking for. As a result, you’ll likely see conversion rates improve on their own.

To audit your website for usability, consider the following questions:

• Are all the main value propositions of our business easily accessible via our main navigations/menu items?
• Do we have a simple yet intuitive website design and page layout? Make sure pages aren’t too cluttered; littered with ads, CTAs, or links; or void of internal links altogether.
• Are your conversion paths and/or shopping cart or checkout processes intuitive? Are there a ton of distractions along the way that could be creating friction for your site visitors?

Consider doing some user testing with members of your target audience to ensure you‘re effectively surfacing the content they’re looking for and that they find it easy to navigate to the parts of your website they’re interested in.

How is your website’s overall speed?

Are there excessive page sizes or long page load and server response times? Does your site go down frequently? Site speed can be impacted when image files are too large or HTML and CSS needs to be cleaned up.

Ultimately, fast-loading and optimized pages will lead to higher visitor engagement, retention, and conversions. To quickly check a web page’s load time, download MozBar, a toolbar by Moz that you can attach to your browser for simple page analysis every time you visit a website.

2. SEO Assessment

Optimizing the performance of your website is crucial to holding onto visitors, but the above questions aren’t the only ones I’d be asking.

It’s also crucial to audit the content you‘re publishing to ensure it’s actually solving your visitors’ problems.

Is your website content high quality?

As you evaluate your content for quality, think about it from your target audience’s perspective:

• Did this information leave me satisfied?
• Did it answer all of my questions?
• Does it give me all the resources relevant to this topic?
• Do I know what to do next?

Keep in mind quality content should appeal to the interests, needs, and problems of your buyer personas. Present them with interesting and well-written content. Always aim to leave the reader with immediately actionable next steps such as calls-to-action or links to resources.

Is your website search engine optimized?

Make sure all your web pages are following on-page SEO best practices. To audit your content for on-page SEO, conduct a keyword analysis in which you do the following:

• Consult your analytics to review keyword performance. Which keywords are giving you the biggest gains in traffic and leads?
• Assess how well you’re factoring keyword performance into your content strategy. How much relevant content are you adding to your website to target those keywords?
• Review basic on-page SEO elements like URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, and copy. Make sure keywords are included where relevant.

Pro tip: To help you conduct an on-page SEO audit of your content, check out this blog. You can also download our free On-Page SEO template.

3. Conversion Rate Assessment

While high-quality, search-engine-optimized content is a great way to boost your traffic numbers, it’s what happens once those visitors are on your website that really counts.

This is where optimized calls-to-action (CTAs), marketing offers, and landing pages play a major role in the performance of your website.

Not only do they offer you opportunities to capture visitors’ information so you can follow up with leads, but they also keep your visitors engaged with your content and your brand.

To audit your website for maximum conversion potential, I’d ask the following questions:

• How many marketing offers do I have in my content arsenal to gate behind landing pages?
• Do I have a variety of marketing offers that appeal to all my different buyer personas?
• Do I have any landing pages/conversion forms on my website to begin with?
• How optimized are those landing pages?
• Do I have conversion opportunities for visitors in varying stages of the funnel?
• Am I using CTAs effectively? Am I missing opportunities to include CTAs on various pages of my website?

Pro tip: Erica Ylimäki, growth marketer at Trustmary, recommends the following: “Check for bulk optimization options for conversions … Some examples include aiming for a simpler conversion (such as getting visitors to sign up to a newsletter instead of getting them to register to your software) or trying out a new CTA placement (exit intent popups, above the fold, below the fold). In our case, adding a hero CTA to blog posts has been especially effective.”

4. Technical Assessment

Once you‘ve addressed the three primary goals of a website audit, it’s time to loop in a developer or someone from your IT department for a technical evaluation. You could also hire an outside agency — just be sure to do your homework first.

Keep in mind that there may be some carry-over from the three assessments above — website performance, SEO, and conversion rate. The technical evaluation, however, addresses all three to maximize the user experience (UX).

Here’s what I’d be looking for in the technical assessment stage of your website audit.

Is your website design responsive?

Does your website have a responsive design? Meaning, is it a mobile-friendly website?

Smartphone usage worldwide has grown exponentially, and it’s important for websites to be compatible with the rising demand.

Is your website error message free?

Are response code errors popping up all over your website where there shouldn’t be any? Calling out 302-, 404-, and 500-level response codes can be useful to tell users that something’s wrong.

However, having this happen is also an indication that someone isn’t cleaning up broken links and, as a result, leading users to dead ends. Find those error messages and clean up your broken links.

Are your website URLs optimized?

Does your site have URLs of excessive length due to keyword stuffing? Do they contain session IDs and/or include tons of dynamic parameters? In some cases, these URLs are difficult for search engines to index, resulting in lower clickthrough rates from search results.

Does your website have too much Flash or JavaScript?

Identify areas of your navigation that are entirely Flash or JavaScript. Search engines have challenges with reading and accessing these, which could prevent your site from getting indexed.

These elements also present problems from a usability perspective. Visitors are often looking for a very specific piece of information when visiting your site. If they have to sit through a 10-second visual introduction before they can find your hours of operation, you’re going to have a pretty frustrated visitor on your hands.

Is your site structure optimized for search engines?

We already talked about site structure as it relates to accessing content and usability for users, but it’s also important to make sure your site structure is optimal for search engines. If pages on your site are not internally linked to other pages on your site, those pages are less likely to be indexed.

Are you defining how your web pages are crawled and indexed by search engines?

This can be done through various methods that include everything from robots.txt files to sitemaps. These tools help you guide search engines toward your website’s most useful content.

Robots Meta Tags or robots.txt Files

The robots meta tag lets you use a granular, page-specific approach to controlling how an individual page should be indexed and served to users in search results. These tags should sit in the <head> section of a given page.

The robots.txt file, on the other hand, is a text file that allows you to specify how you would like your site to be crawled. Before crawling a website, search engine crawlers will generally request the robots.txt file from a server.

Within the robots.txt file, you can include sections for specific (or all) crawlers with instructions (“directives”) that let them know which parts should or should not be crawled.

Public and XML Sitemaps

Your website should also have public and XML sitemap files. The public sitemap is one that users can access to review the pages of your site, like the index of a book.

The XML sitemap is for search engines to review pages that get added to your site, all in one place. The usual location of a sitemap.xml file is www.domainname.com/sitemap.xml.

The XML sitemap is something every website should have. It offers an opportunity to tell Google and the other search engines which pages on your site you want to be crawled and indexed.

While search engines don’t guarantee they will abide by your sitemap, anecdotal evidence has proven time and time again that XML sitemaps help provide insurance that your pages are found, and found faster — especially if your sitemap(s) dynamically update your new web pages.

Are you defining the canonicalization of content?

The canonicalization of your website content is your final major technical consideration. To gain more control over how your URLs appear in search results — and to minimize issues related to duplicate content — you need to pick a canonical (preferred) URL as the preferred version of the page.

You can indicate your preference to Google in a number of ways. One such way is to insert the canonical tag (rel=“canonical”) in an HTTP header of a page.

Be sure to have someone check that the canonical tag is properly implemented across the site by making sure it points to the correct page, and that every page doesn’t point to the homepage.

Website Auditing Checklist

Before getting started, I’d use this basic website auditing checklist to review certain necessary elements of a site’s performance.

Website Audit Example

To pull all this together, I decided to run a website audit on one of my favorite bloggers, Christina Galbato.

Take a look at the image below. This website is performing well. SEO and mobile are scoring very high. The main areas for improvement for this site would be performance and security.

But, “What does this mean?” Well, let me dive in a little deeper. In each section, the website grader lets me know what I’m (or in this case Christina) is doing well and what could be improved upon.

Then, the grader gives recommendations to improve the site overall.

Next, there’s a table that helps compare the current site to the recommendations.

Wrapping up the Website Audit

At the beginning of the auditing process, I asked the important questions: “How am I doing?” and “How does my website compare to those of my competitors?”

Now, as I complete the audit, I’ll know the answers to those questions — and I’ll have actionable steps to improve my website, thus making it more competitive.

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

Good marketing is always about the customers, period. That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned from all my wins and losses as a marketer.

To launch successful marketing campaigns, you must know every detail about your audience — their goals, aspirations, pain points, and more. And building buyer personas is a good place to start.

I brainstormed with the team and curated 40 buyer persona interview questions to survey your audience and create accurate personas.

Once you have the data, use our free buyer persona template to share your findings with the rest of your company.

Table of Contents

• Why conduct buyer persona interviews?
• 3 Key Benefits of User Persona Surveys & Interviews
• 40 Best Buyer Persona Questions

Why conduct buyer persona interviews?

A buyer persona (or user persona) is a fictionalized representation of your target customer. It essentially gives you an overview of your buyers’ preferences, pain points, motivations, and more.

But even though buyer personas are fictional, you need real-life data to base each persona on. It has to represent your actual customers’ needs and aspirations accurately. That’s where buyer persona interviews and surveys will help you collect data to design these personas.

I use buyer persona surveys and questionnaires to gauge my audience’s needs.

My ideal starting point is choosing a sample group from my customer base. I’ll then share the survey with these participants to comprehensively understand their goals, challenges, jobs to be done, and more.

If you lack the resources to conduct a survey, I recommend using a market research platform like Qualtrics to conduct panels and interviews with your chosen participants.

Once you’ve decided whom you’re going to survey, you can pick specific questions to collect data related to:

• Demographics such as their age, education, occupation, and income.
• Psychographics such as their habits, beliefs, behaviors, and preferences (like shopping preferences).

This information can benefit businesses and brands looking to convert leads, personalize the customer experience, and improve their bottom line.

Here’s a buyer persona example to show how it works. I created this using HubSpot’s free Make My Persona tool.

3 Key Benefits of User Persona Surveys & Interviews

Buyer personas eliminate guesswork from your marketing strategy. These personas tell you the exact problems and aspirations of your target audience.

As a result, you can make data-driven decisions and launch campaigns tailored to your customers’ preferences. I rely heavily on buyer persona surveys to get a pulse of my audience and design accurate personas.

Here are some benefits I’ve experienced from asking the right persona questions.

1. I captured more high-quality leads.

Knowing your customers’ typical challenges and needs helps create campaigns that truly appeal to them. By discovering your target audience’s habits and challenges through persona interviews, you can accurately tailor your sales and marketing campaigns to the users most likely to buy from you.

2. I personalized the customer experience.

Personalizing the customer experience is one of the best ways to stay top-of-mind for potential customers and win their business.

Customers will be more likely to buy from you if they feel like you’re speaking directly to them. You can know them better through persona interviews and recognize their concerns. As a result, it becomes easier to create personalized messaging and connect with them at a deeper level.

3. I improved my bottom line.

Buyer personas can significantly improve your bottom line by maximizing lead generation and driving conversions. These personas will also inform your strategy to deliver a positive and targeted customer experience.

The result? Higher customer retention and brand loyalty.

Pro tip: Build a laser-focused content marketing strategy to generate top-of-funnel interest in your brand. Check out the free content marketing training resources in the HubSpot Academy to build your content strategy today.

Download our free buyer persona template here to learn how to create buyer personas for your business.

Download Now

Questions About Their Personal Background

Knowing your buyers’ backgrounds gives you crucial insights into their interests, upbringing, communication style, and other preferences.

In my experience, understanding personal background gives you some much-needed cultural context to positively influence your target buyers.

This is your opportunity to ask buyer persona interview questions related to their education and work experiences, demographics, and personal interests.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ personal interests:

1. What is your educational background?
2. Share how your career path led you to your current role.
3. Where are you located? How does that influence your work?
4. What is your preferred style of communication?

Questions About Their Company

I always collect information about the company where my target buyers work.

This can include data about the company size, business goals, and challenges faced. This data gives me specific insights to tailor my communication for each buyer based on their work environment.

Besides, when you know the necessary details about your persona’s company, like the number of employees, you can quickly outline the fields for your landing page forms.

Here are some questions I include about the buyers’ company:

5. What industry does your company operate in?
6. How big is your company in terms of revenue and number of employees?
7. What are the primary goals your company is trying to achieve this year?
8. What are the major challenges your company faces in the current market?

Questions About Their Role

The importance of your buyer persona‘s job depends on the product or service you’re selling.

If you‘re a B2C company, you may simply consider this information as another way to better understand the nuances of your persona’s life.

