Category Archives: B2B

Whether on Facebook Messenger, their website, or even text messaging, more and more brands are leveraging chatbots to service their customers, market their brands, and even sell their products.

But, the if/then logic that powers many chatbots’ conversational abilities limits them from answering unique and new questions, which can hang your customer out to dry and leave them dissatisfied with your customer service — luckily, AI-powered chatbots that can solve that problem are gaining steam.

In this post, we’ll discuss what AI chatbots are and how they work and outline 18 of the best AI chatbots to know about.

The rise of generative AI and language models like GPT and LaMDA (the podcast below discusses how they work) has made way for conversational AI chatbots with advanced capabilities that can mimic a human conversation style, find information online, and produce unique content.

Click here to listen to the full episode

The most important thing to know about an AI chatbot is that it combines ML and NLU to understand what people need and bring the best solutions. Some AI chatbots are better for personal use, like conducting research, and others are best for business use, like featuring a chatbot on your website.

Conversational AI vs Chatbots

Conversational AI and chatbots are related, but they are not exactly the same.

Conversational AI is a broader term that encompasses chatbots, virtual assistants, and other AI-generated applications. It refers to an advanced technology that allows computer programs to understand, interpret, and respond to natural language inputs.

Although AI chatbots are an application of conversational AI, not all chatbots are programmed with conversational AI. For instance, rule-based chatbots use simple rules and decision trees to understand and respond to user inputs. Unlike AI chatbots, rule-based chatbots are more limited in their capabilities because they rely on keywords and specific phrases to trigger canned responses.

Use Cases for AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are used in a wide range of applications across many industries, helping businesses streamline operations and increase productivity, provide better user experiences, and improve customer service. Here are some ways you can use AI chatbots to enhance processes within your organization:

Customer Support

• Provide 24/7 support to your customers
• Address FAQs
• Solve simple issues through a chat interface

Sales and Marketing

• Answer initial inquiries about products and services
• Provide recommendations
• Help customers with purchase decisions

Writing and Editing

• Generate content ideas
• Create article outlines
• Draft emails, social copy, and paragraphs

Recruitment and HR

• Engage with potential job candidates
• Answer basic questions about open positions
• Schedule interviews and meetings

Benefits of AI Chatbots

Having an AI chatbot on your company website can bring numerous benefits, no matter what industry you’re in. Here are a few key advantages:

Improved Customer Experience

AI Chatbots provide instant responses, personalized recommendations, and quick access to information. Additionally, they are available round the clock, enabling your website to provide support and engage with customers at any time, regardless of staff availability.

Efficiency

As your business grows, handling customer queries and requests can become more challenging. AI chatbots can handle multiple conversations simultaneously, reducing the need for manual intervention. This ensures faster response times and improves overall efficiency. Plus, they can handle a large volume of requests and scale effortlessly, accommodating your company’s growth without compromising on customer support quality.

Data Gathering and Analysis

AI Chatbots can collect valuable customer data, such as preferences, pain points, and frequently asked questions. This data can be used to improve marketing strategies, enhance products or services, and make informed business decisions.

Lead Generation and Support

AI Chatbots can qualify leads, provide personalized experiences, and assist customers through every stage of their buyer journey. This helps drive more meaningful interactions and boosts conversion rates.

With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the best AI chatbots for 2023. Read on to find the right one for you.

1. ChatSpot

Price: Free

Get Started with ChatSpot for Free

ChatSpot is HubSpot’s new conversational CRM bot. It combines the capabilities of ChatGPT with unique data sources to help your business grow. You can input your own queries or use one of ChatSpot’s many prompt templates, which can help you find solutions for content writing, research, SEO, prospecting, and more.

For example, I prompted ChatSpot to write a follow-up email to a customer asking about how to set up their CRM.

Though ChatSpot is free for everyone, you experience its full potential when using it with HubSpot. It can help you automate tasks such as saving contacts, notes, and tasks. Plus, it can guide you through the HubSpot app and give you tips on how to best use its tools.