If you’re a B2B company, this information becomes more crucial. Think about the many moving parts for a B2B buyer — are your personas working at a managerial or director level, and are they well-versed in the intricacies of this industry?

Experienced buyers will need less education than someone at an introductory level, who may need to loop in other decision-makers before making purchasing decisions.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ roles:

9. What is your job title, and how long have you been in this position?
10. What are your primary responsibilities?
11. What does a typical day look like in this role?
12. What knowledge and tools do you use in your job?
13. What are the biggest challenges you face in your day-to-day work?

Pro tip: Try to make these persona interview questions as close-ended as possible. This will bring more objectivity in your buyer personas, and you can quote specific data points about each persona’s role.

Questions About Buyer Goals

Identifying buyers’ goals and motivations is important to define specific outcomes for your messaging. I use this data to identify the key benefits to emphasize for each type of buyer.

You should know what success looks like for your buyers. Understanding their notions of success will help you position your product/service as a more relevant offering. Besides, knowing how buyers measure success will help you demonstrate the specific value they’re looking for.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ goals:

14. What are your main objectives when considering a product or service like ours?
15. How does your team or company define success for purchases like this?
16. What would make you a champion for the product internally?
17. Are there specific KPIs you need to meet with this purchase?
18. How do you measure success in your role specifically?

Questions About How Buyers Learn

If you’re going to market and sell to these personas, you need to understand how they consume information.

I typically start by collecting information about their required upskilling at work. You can also explore their preferred learning formats, like detailed reports, blog posts, short videos, and podcasts. Ask relevant questions to identify their trusted learning sources, whether it’s industry experts or research platforms.

Your goal should be to understand their learning style entirely. Here are some questions I include about buyers’ buying journey:

19. What type of content or resources do you prefer to learn more about a concept?
20. Where do you typically find information to help you make buying decisions?
21. What publications and thought leaders do you follow for industry insights?
22. Do you attend any industry events or conferences for learning?
23. Which communities and social networks do you participate in?

Pro tip: I recommend doing independent research to learn how your target buyers learn before framing these questions. You can identify and explore the most popular resources and communities for your buyers. This way, you can skip the obvious questions and focus on collecting more meaningful information.

Questions About Their Shopping Preferences

You should understand your buyers’ evaluation process when making a purchase.

Before buying a product, you need to get a behind-the-scenes look at their analysis. Ask about the avenues they use to find information, such as online searches, review websites, network recommendations, and more.

If you can anticipate the objections your persona will have, you can be prepared for them in the sales process. You will also be able to educate them in your marketing collateral to help allay fears right away.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ shopping preferences:

24. Describe a recent purchase from start to finish.
25. How do you typically find, research, and evaluate vendors or products?
26. What factors are most important when making a purchase decision?
27. How do you prefer to interact with potential vendors?
28. What makes you trust a brand enough to purchase from them?

Questions About Values

Your buyers’ values are central to purchasing decisions. You can stand out among sellers by showcasing your commitment to the core values your buyers believe in. I’ve observed how this value alignment can also win buyers’ trust in the long term and build loyalty.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ values:

29. What values or ethics guide your buying decisions?
30. What would make you loyal to a brand over time?
31. How important is it that a company aligns with your values?
32. Are there social or environmental issues that you prioritize when choosing products?

Questions About Pains and Challenges

Buyers’ pain points are a critical part of your personas. When you know their problems and challenges, you can offer specific solutions that resonate with them. It makes your pitch unique and shows you’ve done your homework.

Plus, it’s good to understand the solutions they’ve tried in the past, but they didn’t work. You can empathize with them and present your offering as a better alternative to eliminate all frustrations.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ pain points:

33. What are the biggest challenges or pain points you face in your role?
34. How are these challenges affecting your ability to meet your goals?
35. Have you tried solutions in the past that didn’t work? What were they lacking?
36. What would solving these challenges mean for your business or role?

Questions About Their Environment

A buyer’s environment typically involves their work setup and the industry they operate in.

Knowing these details makes it easier to identify their priorities and fit your offering in their preferred context. For example, remote workers will focus on greater collaboration, while in-person employees may need better equipment.

I always include some of these persona interview questions to understand market trends and shifts in my buyers’ space.

Here are some questions I include about buyers’ environments:

37. How does your work environment impact your buying decisions?
38. How does your company adapt to shifts in the market or industry?
39. Are there any market trends or external factors influencing your company’s strategy?
40. What tools or technology do you currently use? Are there any limitations impacting your performance?

Pick the right buyer persona interview questions.

Building buyer personas can help you create a customer-first marketing strategy and tailor your messaging to their goals and aspirations. I use buyer personas to prepare the groundwork for every campaign I launch.

After creating dozens of buyer persona surveys and interviews, I’ve handpicked these buyer persona interview questions. Use these to survey a small sample of your target audience and collect crucial data to define your buyer personas.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

B2B ecommerce is a thriving industry. Growing at a rate of over 10% each year, B2B ecommerce will generate over $3 billion in sales by 2027.

However, no matter how familiar you are with B2C (business-to-consumer) ecommerce, selling to businesses is an entirely different beast.

I wanted to find out how exactly B2B ecommerce strategies differ from B2C ones, the different types of B2B ecommerce channels, and how to successfully market a B2B business, so I talked to the people who know it best.

Here’s how to get your B2B ecommerce strategy right, according to industry experts.

Table of Contents

• What is B2B ecommerce?
• Types of B2B Ecommerce
• B2B Ecommerce vs. B2C Ecommerce
• 3 Top B2B Ecommerce Marketing Strategies
• B2B Ecommerce Examples

B2B Ecommerce vs. B2C Ecommerce

There’s more than just a single-letter difference between B2B and B2C ecommerce. Everything from sales to customer acquisition to ecommerce trends is different when you’re selling to businesses online.

To better understand how B2B ecommerce differs — and can be more challenging — I spoke to a few experts.

Buying Cycle

For starters, the B2B ecommerce buying cycle is much longer than B2C.

Steve Hutt, the founder of eCommerceFastlane, suggests the process can stretch anywhere from three to nine months, depending on the industry. There are several reasons for this.

For one, B2B ecommerce involves multiple decision-makers. Even if you’re only in contact with one person, they need to get buy-in from their team.

Instead of selling to a single customer with a single need, you’re essentially selling to a team of people who may have multiple challenges to address. The approval process can take time on their end, which means B2B sellers also need to be flexible.

“This extended timeline requires patience and a strategic approach to nurturing leads,” says Hutt.

Order Value

Another key difference is the average order value (AOV). When you’re dealing with higher-priced goods or services or bulk orders through wholesale, each sale carries more weight. Where sales volume might be the goal in B2C ecommerce, order value is prioritized in B2B ecommerce sales.

“According to recent industry data, the average B2B order value sits at $491, compared to the average B2C order of $147,” explains Hutt. “This higher value reflects the bulk purchasing common in B2B transactions and underscores the importance of each sale.”

Pricing

Similarly, pricing is also a major difference between B2B ecommerce and B2C. B2C customers typically expect a straightforward, fixed price on whatever they’re purchasing, whereas B2B pricing structures are more fluid, suggests Gianluca Ferruggia, the general manager at online B2B marketplace DesignRush.

“We’re often adjusting prices based on volume, specific contract terms, or ongoing negotiations,” says Ferruggia. “This makes transparent pricing a real challenge, and is a stark difference from the B2C world.”

Onboarding Process

Another difference I heard from ecommerce experts is the onboarding process. B2B products often have greater technical complexity, which leads to longer onboarding processes.

“In some industries, this can extend up to three months,” says Hutt. “However, this complexity also allows businesses to showcase their expertise and provide value through comprehensive support.”

Customer Retention

Customer retention also tends to be higher for B2B companies compared to B2C. When you consider how long the sales and onboarding processes are, not to mention the AOV being higher, it makes sense that customers invest longer.

“This higher retention rate emphasizes the long-term nature of B2B relationships,” says Hutt.

Data from SaaS Capital found that B2B SaaS companies have a median gross retention rate of 91%. Another report found that B2B industries like manufacturing have a 67% customer retention rate.

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Before you can venture into B2B digital commerce, it’s important to understand how the industry is broken down. There are several types of B2B ecommerce channels. I want to highlight the most common types here.

1. Wholesale

B2B wholesale is a model where businesses sell goods or services in bulk to other businesses. Wholesale prices are typically offered at a discount for bulk purchases.

The goods are then sold to consumers at retail price for a profit. Businesses can sell wholesale from their own ecommerce site or use a B2B marketplace like Alibaba or Amazon Business.

2. Manufacturers

Manufacturers are businesses that create goods and products from raw materials, usually at their own factory or warehouse.

Manufacturers can sell directly to customers or work with a partner, like a distributor, to help them sell their products.

3. Distributors

Distributors work with manufacturers to sell the manufactured product to customers. Distributors use ecommerce marketing channels to promote the manufacturer’s goods in an effort to increase sales.

4. B2B Marketplace

B2B marketplaces are a growing (and thriving) sector of B2B ecommerce.

These marketplaces are online platforms that allow businesses to sell to each other. Think of them as retail platforms designed just for businesses rather than consumers.

According to Statista, Amazon Business and Alibaba are leading platforms among generalist B2B marketplaces. There are also specialized B2B marketplaces, such as DesignRush, which connects service providers with companies.

5. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is another popular type of B2B ecommerce. This business model involves companies paying a fee, either monthly or annually, to another company for access to the latter’s software.

Companies like HubSpot, Microsoft, and Dropbox are just a few examples of B2B SaaS platforms.

3 Top B2B Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

If you’re in the B2B digital commerce space and curious about how to improve your marketing, I asked the experts for their top ecommerce marketing strategies for B2B companies.

Strategy #1: Email Nurture Campaigns

As I mentioned earlier, the B2B sales cycle is much longer than the typical B2C process. Sellers must be actively engaged with prospects throughout the cycle if they want to stay on their radar.

This is where email nurture campaigns can be beneficial.

Tools like Opensend and Retention can help you identify potential customers after they’ve visited your website, i.e., when buyers are in their research phase, and target them with personalized outreach.

“Once we identify these potential leads, we initiate a personalized ‘Thanks for visiting’ campaign,” says Hutt. “We integrate the newly discovered email addresses into our email service provider (ESP), like Klaviyo, to start nurturing campaigns. This approach helps maintain brand visibility throughout the longer B2B sales cycle.”

Strategy #2: Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing (ABM) has also gained a lot of traction in B2B ecommerce, and for a good reason.

Personalization in sales is more important than ever, especially when 75% of B2B buyers prefer a self-service experience over working directly with a sales rep.

This means that when you do have an opportunity to meet with a prospect, your pitch must be tailored to their business needs to make the most of their time.

B2B sellers must show their commitment by regularly engaging with customers, offering tailored insights, adapting to their evolving needs, and giving buyers personalized marketing content that speaks to their pain points.

Being proactive with your marketing fosters loyalty and creates opportunities to add value to the relationship.

“For high-value accounts, ABM is a great way to provide value through a personalized content cadence that speaks directly to each stakeholder’s unique challenges,” says Belinda Conde, head of marketing at Datos, a Semrush Company.

“One thing I’ve found especially important in B2B is focusing on problem-solving rather than feature-selling. It’s about providing value first — helping your audience tackle their pain points before you even ask for anything in return.”

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Strategy #3: Educational Content

I heard from a lot of experts that educational, hyper-relevant content is essential for any B2B ecommerce marketing strategy.

A B2B buyer wants to see evidence such as case studies, ROI calculators, and industry-specific guides. They want proof that your solution doesn’t just sound good but works in practice and for businesses like theirs, shares Paul Drecksler, an ecommerce expert and the founder of Shopifreaks.

“B2B ecommerce marketing is about meeting [customers] where they are and saying, ‘We get your world, and here’s exactly how we fit into it,’” he says.

Drecksler shares one marketing campaign that stuck out to him. “I remember one campaign that focused on segmented landing pages with tailored messaging for each industry,” he recalls.

“Each page had its own set of statistics, examples, and testimonials specific to that sector — whether it was healthcare, finance, or logistics — and each vertical got a narrative that showed an understanding of their unique challenges and priorities.”

B2B Ecommerce Examples

If you’re looking for inspiration for your ecommerce business, I’ve collected a few B2B ecommerce examples that I found helpful.

In my opinion, these companies showcase how to tailor content, landing pages, and user experience to a B2B buyer in an impactful way.

Microsoft

Microsoft showcases its use cases for different industries by creating industry-specific landing pages. They outline their solutions for healthcare, education, finance, and more.

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What I like most is the way Microsoft markets its AI solutions. They have a section on their website that is tailored to business leaders.

I like that this campaign speaks to a specific buyer and breaks down the AI use cases that business leaders seek, like boosting productivity, optimizing efficiency, and driving more value across the business.

Faire

Faire is a B2B wholesale platform that connects independent retailers and brands. Even though I’m neither a retailer nor do I sell products, I’ve been a longtime fan of the Faire platform. I personally love its branding and messaging.

To me, it’s clear Faire knows its target market and tailors everything from its imagery to its copy to that customer.

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I especially like how the website is organized. Wholesale customers can browse different products by categories, bestsellers, or even based on the values that align with their brand.

Grainger

Grainger is a leading distributor of industrial supplies and equipment. The business operates retail stores and an ecommerce site for businesses of all sizes to shop for the tools and parts they need for a job.

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My favorite part about Grainger’s ecommerce experience is the bulk order process. The simple feature is straightforward and mimics an order pad you’d see a salesperson use in-store. Buyers can easily browse the product catalog, add the item numbers and quantities to their bulk orders, and make their purchases.

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Shopify

Shopify regularly shares educational content for sellers across its blog and social media. This marketing content showcases Shopify’s deep industry knowledge and how its specific features can help businesses improve their sales.

For example, this LinkedIn carousel from Shopify breaks down three platform features that Shopify merchants can use to optimize their shipping strategy during Black Friday shopping.

This speaks to one of their customer’s pain points — keeping up with the influx of sales during the holiday season — and showcases how Shopify can help.

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Check out HubSpot’s Commerce Software to launch your B2B ecommerce business online.

What I Learned About B2B Ecommerce

While I initially began this article thinking B2B ecommerce was wildly different from B2C ecommerce, I learned that they have a lot in common.

B2B ecommerce is built off of the same principles as any other ecommerce — selling products or services — but the channels, processes, pricing, and marketing strategies are different.

Like consumer ecommerce, it’s critical to understand your audience when you’re in the B2B ecommerce space. When you understand their pain points, perceived value, and what they’re looking for in a partner, you can optimize your ecommerce experience to suit their needs.

On a recent Marketing Against the Grain podcast episode, HubSpot founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah sat down with hosts Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan to discuss the rise of AI agents.

When I heard the term “AI agents,” I thought of little robots sneaking around like spies, completing tasks for marketers.

Obviously, that‘s not completely true (they don’t wear suits), but they are very helpful to marketers and are predicted to greatly improve their efficiency and productivity.

AI agents are the latest AI trends to crop in sales and marketing, but are they worth it? Let’s get into some of the points covered in the episode:

• What is an AI agent?
• When to Use AI Agents
• AI Agents in Content Marketing
• Concerns with AI Agents

What is an AI agent?

According to Shah, an AI agent is a piece of software that uses AI to accomplish a multi-step goal.

“There are varying definitions of what an AI agent actually is,” he says. “There is a spectrum of capabilities. You have very simple agents and sophisticated agents that do multi-agent things and reasoning.”

But whether we’re talking about simple AI agents or more complex ones, the standout feature is their ability to carry out multistep goals that require different functions. According to Shah, this capability separates them from AI tools such as ChatGPT.

Think of it like this: When I use an AI tool like ChaGPT, it’s a simple back-and-forth interaction. I make a request, and the chatbot responds.

“Whereas with an agent, you’re giving it a higher order goal, and it may need to invoke Language Modeling (LM) or multiple LMs and use other AI tools and some classic tools to pull together whatever goal you’re trying to accomplish.”

A simple way to think about it is that AI agents are the next generation of automation tools to streamline marketing workflows and tasks.

When to Use AI Agents

So, when should you use an AI agent instead of a standard AI tool like a chatbot? This is actually what I find most interesting about the podcast‘s discussion of AI agents.

When we think of AI, it’s hard to banish the thought (fear) of it replacing humans. However, Shah explains that an AI agent is most helpful when a human is needed to kick off the task, but many steps can be taken without human intervention.

For example, let’s say a small business owner wants to route leads in their CRM using ChatGPT. They could plug customer data into ChatGPT to see what the chatbot generates.

However, if they want to take things a step further, they could use an AI Agent to bring them the most recent company numbers added to the CRM to conduct research.

They could then write rules about how they want the lead writing to happen.

“This is all doable with today’s technology and AI agents,” Shah says.

Essentially, AI agents should be used when “you know what to do manually, and you could do it manually—but you want to automate some of those steps instead of trying to do this kind of one-off shot with ChatGPT,” according to Shah.

AI Agents in Content Marketing

If you‘re a content creator and marketer like him, you’re probably curious about how AI agents can help in the realm of content marketing, such as creating blog content, social media posts, videos, and graphics.

I‘ve said in the past that marketers should think of AI as a digital assistant. If that’s the case (and it is), think of AI agents as your digital team.

“The really exciting thing about these agents is that they can actually use each other,” Shah explains.

Shah mentions generative AI tools as an example and the need for images generated for your business to adhere to a style and color palette specific to your brand.

“So, I built an agent called a Color Palette Extractor,” he says. “It’s a very simple agent. All you do is give it the home page or any web page. It will take a screenshot of that web page, determine which colors are used, and give you a palette proportional to the percentage of real estate that color took.”

In other words, the AI agent will generate a color palette based on the web page you fed it.

You can then take the color palette that the agent produced and pass it to another agent that will incorporate that palette to generate images or other content.

“So that’s the composing two agents that didn’t know anything about each other until you glued them together creatively,” he says.

From there, you can take the image and run it through a LinkedIn post generator, incorporating the results of the previous two agents. That’s three agents working together as a team to generate content for your business.

Concerns with AI Agents

Listening to the podcast, Shah, Bodnar, and Flanagan’s excitement about the possibilities presented by AI agents was impossible to ignore.

Shan event mentions a future where AI agents could be treated almost as salaried employees and a natural part of marketing teams.

“Some day, agents are going to have a salary that is, say, $2.00 a month, or whatever the price tag happens to be,” he says.

While I mentioned earlier that humans are still needed when using AI agents, there are concerns about what a human‘s role could look like if we’re talking about teams of AI agents.

Personally, I think an explanation would be that human marketers will still be integral to the marketing process even with the addition of AI agents, they just need to amp up their skills and consider a supervising role.

Think about it: Even the greatest teams need a leader and supervisor.

Jeremy Kahn, AI editor at Fortune Magazine, seems to share my sentiment in an interview with Fortunate Magazine.

“We need to redefine human roles, focusing on higher-level skills for supervising systems. I anticipate people will oversee multiple AI systems simultaneously, serving as both guides and judges of these systems’ outputs,” Kahn says.

So, are AI agents worth the investment?

I think any technological advances that can streamline processes, free up time for marketers, and keep their businesses competitive are worth the investment. However, with great AI advancements comes great responsibility. 

In pretty much every post I’ve ever written about AI (and I‘ve written a lot), I’ve said that AI best practices include overlooking, proofing, and adding a human touch to every AI-generated output. And that doesn’t change with the use of AI agents.

In fact, I think it’s even more important to supervise your team of AI agents and tools because more machines involved means more cooks in the kitchen.

So, yes, look into AI agents and consider ways they can make your life easier as a marketer or business owner. Just make sure you’re supervising your team of agents. 

While I’m not a business owner and haven’t branded my own business, I’ve been an employee at companies that have undergone large-scale rebrands.

Most recently, Nickelodeon, where I work full-time in marketing, pulled off a rebranding strategy in 2023 for the first time in 14 years.

We brought back the “splat,” a shape inspired by Nickelodeon’s iconic green slime, as a tactic to tap into both kids and their nostalgic parents who are former 90s Nick Kids themselves. This was part of an effort to position Nickelodeon as a brand that brings families across generations together to enjoy quality time.

In my opinion, this is an example of a company rebranding correctly and out of necessity. In a competitive entertainment landscape fighting for kids’ attention, Nickelodeon knew we couldn’t keep doing more of the same.

Sometimes (but not all the time!), one of the best ways to move forward is by leaning on and adapting past successes.

It’s not easy to know when is the right time to invest in a rebrand and how to handle that rebrand successfully, so I‘ve prepared this post to help guide the process, plus examples of other brands who’ve successfully rebranded their website, name, logo, mission, and purpose.

Table of Contents

• What is rebranding?
• Rebranding Strategy
• How to Rebrand a Company
• Rebranding Examples
• The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Rebrand
• Partial vs. Total Rebrand
• Bad Rebranding Examples

Understanding what rebranding is is only part of the battle. Now, you must ensure you have the right reasons to rebrand.

The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Rebrand

Rebrands are complicated and carry big risks.

Even big brands aren’t immune — just look at X, which is considered one of the biggest recent rebranding fails. Elon Musk rebranded Twitter as X in 2023 by renaming and restyling the entire brand.

As a result, 78% of U.S. iOS users gave the app 1-star reviews, compared to 50% two weeks prior. Most of the negative reviews mentioned disliking the new name and logo.

While it will take time to see the true long-term effects of this rebranding, it’s clear that abrupt, random changes to brands with generally positive sentiments and long-standing reputations can be incredibly detrimental.

That’s why knowing the risks of rebranding can help determine whether or not you’re jumping into a rebrand for the right reasons.

If sales have been slow or brand awareness efforts don’t seem to be paying off, rebranding may not be the best immediate step.

These issues can potentially be solved with a new content marketing strategy or by conducting market research to identify the underlying cause.

But if you‘re considering a rebrand because your company’s vision, mission, values, and market are no longer reflected in your brand, then a rebrand might be the right decision.

There are a few other major reasons you might consider a rebrand. I will demonstrate these reasons using my fictitious indoor cycling business, Psyched 2 Cyc.

4 Right Reasons for Rebranding

New Locations

Psyched 2 Cyc started as a singular, local studio in New York City, so I selected a punny name that likely only works in English.

After growing throughout NYC and the country, my business is now looking to expand to non-English, international markets that may not identify with the business name. This could be a good time to consider a full brand rename.

Market Repositioning

The name Psyched 2 Cyc was chosen with young fitness enthusiasts at heart — hence the abbreviated word “Cyc” and the use of “2” instead of “to.”

But I’d now like to target older consumers interested in improving their fitness with a low-impact workout like indoor cycling.

Thus, I may need to refresh my brand name (or consider rewriting it in full as Psyched to Cycle) to better resonate with people of all ages.

New Philosophy

I started my business as primarily an indoor cycling studio. Thus, our mission, vision, and values all surround the idea of fitness, health, and wellness through the use of an indoor bike.

If I want to expand my business to include another modality, such as strength, yoga, or running, it makes sense to want to reevaluate my brand. That way, I can build new MVVs that align with the growing business offerings.

Mergers and Acquisitions

To grow my business, audience, and offerings, I have partnered with a strength training studio, Sweat Power.

Combining our two brands either means that we agree to adopt the branding of one of the studios, or we must work together to come up with a new name, logo, and positioning that best reflects our new brand.

Additionally, here are a few reasons not to rebrand.

4 Wrong Reasons for Rebranding

Boredom

It’s been more than two decades, and I’m feeling uninspired by the logo and slogan I selected back when I first launched Psyched 2 Cyc. I’m itching for some change that will refresh my business and make it look more elevated.

However, my customers (who see my branding much less frequently) might love — or quickly recognize — the signature color and logo I’ve come to loathe. I should consider how a sudden change to my branding could leave consumers confused or disappointed.

Covering Up a Crisis

One of my business’s executives recently received bad press that has reflected badly on Psyched 2 Cyc. I’m desperate for a big rebranding shift that will help us move past this period of negativity.

However, most consumers and employees are smart enough to see right through my rebrand and recognize it for what it is — a cover-up. It’s best to handle bad press with respect, authenticity, and actionable change.

Impact and Ego

I’ve recently hired some new leaders who are excited about a rebranding as they feel they were brought in to help freshen up Psyched 2 Cyc’s brand. They want to refresh our mission statement and values.

However, the kind of institutional change they want to implement doesn’t justify a rebrand. It’s more about them making their mark and producing radical change.