Key Features

• Chat-based commands help sales, marketing, and service professionals maximize productivity
• Draft follow-up emails, compile analytics reports, or even prospect
• Connects to HubSpot software and leverages your existing data

2. ChatGPT

Price: Free; ChatGPT Plus: $20/month

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ChatGPT is OpenAI’s conversational chatbot powered by GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. It uses a standard chat interface to communicate with users, and its responses are generated in real-time through deep learning algorithms, which analyze and learn from previous conversations.

Because ChatGPT was pre-trained on a massive data collection, it can generate coherent and relevant responses from prompts in various domains such as finance, healthcare, customer service, and more. In addition to chatting with you, it can also solve math problems, as well as write and debug code.

Both free and paid users of ChatGPT can enjoy unlimited usage. However, ChatGPT Plus subscribers get to enjoy a few extra perks that free users do not have, such as exclusive access to GPT-4, priority access during peak times, and faster response speeds.

Key Features

• Uses natural language processing to understand the context of conversations to provide related and original responses in a human-like conversation
• Multiple use cases for things like answering simple questions, ideating and getting inspiration, or generating new content (like a marketing email)
• Improves over time as it has more conversations

3. Bing Chat

Price: Free (requires Microsoft Edge)

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Microsoft describes Bing Chat as an AI-powered co-pilot for when you conduct web searches. It expands the capabilities of search by combining the top results of your search query to give you a single, detailed response. Plus, it cites the sources from where it gets its information.

Bing also has an image creator tool where you can prompt it to create an image of anything you want. You can even give details such as adjectives, locations, or artistic styles so you can get the exact image you envision.

To get the most out of Bing, be specific, ask for clarification when you need it, and tell it how it can improve. You can also ask Bing questions on how to use it so you know exactly how it can help you with something and what its limitations are.

Key Features

• Uses NLP and machine learning to understand conversation prompts
• The compose feature can generate original written content and images, and its powerful search engine capabilities can surface answers from the web
• It’s a conversational tool, so you can continue sending messages until you’re satisfied

4. Bard

Price: Free

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Google’s Bard is a multi-use AI chatbot — it can generate text and spoken responses in over 40 languages, create images, code, answer math problems, and more.

One of Bard’s strengths is that it is great with text. You can use it to write and edit things, such as emails, resumes, and cover letters. Because it’s created by Google, it also features a “Google it” button to help you learn more about a given topic as well as exports to other Google products, like Google Docs and Gmail.

Despite its impressive capabilities, Bard has faced criticisms for providing false and misleading information, especially compared to ChatGPT.

Key Features

• Powered by Google’s PaLM-2 (instead of GPT)
• Use it for things like brainstorming and ideation, drafting unique and original content, or getting answers to your questions
• Connected to Google’s website index so it can access information from the internet

5. Jasper Chat

Price: Starts at $39/month

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Jasper Chat is built with businesses in mind and allows users to apply AI to their content creation processes. It can help you brainstorm content ideas, write photo captions, generate ad copy, create blog titles, edit text, and more.

Unlike ChatGPT, Jasper pulls knowledge straight from Google to ensure that it provides you the most accurate information. It also learns your brand’s voice and style, so the content it generates for you sounds less robotic and more like you.

Key Features

• Proprietary AI engine sourced from OpenAI and other models.
• Wide breadth of knowledge on niche and elaborate topics.
• Remembers and learns from previous conversations.

6. Perplexity

Price: Free; Pro: $20/month

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Powered by GPT-3.5, Perplexity is an AI chatbot that acts as a conversational search engine. It’s designed to provide users simple answers to their questions by compiling information it finds on the internet and providing links to its source material.

With no set-up required, Perplexity is pretty easy to access and use. Just simply go to the website or mobile app and type your query into the search bar, then click the blue button. From there, Perplexity will generate an answer, as well as a short list of related topics to read about.

Key Features

• Provides links to sources and generates related queries for further reading.
• Focus setting allows you to narrow your results from specific sources for different purposes, such as WolframAlpha for computational queries or Reddit for discussions and opinions.
• Allows you to save search threads and share them with others.

Note: The six chatbots mentioned above are conversational and generative bots best suited for internal business use for things like ideating, producing content, and getting answers to your queries. Below we’ll go over AI chatbots that are customer-facing.

7. Tidio Lyro

Price: Starts at $29/month

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Lyro is a conversational AI chatbot created with small and medium businesses in mind. It helps free up the time of customer service reps by engaging in personalized conversations with customers for them.

Lyro instantly learns your company’s knowledge base so it can start resolving customer issues immediately. It also stays within the limits of the data set that you provide in order to prevent hallucinations. And if it can’t answer a query, it will direct the conversation to a human rep.

Key Features

• Provides human-like answers to frequently asked questions.
• Keeps a record of redirected questions so that you can add them to your knowledge base later on.
• Asks customers follow up questions to ensure satisfaction.

8. Kommunicate

Price: Start: $40/mo; Grow: $100/mo; Business: Custom Pricing

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Kommunicate is a human + Chatbot hybrid platform designed to help businesses improve customer engagement and support.

The platform helps businesses build chatbots and manage customer interactions across multiple channels, including website chat, messenger apps, and email.

Although you can train your Kommunicate chatbot on various intents, it is designed to automatically route the conversation to a customer service rep whenever it can’t answer a query.

Key Features

• Conversational AI and NLP capabilities, which allow businesses to automate aspects of customer support, such as answering frequently asked questions or routing customers to the right support agent.
• Offers a range of integration options, allowing businesses to seamlessly incorporate it into their existing workflows.
• Provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing businesses to track and analyze customer interactions and support metrics.

9. HubSpot Chatbot Builder

Price: Free

Free Chatbot Builder Software

HubSpot has a powerful and easy-to-use chatbot builder that allows you to automate and scale live chat conversations.

Keep in mind that HubSpot‘s chat builder software doesn’t quite fall under the “AI chatbot” category of “AI chatbot” because it uses a rule-based system. However, HubSpot does have code snippets, allowing you to leverage the powerful AI of third-party NLP-driven bots such as Dialogflow.

Key Features

• Customers can get answers to frequently asked questions, book meetings, and navigate through your site.
• Conversations are stored in your CRM so you can qualify leads and trigger automation flows.
• Easy integration across your marketing, sales, and service tools because HubSpot is a CRM platform.

10. Intercom Fin

Price: $0.99/resolution (requires Intercom subscription, which starts at $74/month)

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Fin is Intercom’s conversational AI platform, designed to help businesses automate conversations and provide personalized experiences to customers at scale.

Built on ChatGPT, Fin allows companies to build their own custom AI chatbots using Intercom’s tools and APIs. It uses your company’s knowledge base to answer customer queries and provides links to the articles in references.

In addition to having conversations with your customers, Fin can ask you questions when it doesn’t understand something. When it isn’t able to provide an answer to a complex question, it flags a customer service rep to help resolve the issue.

Key Features

• Built-in safeguards to ensure it only provides accurate responses to customer questions.
• Fin Conversations allows you to easily view Fin’s interactions with customers from your inbox.
• Create custom answers to FAQs that get prioritized over AI generated answers.

11. Watson Assistant

Price: Free – $140/month

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IBM Watson Assistant is an AI-powered conversational bot that gives you impressive recommendations for further training so it gets better at its job. Its intent recommendations flag topic clusters that should be added to the database, while its entity recommendations identify existing topics that need more depth.

Watson Assistant is trained with data that is unique to your industry and business so it provides users with relevant information. It can run on your website, messaging channels, customer service tools, and mobile app. Plus, you can quickly get started with the low-code chat builder.

Key Features

• NLP and machine learning to gather context.
• Integrates with multiple systems and databases to access information.
• Analytics and insights to monitor user interactions, understand user behavior, and improve overall performance.