Looking for Attention

Classes have been half-full at best, and several instructors have recently quit. I’m tempted to execute a rebrand to bring life back to the brand and encourage new instructors to want to teach at Psyched 2 Cyc.

At best, this may generate some short-term buzz without any sales and marketing strategy to sustain it. At worst, I could lose brand recognition and set back sales and marketing efforts even more.

If you’ve determined a rebrand is still the right choice for you, keep reading to learn how to devise a rebranding strategy.

Rebranding efforts may include:

1. Creating a new logo.

One of the main strategies of rebranding is creating a new logo. A new logo is a clear sign to consumers that your brand’s identity is different. A new logo can involve new colors, modern typography, or a new icon that better represents your brand.

Pro tip: Use your brand’s vision, mission, and values to inspire your new aesthetic. For instance, Pepsi rebranded in 2023 for the first time in 14 years for its 125th anniversary.

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The logo still uses the essence of the past logo, which helps maintain consistency and brand recognition with loyal customers. However, the new logo incorporates bolder colors and a vintage appearance that ties back to the company’s long heritage.

I also appreciate that the logo is now more compact, making it easier to place on products and ads. Lastly, Pepsi has made its brand name much easier to read in the new logo, in all-caps and bold black font, rather than the blue, wavy, lower-case previous version.

2. Shifting brand position.

Unfortunately, rebranding isn’t as easy as hiring an agency to redesign your logo. It’s essential to shift your brand positioning.

The products, services, or content being marketed need to communicate a certain message, whether that’s a mission, values, or vision.

This is the best way to set your brand apart from competitors and draw in consumers aligned with these beliefs.

Pro tip: Chances are, you’ll need to reestablish a unique selling proposition and take stock of what distinguishes your brand from the crowd. This will help you better connect with you target audience and understand your position in the market.

In 2015, Gucci shifted its brand positioning to appeal to younger generations. To do this, they pivoted from polished and provocative to quirky and contemporary. They also focused more on communication that would resonate on Instagram and adopted a progressive stance on gender fluidity.

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These changes significantly increased sales with Millennial and Gen Z consumers who were able to better resonate with Gucci’s mission, values, and vision.

3. Creating new ads.

Once the logo and messaging are locked, it’s time to create new advertisements and content with this messaging in mind.

These ads should communicate the changes to your brand and what they mean for customers. This can help draw in a new demographic and reach larger audiences.

Pro tip: New logos and messaging will only go far if you can invest in marketing to show the world these rebranding changes. For instance, Eurostar rebranded in 2023 after merging with Thalys, a French-Belgian high-speed train operator, as part of a goal to reach 30 million passengers by 2030.

After updating visual elements, the brand, now Eurostar Group, created an ad campaign around the slogan “Together We Go Further,” involving a promo, out-of-home, and digital.

The campaign highlighted the brand’s key traits — European, inclusive, unique, and sustainable — to emphasize the excitement of discovering a vibrant world of travel through Europe.

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The overall rebranding strategy resulted in route growth in 2023 in major routes, such as Paris to London and Paris to Amsterdam, as well as an increase in online sales, website conversions, and mobile app downloads.

4. Changing your brand’s voice.

The last step of a solid rebranding strategy is changing the brand‘s voice.

This is the perspective from which you write all your marketing content. Your voice can be formal, casual, witty, or whatever tone best reflects your brand. Change your brand’s voice accordingly and announce your rebrand in this new tone.

Pro tip: Think of your brand as a person. When they walk into a party, are they cracking jokes and the life of the party, or are they professional and no-nonsense? Use your brand personality to inform this brand voice.

Duolingo began as a traditional language learning app and has since evolved into a silly, humorously-aggressive brand. Users started creating memes in 2019 about the evil owl mascot, Duo, who would berate them to practice.

The brand leaned into this personality and adapted its brand voice to fit this new persona.

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The brand voice is now very quirky, personable, and young, and, at times, leans into the “evil Duo” voice which has made it ultra-popular on social media.

Embracing this brand voice has aided Duolingo’s entire rebranding strategy, as it now leans on the voice to dictate its brand identity, marketing methods, goals, and target audience.

Not all rebrands are created equal, so let’s first consider whether a partial or total rebrand is the best option for your business.

Partial vs. Total Rebrand

The more established your business and brand, the more you have to lose from a rebrand. If your business is more mature, a partial rebrand can help you retain the brand loyalty you’ve built, while refreshing your image to keep up with the times.

Think of a partial rebrand as an adjustment focused on visual brand identity to suit new offerings or markets, as opposed to a complete identity crisis.

That‘s not to say that a partial rebrand can’t be effective. Just look at Pringles.

They redesigned their mascot, Mr. P, in 2021 with a more simple, contemporary look. This partial rebrand helped them maintain their iconic brand identity while giving their mascot a bold, refreshed appearance.

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However, if the goal is a complete identity shift involving your company’s mission, vision, and values, a total rebrand might be necessary.

This option is typically suited to situations like mergers, product overhauls, and other similarly foundational shifts.

If a partial rebrand is a quick touch-up, the total rebrand is a complete makeover.

Take a look at the following five steps to successfully implement a rebrand.

1. Reestablish your brand’s audience and market.

Let’s return to my fictional indoor cycling business, Psyched 2 Cyc. When I got into this business, I expected my target audience to be in their 20s and early 30s, since that is the most common demographic for other cycling studios like SoulCycle.

However, after extensive market research, I realized my target market was different from what I had assumed.

Key research found that 50% of respondents spend less than 10 minutes traveling to cycling classes, and 92% complete the trip in under 30 minutes. That means only 8% of participants are willing to travel more than 30 minutes to my studio.

This has changed my entire philosophy since the neighborhood my studio launched in has a slightly older demographic (30s-40s adults with families).

Now, I can re-establish my brand’s audience and market, knowing I will have the most luck drawing in new members who live within 30 (or ideally 10!) minutes of the studio.

Pro tip: Focus groups are a great way to discover (or re-discover) your target market. You may be surprised to find that your audience isn’t who you thought it was.

2. Redefine your company’s vision, mission, and values.

What am I doing? How am I doing it? Why am I doing it?

These are the three questions I will ask myself when reevaluating my vision, mission, and values for Psyched 2 Cyc’s rebrand. These messaging foundations will likely change as my company grows.

New products, priorities, services, or stakeholders can completely undo what once seemed like a given.

Here is how I will analyze the following factors to gauge which parts of my brand will need some TLC.

Vision

Vision is the “What am I doing?” of the puzzle. It’s the North Star for every action my company undertakes, and it’s critical to have a firm understanding of my vision before moving forward.

Originally when I founded Psyched 2 Cyc, I simply wanted to build a new cycling studio since it’s a modality I love. Now that I have established my brand in this way, I can adapt my vision to be more specific or forward-thinking.

I founded the studio originally to target women since women are a large portion of indoor cycling participants. After all, 67% of U.S. Peloton owners are women, and women are the fastest-growing demographic in indoor cycling in 2024, with a 9% increase in cycling activities.

However, now that I’ve established my brand in the eyes of women, I’d like to rebrand to be more inclusive to both men and women.

Just because women are a large percentage of indoor cycling enthusiasts doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for men here, too.

Mission

The mission is the “How am I doing it?” component. This is my company’s roadmap for how we will achieve the vision of drawing in more males to my brand.

I’m interested in adding a virtual component to my brand since 26% of Les Mills survey respondents regularly attend virtual indoor cycling classes. On top of that, data found that men are more likely to attend virtual classes than women.

This could be a great way to draw in men who may not be as inclined to take classes in a live studio but would be interested in doing so at home.

My mission is to incorporate virtual classes to target more men in a predominantly female space.

Values

Values are the “Why am I doing this” element. It’s why I’m working towards my vision and dedicated to my mission.

Now that I have adapted my vision and mission, I should accordingly adapt my values to align with this new strategy. For example, I will incorporate the following new values:

• Raise the bar. This is both a play on words (since the handlebar is a key part of any bike) and a commitment to continuously compete with yesterday’s performance.
• Room for all. This again has a dual meaning: as I embark on a journey to create a more inclusive space for all people in a predominantly young, female environment, this value will be essential. But it also indicates that Psyched 2 Cyc will create a literal “room” for all; whether in our studio room or your room at home taking a virtual class.

Understandably, some of my founding values might become unsustainable. It’s more effective to prioritize new values rather than cling to past ones, which may limit change.

Brand Voice

Now that I’ve shifted my vision, mission, and values while rebranding, how I convey these aspects of my company will also have to change. What I’m saying is changing, so how I say it will also need to change.

For instance, I have been using a tone of voice that’s young, modern, and feminine. Now that I’m shifting to target a slightly older demographic and males, I will want to adapt my language to be more attractive to these audiences.

3. Rename your company during a rebrand.

Changing names is a big undertaking and can cost brand recognition and organic search traffic in one fell swoop. I would only rename Psyched 2 Cyc if it’s a dire need and I had a plan for recovery as part of my post-rebrand strategy.

As mentioned earlier, I selected the name to attract a younger audience, which is why I used “2” instead of “to” and the shortened term “Cyc.”

Perhaps, in wanting to rebrand to attract my slightly older target audience, I may reconsider changing the name to resonate better with the residents in the surrounding area.

Ideally, the best course of action is to keep the same name to retain brand recognition, but if I want to better align with my new company identity, I can return to the drawing board.

Pro tip: It can be difficult to begin your brainstorming session. Some starter ideas for the renaming process are:

• Make a new word
• Use an old word in new ways
• Say what I do (literally)
• Modify a word’s spelling
• Add a prefix or suffix
• Look to other languages
• Bring two words together
• Create an acronym
• Use a location

4. Reconsider your brand’s slogan.

A good slogan is catchy and will capture my company’s mission and vision. Unlike changing names, changing slogans is a little easier for my marketing efforts, so I won’t lose sight of my existing customers tied to the Psyched 2 Cyc brand.

That doesn’t mean I won’t still consider this carefully and ensure I’m changing the slogan for the right reasons.

Repetition builds recognition, and I don’t want to change too many aspects of my brand that people have come to love and remember.

An idea for a new slogan for Psyched 2 Cyc that can better represent my new mission and vision would be “Spin, Your Way.”

This highlights the purpose (an indoor cycling studio) and emphasizes that we are trying to be more inclusive and that there is space for anyone, regardless of age, ability, or class style preference.

Pro tip: Slogans can be equally as difficult to come up with as brand names. Some ways to discover new ideas for slogans are:

• Make a claim
• Get metaphorical
• Use poetic language
• Provide instructions
• Leverage labels
• Compliment customers

5. Rebuild your brand identity.

The tangible elements I use to communicate the Psyched 2 Cyc brand have been in play for several years, which has given me plenty of time to reconsider their strengths and weaknesses before deciding to replace some of them.

Refreshing some of the visual components of my brand could be a great way to rebrand without changing something as drastic as the company name or slogan.

I can consider redesigning my logo, using new colors in my brand material, or even creating new brand guidelines.

Logo

When I selected my initial logo, I had little budget and couldn’t invest dollars into hiring an external agency to design some options. Instead, I had the help of an artist friend who designed my idea for me.

Unfortunately, I don’t think my logo has a real impact on customers. It’s very generic and doesn’t reflect what is unique about Psyched 2 Cyc. So, I will return to the basics of what makes a good logo to help me get it right this time.

• Stay simple. Jamming as much symbolism as possible into a logo generally doesn’t work well and can become too complex or confusing for customers to understand. Now that my brand is more established, I can show confidence with a simple, clean logo.
• Make an impact. While it’s important to be simple, I still want to make my logo memorable. There are a lot of indoor cycling brands out there, and I want my logo to be bold enough to stand out amongst competitors.
• Be adaptable. I didn’t initially consider the limitations of my original logo. Now that I know all the places my logo lives — digitally on my website, app, and social media; in print on products like fitness apparel, water bottles, and our cycling shoes; and in a huge, neon sign in the studio — I can keep these channels in mind during the redesign.
• Aim for appropriate. I designed the logo for a younger, female audience, and now that I’m expanding my target market, I might want a logo that better attracts this audience.
• Look to the long term. This rebrand will likely cost me a lot of money, so I don’t want to do another one anytime soon. Therefore, I will consider my vision, mission, values, and purpose to ensure my new logo can support them in the long run.
• Maintain through-lines. The logo, while not as much as the name, is still one of my brand’s most memorable components. I want to avoid losing brand recognition by maintaining the parts of my old logo that worked.