12. Drift

Price: Contact for pricing

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Drift is an automation-powered conversational bot to help you communicate with site visitors based on their behavior. With its intent detection capabilities, Drift can interpret open-ended questions, determine what information users are looking for, and provide them with a relevant answer or route the conversation to the appropriate team.

Drift’s AI technology enables it to personalize website experiences for visitors based on their browsing behavior and past interactions. It can also seamlessly book meetings and qualify leads.

In addition to its chatbot, Drift’s live chat features use GPT to provide suggested replies to customers queries based on their website, marketing materials, and conversational context.

Key Features

• Rule-based and AI chatbot with a classifier that categorizes conversations by context for more meaningful conversations.
• Can handle context switching if the conversation flow or subject changes.
• Customizable chat widget for mobile and desktop with helpful out-of-the-box integrations.

13. Infobip

Price: Contact for pricing

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Infobip’s chatbot building platform, Answers, helps you design your ideal conversation flow with a drag-and-drop builder. It allows you to create both rules-based and intent-based chatbots, with the latter using AI and NLP to recognize user intent, process information, and provide a human-like conversational experience.

Infobip also has a generative AI-powered conversation cloud called Experiences that is currently in beta. In addition to the generative AI chatbot, it also includes customer journey templates, integrations, analytics tools, and a guided interface.

Key Features

• AI and machine learning help you train your chatbot.
• Rule and intent-based bots that understand the context of and replicate a conversational experience.
• Omnichannel usability for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Etc.

14. Appy Pie Chatbot

Price: Starts at $6 per bot/month

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Appy Pie helps you design a wide range of conversational chatbots with a no-code builder.

Appy Pie’s Chatbot Builder simplifies the process of creating and deploying chatbots, allowing businesses to engage with customers, automate workflows, and provide support without the need for coding. The customizable templates, NLP capabilities, and integration options make it a user-friendly option for businesses of all sizes.

Appy Pie also has a GPT-4 powered AI Virtual Assistant builder, which can also be used to intelligently answer customer queries and streamline your customer support process.

Key Features

• GPT-3 powered intuitive chatbot with contextual understanding.
• Leverages your business data to give accurate results to queries.
• Deploy a chatbot on your website or mobile app.

15. Zendesk Answer Bot

Price: Starts at $55per agent/month

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Zendesk Answer Bot integrates with your knowledge base and leverages data to have quality, omnichannel conversations. Zendesk’s no-code Flow Builder tool makes creating customized AI chatbots a piece of cake. Plus, it’s super easy to make changes to your bot so you’re always solving for your customers.

Each Zendesk Suite plan includes standard chatbot capabilities. However, you can access Zendesk’s Advanced AI with an add-on to your plan for $50 per agent/month. The add-on includes advanced bots, intelligent triage, intelligent insights and suggestions, and macro suggestions for admins.

Key Features

• Use Flow Builder to create custom AI-powered conversation flows.
• Deep learning capabilities to contextualize conversations and understand intent.
• Escalation to live agents who get insights and suggestions from AI to bring quick solutions.

16. Salesforce Einstein

Price: Available through cloud products

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Salesforce Einstein is a conversational bot that natively integrates with all Salesforce products. It can handle common inquiries in a conversational manner, provide support, and even complete certain transactions. Plus, it is multilingual so you can easily scale your customer service efforts all across the globe.

Einstein Bots seamlessly integrate with Salesforce Service Cloud, allowing Salesforce users to leverage the power of their CRM. Bots can access customer data, update records, and trigger workflows within the Service Cloud environment, providing a unified view of customer interactions.

Key Features

• Powered by predictive intelligence and machine learning.
• Builds contextual understanding and leverages existing Salesforce data to surface the best responses.
• Routing to human agents for more pressing conversations.

17. LivePerson

Price: Contact for pricing

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LivePerson’s AI chatbot is built on 20+ years of messaging transcripts. It can answer customer inquiries, schedule appointments, provide product recommendations, suggest upgrades, provide employee support, and manage incidents.

This AI chatbot can support extended messaging sessions, allowing customers to continue conversations over time without losing context. When needed, it can also transfer conversations to live customer service reps, ensuring a smooth handoff while providing information the bot gathered during the interaction.

Key Features

• The intent manager leverages data to understand the context of conversations.
• Create automated conversation flows across different messaging channels (website, mobile app, Apple Business Chat, etc.)
• Point and click builder to quickly and seamlessly create your bot.

18. Ada

Price: Contact for pricing

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Ada is an automated AI chatbot with support for 50+ languages on key channels like Facebook, WhatsApp, and WeChat. It’s built on large language models (LLMs) that allow it to recognize and generate text in a human-like manner.

The drag-and-drop chat builder requires zero coding and offers smart suggestions to help quickly train your chatbot. That way, you can spend less time on fine-tuning your chatbot, and more time on deep work.

Key Features

• Uses pre-trained machine learning models that you can refine to meet your business needs.
• Intent detection understands context and uses profiles and metadata to personalize conversations.
• Connected to your business’ crucial data to bring appropriate solutions.

Want to learn more about artificial intelligence? Check out this learning path.

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

Landing pages may be the equivalent of making a good first impression, but thank you pages are the final memory you leave a website visitor with before they go.

They’re often the final opportunity to engage your site visitors and leave them with a warm, fuzzy feeling about their overall experience on your site.

Like any website page, good thank you pages require careful consideration across design, layout, copy, and calls-to-action (CTAs).

If you’re struggling to make your thank you page work for your visitors and website goals, check out these nine examples to get inspired.

Table of Contents

• What is a thank you page?
• What is the benefit of a thank you page?
• Thank You Page Examples

What is a thank you page?

A thank you page is what your customers and leads are redirected to immediately after completing a form or making a purchase on your web page.

Its primary purpose is to acknowledge the website visitor’s action, whether that’s a purchase, a sign-up, or a request for information.

While thank you pages perform a similar function to a confirmation email, viewers don’t have to choose to open it.

Think of a thank you page as both the last step in your conversion process and the first step for customer retention.

The thank you page presents a prime opportunity to turn a lead into a customer — or a customer into a brand advocate. The best way to do this? Make the next step(s) in the buyer or user journey:

• Obvious and clear.
• Immediate.
• Exciting or desirable.
• Value-driven.

This means clear and concise copy, good layout, and taking the opportunity to add value for your website visitors.

What is the benefit of a thank you page?

Think of it this way: You may never have an easier, more natural opportunity to give a customer something that pleasantly surprises them and precisely fits what they want.

How do you know what your customer wants? They just told you exactly what they want by following a CTA on your site.

After someone follows the CTA on a landing page, take them to step two in their journey before they click away. Show customers you’re ready to deliver value time and time again.

For instance, if a customer makes a purchase on your site, use the thank you page as an opportunity to add value through additional resources or content — which will build trust and delight customers.

Alternatively, you might use a form thank you page as an opportunity to provide leads with the next steps. If the lead downloaded a Social Media Calendar ebook, the thank you page can list out alternative social media resources you’d like to provide.

Thank You Page Examples

1. Contact Form Completion

Confirm to your customer that they completed their intended action successfully — and remind them what you will (and won’t) do with their information. Build trust and let them know you’re on their side.

Let consumers know you’re interested in delivering value … and won’t be emailing them just for the sake of it. While you have them engaged, take the opportunity to highlight what they can expect from speaking with you and what else you can offer them.

This is your best chance to convince consumers your brand is different, and it comes long before they run across one of your messages in their inbox.

Best Contact Form Completion Thank You Page

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Rocket Agency does an excellent job of reinforcing its brand, providing other offers, and highlighting its achievements with previous clients on the thank you page for their Contact Us form.

The page flawlessly mixes and matches valuable offers like a digital marketing guide and their ongoing podcast with social proof such as award wins, partners, and customer logos.

Best of all, they provide their direct phone number in case the visitor wants a faster touchpoint.