Take a look at the Nickelodeon logo change from 2023 below. We retained the same iconic orange color and font but re-incorporated the “splat,” which would be memorable with parents.

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Color Palette

I know color is very impactful in branding — some colors are now synonymous with the brands that use them, like McDonald’s yellow. However, choosing the right color can be difficult, so I might consider changing the color to reflect Psyched 2 Cyc’s rebrand.

For example, our brand logo is currently red, which I chose since red is a vibrant, powerful color that reflects fitness well. However, I now see how many competitors also have red logos, such as CycleBar, and want to choose a new color that can stand out.

According to the psychology of color, green can represent growth, freshness, and health, which resonates with fitness well. It also has an adventurous, competitive personality, which ties fairly well with cycling.

Therefore, I might consider changing my logo to dark green, especially since I don’t know many fitness brands with a green logo.

Before making any drastic changes, I will check how the color shows up on-screen and in print to ensure consistency and that I like the look.

Typography

I chose an expressive, regal font for my original logo to help it pop and appear elevated against competitors. However, I now realize that it doesn’t represent my brand well — too much sophistication can make the brand come across as elite and inaccessible to the average person, which is not what Psyched 2 Cyc is about.

When reevaluating fonts, I will ensure the font is consistent with my target market and messaging uncovered in the rebrand. A more traditional serif or sans-serif font may be better suited when trying to attract a slightly older demographic.

I will also ensure that the font is easily accessible for web design and offers various weights and cuts for different channels.

Take the 2023 Minute Maid logo rebrand, for instance, in which they adopted a softer, bolder, and more inviting new font.

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Shapes and Imagery Revisited

Like logo, color palette, and typography, my imagery and shapes play a vital role in Psyched 2 Cyc’s brand identity. In changing those other visual elements, it makes sense to reconsider my imagery and shapes to keep everything cohesive in the rebrand.

Since I want my studio to be more approachable to new demographics, such as older people and men, I might consider softer lines and rounder shapes that provide a more welcoming appearance to new customers.

Of course, having everything visually aligned isn’t enough. These visual elements must support the core messages of my brand, too.

Brand Guidelines

After going through all the trouble of creating a new brand identity for my business, I want to use all these elements correctly.

Having brand guidelines will help guide me in the rebranding process to ensure consistency in this new stage for Psyched 2 Cyc.

Brand guidelines will be especially critical when showcasing my new logo. These guidelines will make it as easy as possible for customers to see, recognize, and remember my logo, making up for any lost familiarity from the original logo.

When writing my logo guidelines, I will consider the following:

• Logo elements. What visual elements make up my logo? When and how are each of them used?
• Color variations. What does the colored version of my logo look like? What about black and white? When are each of these used?
• Clear space. Also called padding, this is the space around my logo that prevents overlap or obscuring. I will aim for at least 10% of width at all times.
• Unacceptable uses. What can never be done to my logo? What color variations, rotations, scaling, etc. do I want to avoid?

These guidelines will be essential for me to distribute to my team so everyone has the information they need to handle the rebrand effortlessly.

It will be important for my team members and external agencies we hire to help us with the website and app redesign, building out our rebrand campaign, and creating new marketing materials.

6. Track brand sentiment along the way.

Though part of the reason for my rebrand is to attract new customers, my current customers are loyal and trusted. Therefore, I will get feedback from them on the rebrand elements I am considering.

I plan to conduct focus groups to see if the new branding images and messages communicate my new mission, values, and vision. If I don’t receive positive feedback, I may need to go back to the drawing board.

I know one of the most crucial steps in rebranding is tracking brand sentiment before, during, and after a rebrand launch, so I will look at brand sentiment before the rebrand to see what current or potential customers like and dislike about Psyched 2 Cyc’s branding.

Is it clear what our brand offers? Is the branding consistent? How does it compare to similar indoor cycling studios? What is something about our branding that either drew them in or made them reconsider joining our studio?

With these answers in mind, I can conduct my rebrand strategically, adding new messaging that aligns with my audience. As a plus, this also helps my current customers feel valued since their thoughts will be taken into consideration.

7. Plan a successful launch.

The rebrand will only be successful and meaningful if people actually know it’s happening. Therefore, I know that I can’t simply change the colors, fonts, and logo on our Psyched 2 Cyc website, app, and social media. I need to communicate what the rebrand means and let people know we’ve made intentional growth.

First, I plan to run a marketing campaign involving digital display banners, print ads, and a short promo that can run on TV and social media.

I will also organize a press release to announce the launch of our rebrand that will sit on our website and social channels. This allows me to share exactly why Psyched 2 Cyc needed a rebrand and what it means for our future.

This will be the perfect way for us to reset and remain consistent and on-brand in all marketing efforts moving forward.

We’ve lost our way over the past few years as priorities changed to membership retention, but I believe a solid rebrand will help redefine our branding.

Now that we‘ve explored various aspects of rebranding regarding my fictional brand Psyched 2 Cyc, let’s take a look at some real-world examples for further inspiration.

1. 7UP

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7UP’s new identity was inspired by the soda itself. The company wanted to create a new visual identity that captures the soda’s effervescent essence while modernizing with changing times.

They first handled this with a new “UPliftment” positioning, based on its history of being enjoyed in joyful moments with loved ones. This new strategy promises to “offer light relief from the mundanities of daily life.”

To feed into this “UP” movement, the brand angled its new logo up to focus on upward movement. 7UP also wanted to embrace its global audience, so the packaging logo was designed to be translated into various languages for worldwide unification.

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These changes, and the new citrus colors in the palette, have helped 7UP create a bolder, brighter, more confident, and “bubbly” persona, while still staying true to its green color. This rebrand has been widely applauded for its simplistic, minimalistic, and modern execution.

2. LG

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LG first hinted at its upcoming rebrand in April 2023 with the debut of its new and improved logo — maintaining the same icon but transitioning it from 3D to 2D. The new logo is also animated and expressive and can perform eight motions (including nodding and winking).

Beyond the logo change, LG introduced a younger and more playful appearance in August 2023 with new brand characters, Joy and Ryder, that showcase LG’s fun side while playing into the company’s heritage and Korean culture.

To add even more energy to their rebrand, LG also integrated a brighter, bolder shade of red into their color palette.

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They even incorporated new values, such as “Warmth to Power a Smile,” and made their “Life’s Good” slogan more prominent in marketing. These changes were part of an effort to attract Millennial and Gen Z audiences and redefine the brand as innovative, modern, and people-centric.

3. Reddit

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The biggest change in Reddit’s 2023 rebrand was bringing their iconic mascot Snoo to life with a new dynamic 3D look. Snoo is less robotic and more a playful creature who can perform eight motions, such as spinning.

The brand repositioned Reddit as “the heart of the internet” to highlight its role in society as a space for communication and discourse. This repositioning is also evident in the frame around Snoo and the “d” in the Reddit logo, which are now speech bubbles to emphasize the same point.

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Reddit’s new brand identity also involves four pillars: “inherently eclectic”, “positively different”, “delightfully absurd”, and “genuinely candid”, which help tie all these changes and refreshes together.

The rebrand was done to modernize Reddit’s look with changes such as 3D design elements, a simplified color palette, and new typefaces, while re-emphasizing what people already know and love Reddit for — being a hub for community and conversation.

4. Jell-O

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The 2023 Jell-O rebrand involved a change in logo and packaging for all products. The goal was to attract younger parents and kids with playful, simple, colorful imagery and bring back some of the “jiggly fun and…wonder” that has always been associated with the brand.

This new positioning played into the new designs by incorporating a modern aesthetic while showcasing the many fun flavors Jell-O has to offer. The logo shifted to a blockier sans serif font against a white background for a 3D effect, with the “O” resting slightly above.

The packaging also now includes cartoonish images of pudding swirls and jelly fruit instead of the more realistic images previously shown. This helps the brand target younger parents with fruit images that reveal healthier options while making the packaging more eccentric and light-hearted.

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This rebrand was well-received as consumers saw it as a way to significantly modernize the branding while maintaining some of its classic, beloved traits.

5. WhatsApp

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As part of the parent company Meta, which faced significant backlash for its 2021 rebrand, WhatsApp has remained relatively scandal-free. Thus, it seems the 2023 rebrand was aimed at helping set WhatsApp apart from the rest of Meta’s brands.

The goal was to evolve the brand from a social media tool to a “secure, intimate product designed to give anyone … the ability to connect and enact change.” The team worked to further the notion of “Forward. Together” based on WhatsApp being a trusted platform for safe, reliable global connection.

The color palette aligns with various product touchpoints, and new graphic modules allow for flexible storytelling. They also capture the spirit of WhatsApp by visually showcasing how back and forth communication looks.

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Since WhatsApp has nearly three billion global active users, the rebrand created a unified look that would resonate with people everywhere, regardless of age, region, literacy, or bandwidth.

It successfully established itself as a communication tool while prioritizing brand recognition with an unchanged logo and commitment to the brand’s iconic green color.

Bad Rebranding Examples

1. Comcast

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Comcast has been known to have the most hated customer service in the United States. So, the company changed its name and rebranded its logo to Xfinity. However, the company didn’t change its history of bad practices.

While the company could have worked on improving customer support, they spent money on a cosmetic upgrade, which didn’t help them earn back the trust of their customers. Superficial updates like a name and logo change can’t help a company unless followed by brand identity and reputation changes.

Beyond this, the name change itself is perplexing and, frankly, a waste of money and time. Many customers were confused about whether Comcast and Xfinity were the same thing, or if one owned the other. This is the exact fear in an abrupt brand name change — causing audience confusion or ridicule which can lead to a loss in current and potential customers.

2. Gap

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Remember that list of reasons to and not to rebrand above? Gap made the mistake of rebranding for seemingly no reason. The company changed its logo and caused outrage among its customers. Just six days later, the company returned to its original logo.

The new logo didn’t communicate anything new about the brand and took the personality out of Gap’s logo. Additionally, customers had an emotional bond with the logo, and changing it for no reason caused upset customers.

Rather than immediately coming clean, Gap tried to justify the new logo as a deliberate move to crowdsource new ideas for a logo. As this was met with even more criticism, the brand quickly reinstated its original logo and finally acknowledged its error.

Overall, the urge to quickly modernize a logo has been seen as a panic strategy, rather than one rooted in a true desire to shift a brand’s positioning or perception. If there’s nothing to back up a move this big (and expensive), it is more than likely to receive negative backlash.

3. Weight Watchers

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Weight Watchers changed its name and logo to shift its focus from weight loss and dieting to wellness. However, the new name WW left consumers confused. People didn’t know what it stood for, and it erased brand recognition.

The rebrand was also handled rather abruptly. There wasn’t enough lead time to prepare consumers for the name and strategy change. To add to it, the “Wellness that Works” slogan didn’t inform consumers of what was going to change about the brand.

While the reasoning behind the rebrand was positive, the follow-through left people wanting more. Weight Watchers should have better explained why it was making this shift and how it would handle this change — preferably with new product or service offerings.

Are you ready to rebrand?

From the examples shared above, it’s clear that the most successful rebrands were ones that were centered around customers in some way.

Whether it was LG aligning with the interests of younger consumers or Jell-O returning to its playful roots, these brands made necessary changes to restate their presence in either the same or a new market.

The important thing to keep in mind if your business is ready to tackle a rebrand is that clear intentions and brand consistency are key. This post taught me that you need legitimate reasons for seeing a rebrand through.

But you also need to be able to handle the time and budget it will take to make all the changes and launch a marketing campaign to reveal the rebrand to your audience.

When you’re ready to make these changes, make them count.

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

If you’ve followed the news or opened X this fall, you’ve probably seen Polymarket.

It’s that prediction market for politics (and more) that’s been all over the place lately. I’ve been following their rise for the past year from a no-name niche betting market to over $1B assets under management — with the CEO on the cover of Forbes and presidential candidates mentioning them in speeches.

Throughout the rise of Polymarket, I’ve become friendly with a few members of their growth marketing team here in NYC. And the one thing I keep asking them again and again is: “HOW ARE YOU GUYS EVERYWHERE????”

Here’s what I’ve learned.

A Breakdown of Polymarket’s Marketing Strategy

Screenshot Marketing

The first time most people come into contact with Polymarket isn’t their site or app.