2. Resource Download Thank You Pages

You likely have an ebook or other lead generation downloadable sent automatically via email. However, it’s still best to offer a download link to the originally-requested item right on your thank you page, as well.

This can keep your customer engaged on your site and increase the likelihood they’ll open and engage with your materials right away. It also gives you the opportunity to continue nurturing them towards a higher-intent conversion action on the site.

Best Resource Download Thank You Page

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One of the best ways to extend the value of a content download is to combine it with your subscription process so you can continue nurturing your leads.

That’s exactly what Smart Passive Income does before leading you to a thank you page where you can access the resource you wanted to download.

The thank you page also welcomes you as a subscriber and fosters a sense of trust and community. Users can customize their content preferences according to their biggest challenges, download other relevant resources, and see upcoming events.

Most importantly, the page contains a CTA to purchase an all-access pass to Smart Passive Income’s extensive training material.

3. Purchase Confirmation Pages

The post-sale confirmation page is an often-missed opportunity to surface similar, related, or complementary products.

To increase effectiveness, you’ll want to customize these recommendations with an aligning offer — such as a coupon or a rewards program.

If customers can create an account on your site but also have the option of checking out as a guest, the confirmation page is a great opportunity to prompt a free account creation.

Best Purchase Thank You Page

Few companies can even begin to approach the level of customer data that Amazon collects, stores, and leverages across their businesses.

This quality of information — and the company’s essentially limitless supply of items and store listings — makes the purchase confirmation page incredibly effective (and, as a consumer, quite difficult to resist).

Amazon frequently uses its thank you page to encourage further purchases of related products or drive users to other offerings like Amazon Prime.

4. Appointments and Reservations

When you’ve got someone newly signed up for an appointment, the thank you page provides a ready-made opportunity to expand or extend the conversation with them.

Encouraging viewers to follow or engage with your organization on social media is a natural next step.

As your follower on social, they’ll get frequent reminders about your brand, including any specials or deals you have on offer. If you’re a business that relies on repeat custom, this is a huge win.

Best Thank You Page for an Appointment or Booking

OpenTable incentivizes users to download the app once they’ve made an appointment so they can track and modify changes from within the app itself.

The thank you page also includes helpful notes about what to know before arriving at the restaurant.

5. Account Creation Thank You Pages

This is a prime opportunity to usher your lead seamlessly into your onboarding or account setup process.

You’ll want to make it so easy they don’t even think about clicking away.

The thank you page for account creation provides an opportunity to move your new users a step or two along in the customer lifecycle and increase retention.

You can offer resources to guide them through your product or platform or provide prompts to fully complete their account set-up.

Best Account Creation Thank You Page

Backlinko goes above and beyond in laying out the next steps for their leads.

They’ve infused their page’s messaging with urgency, but also friendliness and approachability.

6. Donation Thank You Pages

A donor isn’t “buying” a product in the same way most other customers are, but they’re undoubtedly looking for some element of reassurance, affirmation, appreciation.

Or — at the very least — some confirmation that their contribution is making a positive impact and being well spent.

For nonprofits, political campaigns, and other donor-soliciting sites, use the thank you page to provide a window into each donation’s impact, right from the start.

Additionally, it never hurts if you can anticipate and answer questions about your efficacy before they’ve even asked.

Best Donor Thank You Page

Save the Chimps nails the impact of storytelling on their donor thank you page, putting the chimps — the organization’s beneficiaries — front and center.

7. Consultation Booking

Many businesses rely on an initial consultation with their prospective customers to seal the deal, whether the consultation will take place in-person or virtually.

From tattoo and beauty parlors to B2B marketing agencies, free consultations are an ideal lead magnet. The trick is to make sure your thank you page is effective at keeping your new prospect engaged so that they’ll show up for your consultation appointment.

Best Consultation Booking Thank You Page

Cayk uses an embedded form on their site so prospects can book a time and date that’s most convenient for them without waiting to hear back from a salesperson.

Once the appointment is confirmed, a thank you message is displayed along with reminders about what the prospect will gain from the meeting.