It’s usually a screenshot posted on social media or across the news. And if you look at any screenshot of Polymarket, you’ll see their name and logo.

This placement was not an accident, I promise you that.

During talks with their team, I learned there was quite a lot of A/B testing done to make sure their logo would appear on almost any possible screenshot.

Anytime a screenshot is shared across the internet, from X to LinkedIn to TikTok to Reddit, Polymarket is right there.

The logo and name are colored light gray so it’s not too in-your-face to the point where you’d want to crop it out. They’re smarter than that. Instead, the logo is just subtle enough to be seen, but it doesn’t take anything away from the image.

This is a genius strategy built for the age of social media that couldn’t have existed a couple decades ago.

In fact, there’s even a term for this style of marketing: it’s called screenshot marketing, and it involves using screenshots to make your marketing feel more natural.

It’s like sending screenshots of someone’s messages to a group chat. It’s juicy. Intriguing. And in the age of AI pictures and Photoshop, screenshots are unfiltered and raw.

Polymarket lives and breathes off screenshot marketing. $23B cybersecurity brands like Wiz do it. And I’ve used screenshots to go viral dozens of times.

In marketing, you always want to be as authentic as possible — and there’s nothing more authentic than sharing a basic unedited screenshot with your following like you would with your friends in a group chat.

Founder-Led Marketing

I’m a firm believer every startup should be doing founder-led marketing.

Whether you’re Elon or an 18-year-old AI founder, you should always be the biggest voice and proponent of your company. If the founder isn’t yapping about the company, then no one else will be.

The founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplan, definitely believes in the importance of founder-led marketing.

He’s built his audience up to 26,000+ followers on X, and he keeps his content to a strict diet of 100% Polymarket-related tweets and retweets.

When Polymarket hit #1 on the App Store this October, Shane tweeted a simple screenshot (*cough cough* screenshot marketing) showing their success.

Because there’s been a lot of questions and attention on Polymarket betting versus regular polling, Shayne wrote a tweet to address this concern.

When Shayne spoke with famous political poller Nate Silver, he tweeted out the podcast to share this perspective on building Polymarket.

Shayne is locked in!

All Polymarket 24/7. No selfies with his dog. No pictures of his Lamborghinis. Not even any pictures of his team. All business all the time. And that business is making billions on the internet. You gotta respect it.

Social Proof

Typically when we think of social proof, we think of customer reviews.

But for Polymarket, it’s a little bit different.

Rather than customers “reviewing” Polymarket, their social proof strategy revolves around two things:

1. Amplifying thought leaders who are talking about Polymarket.
2. Sharing new big bets on Polymarket (thus normalizing the act of betting on Polymarket).

When other business leaders reference Polymarket, they repost it and hype it up.

When Polymarket hit #1 on the app store, Shayne tweeted a picture of it. When a presidential candidate talked about Polymarket during a speech, they tweeted about it.

But talk is cheap.

What’s more important for them is showing that people are actively putting money into the platform. They frequently tweet out screenshots of big bets and share updates around them.

(There we go with the screenshot marketing again!)

Capitalizing on ‘The Current Thing’

The public’s attention shifts like Charlie Sheen checking in and out of rehab programs. Remember him? Oh yeah, it’s been a while since he was The Current Thing.

See, with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, there’s always a new current thing. And whatever The Current Thing is, people can’t get enough of it.

Polymarket is built perfectly to capitalize on The Current Thing.

Anytime there’s something happening in the news, Polymarket spins up a betting market for it, which they then make content to promote. It’s the perfect cycle. And during the election season, there’s a new current thing everyday.

Here, you can see their post about the latest swing state odds keeping people up to date with the swing state current thing. When a new big movie is hitting theaters, they’ll spin up a market for that too.

Because The Current Thing is always changing, there’s literally a never-ending flood of good content ideas … which also means a never-ending flood of memes to be made.

Meme Marketing

The Polymarket team are some of the best memelords on the internet.

I originally became friends with the Polymarket growth marketing team because they’re customers of my meme marketing software, Memelord Technologies.

(If you haven’t already read my last HubSpot post on meme marketing, check it out.)

While Polymarket is a serious business with billions of assets under management, they also have a team of silly viral memelords on staff — and even more meme pages and freelancers on a consulting basis.

That’s because when it comes to capitalizing on The Current Thing, memes are the #1 tactic. They’re free, fast to make (and great for time crunch), and by nature, they can easily be shared and go viral.

The tactic that really blew me away though was how their social media intern put Polymarket merchandise on popular memes. It’s literally such a smart hack. You take an easily recognizable meme and put your brand assets on it. Easy.

The coolest part though is that they don’t just use memes for their content. Memes are baked into their product UX and philosophy.

Not only do they post memes, but they spin up silly memey non-serious betting markets about whatever The Current Thing is. Like betting markets on whether presidential candidates will say “skibidi” or “brat” before the election.

These silly betting markets are a perfect recipe for virality. Money + Absurdity = Virality.

How You Can Market Like Polymarket

Obviously, not all of us want to talk about politics in our marketing.

And even if we do, most of us can’t at work.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t incorporate trends and whatever The Current Thing is into our strategies.

Every industry has its own current thing — whether it’s OpenAI’s exodus of employees in the Silicon Valley startup community, the Met Gala in the fashion world, or maybe Black Friday for the e-commerce industry.

Look out for The Current Thing and jump on it as soon as possible. Whether it’s using my daily email of new viral memes, X’s new trend analysis tool, or Hubspot Trends, make sure you’re incorporating new trends into your marketing.

BUT …

… That being said, you can’t just rely on trends.

Even me as the meme marketing guy, I don’t think you can just rely on just memes or capitalizing on The Current Thing for your marketing.

Yes, I wrote a book called Memes Make Millions, but they can only make you millions if you have a good product and message.

This is what Polymarket has done so well.

It’s not just memes and trends and news that is stale 24 hours later.

It’s Shayne clearly explaining why he’s building Polymarket. It’s Shayne going on podcasts with industry leaders like Nate Silver.

It’s the social proof of retweeting people like Elon Musk talking about Polymarket.

It’s the constantly updated screenshots of political markets. It’s the Forbes cover and billions of assets under management.

Polymarket’s marketing perfectly blends capitalizing on The Current Thing and using timeless marketing techniques. It’s truly brilliant to witness.

Watch out folks — I think we’re witnessing the beginnings of a generational company.

Being a marketer is hard — I feel it’s always been this way, but now the pressure to deliver results is even higher. Companies are cutting their marketing budgets and watching every penny before deciding what to spend it on.

Fortunately, we now have access to many tools, including AI, which can make our work a little bit easier.

While some of these tools can take over routine, time-consuming tasks, others provide valuable insights that can aid us in decision-making. I think that AI is a real lifesaver when it comes to conversion rate optimization.

In this post, I am going to explain why you should give it a shot, as well as cover the main use cases.

Table of Contents

• Why use AI for conversion rate optimization?
• How to Apply AI to Your CRO Strategy

Why use AI for conversion rate optimization?

Understand customers better — and faster.

If you’ve ever had to sift through hundreds of CRM records to identify common customer behaviors, then you know how much time (and brainpower!) it requires to reach conclusions.

Luckily, anyone working on CRO can now use AI to analyze customer data rapidly and at scale. I’d even go so far as to say that this AI application is quickly becoming the new standard for data-driven teams.

A survey run as part of HubSpot’s and The Next Wave’s 2024 “How AI Is Driving Personal Productivity and Business Growth” report found that 70% of marketers already use AI to conduct more data analyses, while 64% use it specifically to understand their customers’ profiles better.

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Naturally, I’m not suggesting that AI replaces all the customer data analysis work — you still need a CRO specialist. Still, equipping them with AI-powered tools lets them focus their manual efforts on areas that truly need human expertise.

React to “anomalies” quicker.

People are great at spotting patterns — including those in data. But, if given a vast database, they can’t go through it as quickly as AI can.

When it comes to subtle yet potentially significant trends in customer behavior, it can take a human days, if not weeks, to spot them. And, by the time they do, they could already be causing massive problems, like a drop in conversion rates from one channel or a lower average order value (AOV).

AI tools can analyze your leads and sales data round the clock, seven days a week. If they spot any disturbing, recurring user behavior, it can send you an alert straight away. This way, you can take action ASAP to address the problem.

This shows that people and AI can work in synergy — AI’s efficiency allows for real-time insights, while humans can work on adopting new business strategies.

Focus more on critical tasks.

Marketers are busy, with dozens of tasks they need to handle at once and a few meetings in between.

No wonder that as many as 73% of those surveyed by HubSpot admit to using AI for conversion rate optimization as it gives them more time to focus on creative work, which demands human attention.

By “outsourcing” routine tasks to AI, marketers can get a few extra hours in their workday and dedicate them to more strategic work, like brand positioning or market research.

Optimizes your conversion points — even if you lack real-life data.

I believe that this AI CRO mechanism doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves.

You can have AI analyze your assets, like landing pages or emails, even before you launch a product or campaign.

A great example is one of VWO’s free tools, i.e., their AI-powered heatmap generator. While it doesn’t cross-reference your customer data, it tells you if there are any usability issues that could block leads from converting.

Image Source

Gavin Yi, Founder & CEO of Yijin Hardware, told me that he used AI-driven heatmap analyses to check if their mobile app’s existing design promotes conversions.

Yi told me he found out that certain CTAs and buttons were placed too low on the layout.

This meant lost opportunities because users wouldn’t scroll far enough to see them.

“By using the insights from the heatmap, I successfully repositioned crucial elements higher up on the mobile layout, resulting in an instant spike of conversions from this platform,” he says.

Yi also adds that this AI CRO strategy showed the company how they can adjust the user interface for those accessing their product on various devices.

How to Apply AI to Your CRO Strategy

1. Collect data and segment your customers.

Before you start with AI conversion rate optimization, you need to figure out the basics, i.e. gather the data and split your customers into segments. The good news is, AI can help you with the latter.

It can analyze data from various sources like your website, app, social media, etc., and turn it into insights that will aid you in categorizing users into specific groups.

You can then start personalizing your marketing efforts, which will hopefully improve your conversion rate.

This kind of approach works nicely for InboxAlly. Their Head of Partnership, John Simmons, told me they use AI to understand each customer’s unique needs and preferences. By doing so, they can deliver hyper-relevant experiences that speak to them directly, which has proven game-changing when it comes to CRO.

“When we implemented AI-powered personalization on our product pages, we saw a 12% increase in add-to-cart rates. The system was able to discern each visitor‘s preferences based on their on-site behavior and serve them the optimal product imagery, content, promotions, etc., to compel a purchase.

We’ve since rolled this out across our site, leading to over $2 million in incremental revenue annually,” says Simmons.

What’s the secret to making AI work for CRO? Simmons suggests starting small and identifying a few quick-win use cases where AI can enhance relevance.

“As you demonstrate success, you can expand into more advanced applications. The key is pairing the technology with clear business objectives. Used strategically, AI can have an outsized impact on your CRO and customer experience efforts,” he adds.

2. Analyze customer data to personalize their experience.

These days customers expect personalization; it’s been the norm for quite some time. However, AI brings personalization to a whole new level.

It can analyze browsing patterns and provide customized website content, product recommendations, and offers in real-time.

By serving content that is relevant to the target audience, brands can not only enhance engagement but also improve conversion rates.

Imagine you run an ecommerce store selling electronics. One of the visitors searches for eco-friendly products and buys a smart thermostat.

The next time they visit your site, you could add a banner featuring the latest solar-powered gadgets or provide recommendations for energy-efficient home appliances to improve your chances of conversion.

3. Automate A/B tests in your customer acquisition funnel.

If there is one thing I’ve learned during my marketing career, it is that effective marketing is all about testing. If you want to boost your conversion rate, you need to befriend A/B testing. Luckily, you can now fully automate it with AI, which significantly speeds up the process.

Rather than manually creating and monitoring split tests, you can turn to tools like Optimizely or VWO to run multivariate tests. You can then analyze tons of variations to pick the one that drives the most conversions.

AI is really incredible at analyzing data in real-time. It can literally detect minute differences in user interaction patterns and make instant adjustments — something that a human could never do.

It can help you optimize your landing pages, CTAs, and user flows.

4. Use predictive analytics tools.

These AI conversion rate optimization tools let you forecast user behavior — or even market trends. As a result, you have more time to ideate how you can optimize your strategy.

Think, predicting what types of products will be a “hit” this upcoming Christmas season and stocking up in advance. Or knowing with high probability that a client will need to upgrade to a higher plan soon, and sending them a discount offer.

Mary Zhang, Head of Marketing and Finance at Dgtl Infra, told me that her company developed an entire AI-powered client success prediction model to optimize its customer acquisition funnel.

The algorithm analyzes three types of data, i.e., historical records, user engagement patterns, and industry trends to predict which leads are most likely to become successful long-term clients.

“This model goes beyond traditional lead scoring, because we focus on forecasting potential client lifetime value and alignment with our services,” Zhang says. “The results have been remarkable: Our sales team’s efficiency increased by 35%, client retention rate improved by 28%, and the average deal size grew by 40%.”

5. Visualize your customers’ journey.

Customer journeys can be complicated. And it’s hard to spot a bottleneck without visualizing every single step that a user must take. So, why not use AI to analyze data from each channel to identify places where users drop or are less engaged? This is what Securiti.ai did.

Adil Advani, their Associate Product Owner, told me they decided to dig into the data to fine-tune their customer journey. They were aware that every click and every scroll tells a story, so they started analyzing behavior patterns on their site.

“We realized our potential customers were getting stuck at the same points, so we reshaped our site’s navigation to make it more intuitive. By simplifying the journey from the homepage to the contact form, we saw our bounce rate drop by 18%, and our leads shoot up by 23%,” says Advani.

The team didn’t stop there; they kept testing different layouts and messages on their main landing pages, which boosted their conversions by another 15%. “It’s all about making the experience as smooth as possible for our visitors, and the numbers really do speak for themselves,” adds Advani.

6. Consider implementing dynamic pricing and limited-time offers.

I already briefly mentioned this method when discussing prediction models, but it’s a topic that calls for a separate point.

I worked at a few startups in the mid-2010s, and I recall that their pricing schemes were almost “set in stone.” One of the companies had a “custom” pricing option with a CTA to reach out, which hinted at the company’s openness to tailor the offer or discuss discounts.

Still, it doesn’t compare to the level of proactivity AI enables when it comes to negotiating prices.

Depending on your company, you can either create rules for all customers, or specific segments, as to when the AI should send over a discount or display a limited time promo. Recently, my favorite example of this AI conversion rate optimization strategy (albeit, from the perspective of a buyer) comes from Etsy.

I’ve picked up sewing as a hobby and started purchasing printable patterns through the platform. As you’d expect, a lot of sellers use upselling techniques like “Buy 2, Get 1 free.” However, the platform also offers them intelligent conversion optimization methods.

After I added some patterns to the cart and then went on with my day without finalizing the offer, I received an automatic, time-sensitive discount code from the seller.

This type of AI can act on your behalf, with agreed minimal prices or maximum discount rules, and react to even the subtlest user activity — like clicking on an image or watching a video.

I love how it helps sellers offer the perfect deal at the right moment, without any direct human oversight.

7. AI-powered email campaigns.

Email is still one of the most effective communication channels. And I believe that creating an attention grabbing email is both art and science.

If this is something that you struggle with, then I highly recommend using AI to not only personalize your content and optimize your send times, but also segment your users more accurately.

AI tools can help you decide on the best subject line, format, and content to maximize both your open and click-through rates. Journaling Supplies use AI-driven customer segmentation.

Their manager, Karen Chen, says that “by analyzing user behavior and demographics, we’re able to spot those who are more likely to convert. For instance, we implemented AI to segment our email marketing campaigns based on user engagement.”

What was the result?

After personalizing content for these segments, they saw a 25% increase in click-through rates and a 15% boost in conversions over three months.

This targeted approach allowed the brand to deliver relevant content, significantly enhancing user engagement and, ultimately, driving sales.

8. Use a co-pilot with many AI capabilities.

After reading the previous sections, you might be thinking that you’ll need to subscribe to a whole ton of different AI software.

The good news is you don’t have to — instead, I suggest that you try out a co-pilot, which will serve as your all-in-one AI CRO tool.

For example, HubSpot’s Breeze is a platform that has everything you need to boost your customer-facing teams’ productivity and scale growth. Among others, you can use it to automate repetitive tasks, pull real-time insights on buyer intent, and run better conversion rate prognostics.

These are just a few of the possible use cases. Take a look at the different ways HubSpot users apply Breeze in their CRO strategy.

AI gives your CRO specialists what they need to grow revenue.

There are so many areas where AI can support your customer-facing teams — from running large-scale data analyses at a fraction of the time needed for human work to predicting demand and optimizing your email campaigns and landing pages.

It’s the resourceful assistant whom I think most of us need, particularly if we want to stand out from our competitors.

Once you decide which tasks should be completed manually and which ones can be automated, there will be no looking back — you’ll love how much CRO creativity you’ll unlock.

HubSpot recently conducted a video marketing survey and found that 73% of respondents agreed that video marketing has been effective in reaching their marketing goals.

However, over a third of respondents (34%) say the most challenging aspect of video marketing is the lack of content ideas.

Fortunately, I‘ve got 15 video content ideas to help you achieve your business goals. But before we get to that, I will share my secret for finding video marketing ideas and what kind of video content is popular among consumers.

Table of Contents

• How do I find video content ideas?
• What video content is most popular?
• 15 Business Video Ideas

How do I find video content ideas?

My method for finding video content ideas is pretty simple. I typically go to YouTube and social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook and follow accounts that are within my niche or similar.

For example, I recently started creating TikToks for a new dance studio in my neighborhood to help attract more students.

To determine the type of video content I should create, I started following other dance studios on TikTok and observing their videos.

I bookmarked the ones that seemed to get the most views and started brainstorming ways to make similar videos for the dance studio. I found that the following videos seemed to do well:

• Videos of dancers doing complicated choreography
• Beginner-friendly breakdowns and tutorials on how to do certain moves
• Information on what exercises can improve the strength and stamina needed to dance

That’s the manual and, I guess, “old school” way of finding video content ideas. You can also pair this method with AI by asking tools like ChatGPT to generate video ideas for you within your niche.

I did this for a blog post and YouTube channel, but the same can also be applied to individual videos.

What video content is most popular?

According to Statista (and Statista hasn’t let me down yet), the most popular types of videos worldwide are:

• Music videos (48.2%)
• Comedy, meme, or viral videos (35%)
• Video live stream (27.7%)
• Educational videos (26%)
• Tutorial or how-to videos (25.8%)

So, what should your takeaway be? Consider ways to incorporate music, comedy, or trendy memes into your video marketing. Duolingo is a company that does this well.

I often reference its video marketing skills and wonder if the company is sick of me yet.

Whenever there’s a viral trend or song, best believe Duolingo will find a way to incorporate it into its TikTok content, and the videos almost always go viral.

You can also opt for how-to tutorials, which Fenty Beauty executes very well on its accounts. Most Fenty Beauty videos will feature a person showing the products they’re using and how to apply them to achieve specific looks.

How-to videos are a great way to show the quality of your products and how they work.

If you’re looking for inspiration regarding educational videos, Girl With The Dogs is a great account to follow.

Girl with the Dogs is run by pet groomer Vanessa De Prophetis. She details her experience grooming various breeds of dogs and cats via YouTube and TikTok videos.

In each video, she explains her process, shares grooming tips, and provides detailed information about each breed, its temperaments, and grooming needs.

This allows her to establish herself as a trusted expert in her field so future clients know their animals are in good hands.

15 Business Video Ideas

Now, let‘s discuss some business video ideas. Most of the videos I listed below are fairly easy to create, but if you want to generate videos even more easily, check out HubSpot’s Clip Creator.

Clip Creator is a free AI-powered video maker thart can convert text into professional videos for your business. All you need to do is desdcribe your video and preferred tone. Click here to learn more.

Okay, I‘m done stalling. Here’s my list.

1. Demonstration Video

As I said earlier, Fenty Beauty has how-to tutorials and demonstration videos down to a science.

Whether it‘s simple 60-second clips of the products being swiped onto a person’s lips or an in-depth long-form video of their founder, Rihanna, using the products to create a red carpet look, Fenty Beauty’s demonstration videos tutorials give its audience a detailed look into the function and quality of the products.

2. Customer Testimonials

Do you have customers who have been purchasing your products and services since the beginning of your business? Or naysayers who turned into believers? Feature their testimonials in your next video!

Real customer testimonials and feedback will establish trust with potential clients, so next time a consumer sings your praises, ask them if they’re will to go on camera or are comfortable being quoted.

3. User-generated Content

I’m not sure if other marketers share this sentiment, but I see user-generated content (UGC) as another form of customer testimonials.

Think about it: customers sharing videos using your products is almost the sale, if not better, than them going on camera and talking about how your company is.

One of my favorite ads featuring UGC is Ring LLC’s commercial, which shows a compilation of videos taken by consumers who use their door cameras.

The video shows everything a Ring camera can capture, from special family moments to heartwarming neighbor interactions to chaotic pet shenanigans to attempted thieves.

Pro tip: Encourage consumers to tag your brand on social media anytime they post a video or other forms of content. Or you can just look up your brand on video platforms like TikTok to see what you can find.

4. Behind-the-Scenes

Do you want to show your audience the care and craftsmanship that goes into making our products? A behind-the-scenes look into products is a great way to go.

I’ve mentioned them in a few posts, but Gibson is an excellent example of behind-the-scenes video content. Videos like the ones below show the time and quality materials that go into making its iconic guitars.

If your consumers care a lot about craftsmanship, create something similar for your brand.

5. Product Comparison

While I prefer hotels to Airbnbs (I‘m not on vacation to do chores, sorry), I have to hand it to the company’s current video marketing tactic of comparing AIrbnb experiences to hotels.

The video below, though animated, effectively shows that travelers looking for a specific experience are more likely to find it at an Airbnb than they are at a traditional hotel.

6. Trend / Current Event

Yes, I‘m bringing up Duolingo again. How can I not?

The bulk of their TikTok strategy hinges on tapping into the latest trends and discussions on the app. I don’t have to go into too much detail again because I think you get the point by now.

7. Interviews

Crunchyroll is a streaming platform known for its variety of anime programs. For the longest time, Crunchroll’s video strategy mostly featured compelling clips from their catalog, which is a great strategy in and of itself.

Lately, however, the platform has branched out into featuring interviews with big names and faces in the anime industry, from musicians to voice actors to directors.

This results in excellent video content that showcases its catalog and leaves audiences with new information about their favorite shows.

8. Offbeat Comedy Videos

As I said, comedy videos are pretty popular among viewers, so don‘t be afraid to inject a little humor into your video content.

I love this TikTok from Scrub Daddy because it’s a perfect combination of funny and current, as we‘re in election season when I’m writing this post.

9. GRWM

I don‘t know why, but I find “Get Ready with Me” videos (often shortened to GRWM) to be mesmerizing. Maybe it’s because they make me feel like I’m hanging out with a friend as we discuss a topic.

My favorite GRWM comes from my colleague Ramona Sukhraj. In the following Instagram Reel, Ramona does her makeup and casually explains how brands can go viral.

10. Announcements

Do you have a highly anticipated announcement to make? Why not share it via video? Let‘s say you’re restocking a beloved product or finally collaborating with an influencer your audience has been raving about.

A fun video is a great way to announce the big news.

It doesn’t even have to be complicated. For example, they have been begging for a collaboration between content creator Amelia Dimoldenberg and actor Andrew Garfield ever since they bumped into each other on the red carpet.

The video below announced the collaboration with a simple shot of them saying hi to each other.

11. Follow Me / Walk With Me

Similar to GRWM videos, Follow Me / Walk with Me videos (I don‘t know if there’s a proper name for them) give the vibe that you’re engaging in a conversation in a friend while they complete a task.

This video by my fellow HubSpotter, Alana Chinn, is a great example. In it, Alana explains work-from-home statistics while walking her adorable dog.

12. Listicle

Listicle videos can be pretty simple to make. You can opt for a list of reasons people should choose your brand over others, a list of ways to you use your products, or its top features.

13. Unboxing

An unboxing video is when a content creator (typically an influencer) unboxes items they‘ve received from a brand. If there’s an influencer you’d like to work with, consider sending them a PR package for them to unbox on their platform.