Cayk also takes the opportunity to highlight their value propositions and what sets them apart from competitors.

8. Newsletter Subscription Thank You Page

If someone decides to sign up for your newsletter, it’s likely you’ve already impressed them with the content and quality of your website and resources.

So, why leave a bad taste with a poor newsletter subscription experience?

A well-designed thank you page here can make sure your subscribers stay engaged, not just on the site at that moment, but with any subsequent content that lands in their inbox.

Best Newsletter Subscription Thank You Page

Consumer Reports does a fantastic job on the newsletter subscription process and the thank you page. Upon signing up, users can select exactly which topics are relevant to their interests to customize their newsletter experience.

Once that’s done, the site confirms the sign-up process is complete and presents visitors with relevant content to keep them browsing on the site.

9. Event Registration Confirmation

Whether you’re encouraging visitors to sign up for a webinar or an in-person event, your thank you page helps to set the tone of the event.

You can use the thank you page to set expectations, provide important details, and keep users engaged until the event itself rolls around.

Not only does this provide a great user experience, but it also increases the chance of the registrant showing up — a particularly relevant concern if your event is free to attend.

Best Event Registration Thank You Page

MarketingProfs runs a lot of virtual events and webinars as part of their content strategy. When users sign up for an event, they’re taken to a thank you page that confirms all the event details, including the price, start time, and duration.

Registrants can also use social and email buttons to share the event with friends and colleagues to help boost sign-ups even further.

MarketingProfs also takes the opportunity to provide some FAQs about the webinar experience, how to access the session, and what happens if a registrant misses the event.

Saying Thank You

Thank you pages let you express gratitude and show appreciation towards visitors who have taken action on your website.

By acknowledging their interest, you create a positive relationship with potential customers, increasing the chances of building long-term brand loyalty.

So, start expressing your thanks so you can feel the love long term.

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint— a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.

Representation matters.

We hear this over and over again. And most people agree.

However, not all representation is created equal, and this is important to recognize, especially to ensure your efforts in including more people in your marketing are received positively rather than being met with frustration and skepticism.

As the number of brands embracing inclusive marketing and prioritizing visual imagery that accurately represents their target audience grows, it becomes crucial for marketers to become well-versed in how to do representation in marketing the right way.

When done right, it demonstrates to underrepresented consumers that you’re committed to them and their communities. When done right, representation in marketing makes the people you serve feel seen, supported, and like they belong with you.

Below are what consumers have shared with me in recent years about what is important for them to see in terms of representation.

But first, to make sure we’re on the same page, let’s talk about why representation in marketing is so important.

Why Representation in Marketing Matters

The people you serve need to see themselves and who they aspire to be reflected in the visual imagery your brand puts forth.

When they see themselves, it is a permission slip to take the next step forward with you in your customer journey. When they don’t, many consumers receive the message “this isn’t for me” and go off in search of another option that does make them feel like they belong.

The 2021 State of Representation in Marketing study I conducted revealed that 74% of consumers choose to buy from and engage with a brand as a result of seeing themselves represented in the visual imagery a brand puts forth.

Representation also has the effect of impacting how consumers feel about themselves. In that study, one consumer said they wish brands knew “The damage they do by underrepresentation.” Another consumer said they wished brands knew “How much it can affect someone and their feelings about themselves when they never see themselves represented [in marketing]. Like they are not important.”

These sentiments were present on social media in 2018 when Cosmopolitan UK put plus-size model Tess Holiday on the cover. One woman shared, “If I had seen plus women like me on magazines growing up, it wouldn’t have taken 25+ years to love my body.”

With representation, brands have both power and responsibility to influence not only the way consumers feel about themselves but also how they feel about other people. One study showed that exposure to highlight reels of women’s sports changed attitudes for the better toward female athletes.

French telecom company Orange followed this insight and created an ad in advance of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, highlighting that good representation really can influence perceptions of underrepresented groups, in this case, the skill, competitiveness, and emotion of women’s sports.