14. Live Shopping

We are in the era of live shopping, which has essentially become the new QVC. Live shopping is when a brand or seller live streams showcasing products, and viewers can buy directly from the live stream.

It’s most popular on TikTok and a great way to achieve multiple goals at once: boost brand awareness, demonstrate your products or services, and generate direct sales.

15. Person on the Street

A person on the street video consists of someone out on the street or at an event interviewing people randomly. These videos are fun and simple to make because they involve minimal production and you never know what someone’s genuine answer might be.

Crunchyroll created a person-on-the-street video while attending a convention, which provided an opportunity to engage with consumers while showcasing its catalogue of programs.

I told you I had you covered, didn’t I? Now you have my secret sauce for finding business video ideas, and you have 15 video content ideas to choose from for your campaign.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

The 2023 We❤️NYC campaign was intended to encourage New Yorkers, still pessimistic in a post-pandemic world, to show love for their city.

And boy, did it ever.

Last year, Maryam Banikarim royally pissed off the Olsen twins and the Jonas Brothers with her We❤️NYC campaign. But that same campaign earned twice the impressions of a Super Bowl ad … in 48 hours.

I caught up with Banikarim to get her top marketing lessons, and it was immediately clear that she’s the embodiment of “do what you love” — and it all stems from asking herself, “What if I did that?”

So we talked about purpose-driven work, how to use curiosity to power your marketing campaigns, and the best way to stay on top of new tech.

“What if I did that?”

1. Good campaigns have tension. That’s what gets people talking.

I can see Banikarim’s eyes sparkle through my computer monitor as she tells me how she ruffled the feathers of two sets of celebrity siblings. She’s relishing the memory of it.

Her agency worked on the city-wide ad campaign, which was funded by members of the Partnership for New York City to encourage civic action and community engagement. It capitalized on something New Yorkers care very, very deeply about: New York.

Once “We❤️NYC” began appearing on bus stop signs, at Barclays Center, and across Times Square, “everybody thought we were trying to get rid of the I❤️NYmark,” she says. They weren’t, but “communication isn’t what I say, it’s what you hear.”

So once somebody (incorrectly, angrily) posted that the new campaign was trying to oust Milton Glaser’s iconic I❤️NY, it became a reality of sorts. A reality that was picked up by talk shows, Mary-Kate and Ashley, and the Jonas Brothers — “it was just a whole thing,” Banikarim says with a laugh.

There’s no putting the toothpaste back in the tube: We❤️NYC was now a putative threat to New Yorkers’ identity and their iconography. Tension built up; tweets rolled in. “Milton Glaser would be so mad.” “Can we please let Milton Glaser rest in the peace he deserves?” “Milton Glaser got it right the first time.”

Banikarim is delighted by this. “We couldn’t have bought that media,“ she says.

Your next campaign probably won’t pique the ire of the Olsen twins (though a girl can dream). But know what your target audience feels ownership over, and where to tease out the tension in your marketing campaign.

2. DIY — with curiosity.

“I always seem to have a side hustle these days,” she tells me. (One gets the sense that Banikarim has always had to have a side hustle.)

It’s just that Banikarim’s side hustles would make most primary hustles envious. Last weekend, she celebrated the third year of The Longest Table, a community-building event born out of a need for human connection back when everyone was masking up and sharing tips on finding Lysol wipes.

She saw a neighbor put a folding table outside so they could eat dinner with a few friends. She introduced herself and thought, “What if I did that?”

One also gets the sense that Banikarim doesn’t do rhetorical questions. She started with a few posts on Next Door and an eight-person outdoor potluck on her street in Chelsea. On October 6, 2024, over a thousand people showed up for dinner.

Together they cobbled together a Squarespace website, and “we use HubSpot to email people.” (We did not bribe, pay, or threaten her to say that.—ed.) Banikarim doesn’t complain about DIY marketing tech; on the contrary, she refuses to be outpaced by evolving technology.

“Marketing has always been for people who are curious,” Banikarim says. And “in order to constantly be learning, it’s really helpful to be touching the tools yourself and not just directing from up high.”

3. Move sideways, move quickly. And take small bets.

Moving sideways means that sometimes you take a job that feels like a lateral move, or even a step backward. That’s not unusual now, but Banikarim jokes that she was a millennial before her time, because she’s had so many jobs for somebody in her 50s.

“But I was always looking for purpose in the job.” Like millennials, she’s “looking for impact.”

Your marketing career “doesn’t have to always be moving up. You can move sideways. You can move off, you can move in.”

Of course, millennials don’t need Banikarim to tell them that it’s okay to have a non-linear career. But are you moping about it or are you learning from it? (No judgment; glass houses and all that.)

“I think there‘s a lot of lip service given to this idea that if you fail, it’s ‘okay,’” she tells me. And then she says what so many of us feel in those moments: “but it’s not really okay.”

When I ask her what the biggest waste of money is across the marketing landscape, she says that it isn’t a tool. It’s that “we all have to be better at finding things that we can test and learn from” — and we have to stop thinking that if those tests don’t work, then they’re a mistake or a waste of time.

Her advice: Move quickly. Take the small bets. See where you get signal — and then go big.

Before Anna and I started contentki, we went to a cafe, pulled out a notepad, and began brainstorming all the services we could offer given our skills and experience.

We came up with content writing, SEO optimization, and content strategy. From there we dived even deeper into each category adding SEO blog writing, thought leadership, landing page copy, and social media to our list.

I’m glad we took the time to break this down early on, as it gave us a clear sense of who we were right from the start, rather than figuring out our services on the go.

The rough sketch in our notebook was what’s professionally known as a concept map. It’s a tool you can use not only when starting a business but also to ideate and thoroughly research new concepts before bringing them to market.

Table of Contents

• What is a concept map?
• Types of Concept Maps
• How to Create a Concept Map
• Creating My Own Concept Map

What is a concept map?

A concept map is a visual representation, often in the form of a diagram, that shows the relationship between various ideas or concepts. It’s a great tool for structuring and organizing knowledge. It typically includes two elements:

• Nodes. These represent concepts and come in the shape of circles, ovals, or boxes.
• Arrows. These connect ideas. They might include a connecting word or verb to explain the relationship between concepts, for example, “leads to” or “is part of.”

A concept map helps break complex topics/ideas into more digestible components.

Types of Concept Maps

Before I discuss the types of concept maps, here is a list of the best mind-mapping software you can check out to help you create your own concept map.

Spider Maps

I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that these concept maps resemble a spider web. The main concept is in the middle, with related subtopics branching outward. This structure lets you explore multiple aspects of the central idea.

How to create it:

• Put your main idea in the middle of the diagram.
• Draw lines coming out from the center to represent a key subtopic linked to the main idea.
• Add sub-branches from each subtopic to dive even deeper into the topic.
• Use labels or short words to better show the relationship between concepts.

When to use it: Use it to analyze a broad topic in detail.

Flowcharts

A flowchart represents a linear or sequential process or workflow. It uses symbols and arrows to show how information flows, often including decisions or actions.

How to create it:

• Define the process or task you want to illustrate.
• Draw arrows to show the flow of steps. Use boxes or other shapes to represent each step or action.
• Use a diamond shape for decision points, and demonstrate different branches based on yes/no or any other criteria of your choice.
• Continue until you conclude.

When to use it: I find flowcharts are great for explaining processes, like the onboarding of new employees.

System Maps

Instead of focusing on the main idea, system maps highlight the relationships and interactions between different concepts. They lack a hierarchical structure and emphasize how various parts work together.

How to create it:

• Define the key system components.
• Arrange them based on how they are interrelated instead of in a hierarchical order.
• Draw lines between components to show how they are linked. I think it’s helpful to add words like “influences” and “depends on” to better explain the type of relationship.
• Expand each part of the system by spotting feedback loops, inputs, and outputs.

When to use it: Use system maps to understand and analyze complex systems, such as supply chains or organizational networks.

Hierarchy Maps

A hierarchy map illustrates how elements are interconnected in a hierarchical structure, showing their relative status. This means that ideas have a higher status while others, a lower status. The main concept or the highest ranking element is at the top, while the lower-ranking ones are positioned beneath it.

How to create it:

• Put the main concept or the highest-ranking one at the top of the map.
• Define the major subtopics that fall under the main idea and place them directly below. Connect them by lines.
• Branch downward to show lower-ranking concepts while keeping a clear hierarchical structure.

When to use it: I think it’s useful for showing information with multiple authority levels or importance, for example, government structures or Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

How to Create a Concept Map

Before you start working on your concept map, I suggest downloading HubSpot’s concept map template — it will make the process a whole lot easier.

1. Define your main topic.

Begin by choosing the main idea or topic that you want to analyze. It should be broad enough to allow a few subtopics to branch out.

Put the primary concept either at the top or middle of your map, depending on the type of map you’re using. It will act as the foundation from which all your other ideas will be developed.

2. Identify essential concepts.

Once you’ve figured out the main idea, start brainstorming additional topics you’d like to explore. Think of as many as you can, but instead of placing them directly on the map, list them first — this is known as the “parking lot” method.

After your list is ready, organize the concepts from the most general or broad to the most specific. I think it’s best to create a hierarchy with the most important/broad ideas at the top and the more detailed ones beneath them.

3. Move concepts from the parking lot to the map.

Now, you can move your concepts from the parking lot to the map.

Put the main idea in the center or at the top, with related subtopics branching out from it. Each additional topic should be linked to a specific category, eventually forming a hierarchy.

While arranging the concepts, I suggest using linking words to clarify the relationship between ideas. This will enhance the understanding of how each concept connects to the others.

4. Verify accuracy and coherence.

The more connecting ideas you have, the greater the chance of making a mistake. So, it’s best to review each connection to ensure it links to the correct concept.

Use cross-links to find ideas located in a different part of your map. This approach may help you connect them to additional concepts, creating a more comprehensive and interconnected structure that reveals even more insights.

5. Expand and revise.

Your concept map isn’t set in stone. As new ideas emerge, you can keep adding them to the map to create new connections.

I appreciate that the map is flexible, letting you rearrange, remove, or add new sections as you gain a deeper understanding of the topic.

The process doesn’t end with the first version; I suggest you regularly check if your map is complete and relevant. Make revisions when necessary.

Creating My Own Concept Map

Let’s get down to practice. I will now create a concept map for my own freelance business.

Step 1: Identify my primary topic.

Since I am a freelance content marketer, one of the areas that I deal with is SEO optimization, which will be my primary topic.

Step 2: Identify essential concepts.

I’ll break it down into a few subcategories: on-page SEO, technical SEO, and use of SEO tools. For the sake of this example, I’ll only mention three, but feel free to come up with as many as possible, like off-page SEO and local SEO.

Write them all down.

Step 3: Move concepts to the map.

Once I’ve listed the main concepts, it’s time for me to zero in on each of them and list relevant subcategories. For example, on-page SEO can be broken down into substeps like “keywords” and “content optimization.”

If I wanted to go even deeper, I could add “keyword research,” “long-tail keywords,” and other smaller concepts under the “keywords” subtopic.

I’ve done this with all three main topics and wrote two subcategories for each, along with ideas for further branching.

Notice how the map helps us understand that SEO is a multifaceted concept and that — while it’s most often an area handled by marketing — it overlaps with areas like technical website/app performance.

Step 4: Double-check for accuracy and coherence.

In this step, I review if I’ve assigned each idea to the correct category.

For example, I ensured that “user intent” is placed under “content optimization” rather than “website speed.” Bear in mind that some concepts like “keyword research” might fit in more than one category.

Step 5: Expand and revise.

I’ll treat this concept map as my first version. The more time I spend brainstorming ideas, the more subcategories I can add.

I could expand my map to include “URL structure,” “internal linking,” “indexing,” and “security” — all of which relate to SEO optimization.

Also, as mentioned earlier, it’s important to identify relationships between different categories. For example, I could create a link between “SEO tools” and “keywords,” as the data from the SEO tools I use will influence my keyword selection and inform my overall SEO strategy.

If you’re a content marketer like I am, here is a content mapping template to help you organize your work.

The best way to create a concept map is to use a ready-made template.

I love brainstorming, but sometimes I generate so many ideas that I get lost, and within five minutes, I’ve forgotten half of what I came up with.

A concept map is a great tool for organizing your thoughts and ideas. It helps with exploring a specific topic in detail, ensuring a deep understanding. You can start small, and expand on your map as you generate more ideas.