As you work to build an inclusive brand that makes more of the people you serve feel like they belong with you, know that taking the time to get representation right will have a significant impact on many, including you and your customers. Embrace these principles to engage in representation the way consumers want you to.

How To Do Representation in Marketing the Right Way

1. Representation in marketing includes more than just photos.

The on-ramp for many brands starting with inclusive marketing focuses on making their visuals more representative. But switching up your visuals doesn’t prove that your brand is inclusive.

Consumers will believe you are inclusive when it is representative throughout your brand. In the same study, many consumers shared that they want the brands they engage with and buy from to be holistically representative.

One respondent said, “It’s more than putting someone on an ad. They need to create products that cater to different people. Hire people that are diverse.” Another commented that, “I wish they included more types of people in their campaigns and in their actual companies as senior leaders.”

Another person responded to the research by explaining, “When you choose to represent different types of people, that inclusivity needs to translate into other areas of the brand. The brand also needs to be outspoken politically, have fair hiring tactics, etc., or people will realize that their “representation” is just pandering for sales.”

Here are important areas to focus on concerning representation for your brand.

Products

Take the time to ensure the products you develop showcase, acknowledge, and support the differences of the people your brand serves. For instance, Barbie has said that one in every five of the dolls they develop is Black, which bolsters part of its commitment to “ensure that diversity is represented everywhere” in its products.

Content

Representation matters with the content you create as well. Whether it’s who you include in videos, the guests you feature on your podcast, or even the influencers you work with, build a content plan that allows your target audience to see themselves represented in what you publish.

If you’re seeking more guidance on how to create inclusive and representative content, the episode below can serve as a great guide:

Discover more episodes here

People

Building representative teams is an important part of demonstrating that your brand is inclusive. Who you pay serves as a strong indicator of both company and brand values. Consumers may question your company’s true commitment to diversity and inclusion if you do not have a representative team.

Having a diverse and representative team not only helps you produce better work but also brings numerous other benefits.

Jerry Daykin is the head of global media at Beam Suntory. During our chat on the Inclusion & Marketing podcast, Jerry told me about a study conducted by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which revealed that the marketing industry at large is grappling with significant challenges in achieving proper representation. “Almost every minority you can name is underrepresented in the industry and also likely to have a worse experience of working in the industry,” he stated. “If the industry was properly inclusive and represented everyone, we probably would make better work.”

That better work comes from allowing individuals within these communities to harness their lived experiences and cultural intelligence, as it informs the development of exceptional products, services, and experiences.

Of course, building a diverse and representative team isn’t necessarily something you can do overnight. It takes time. A way to ensure you can have a team representative of the people you serve in the interim is to hire consultants and contractors to support you as you build and grow.

Marketing

Ensuring adequate representation exists in your marketing mix is essential, especially to ensure that customers connect with your brand at every touchpoint throughout their customer journey.

Many brands prioritize the inclusion of representative individuals in their photos and videos, whether sourced from stock imagery or custom content, to ensure a genuine reflection of the people they serve. However, another important area to consider is your customer testimonials.

Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon for people with identities from underrepresented and underserved groups to achieve success at different levels than people from dominant groups. These disparities are often the result of systemic and societal barriers not directly related to the problem your brand solves. Still, these issues do hurt organizational success. This episode of the Inclusion & Marketing podcast covers this topic more in-depth:

Discover more episodes here

2. Representation must tell an accurate narrative.

Too often, the narratives told about people from underrepresented and underserved communities aren’t accurate; they often reflect harmful stereotypes.

As such, as your brand starts to infuse representation of people from marginalized communities into your brand’s awareness and value system, take time to ensure the narrative you’re communicating with that representation is well-aligned with their real-world experiences.

For instance, Meryl Evans, a disability advocate, talked about her frustration with brands that are trying to represent people from the disability community but continue to perpetuate the narrative that people with disabilities can’t function on their own. She wrote a note on LinkedIn, saying, “My fellow deafies and I who prefer sign language would appreciate avoiding the use of photos with the help sign. It infantilizes deaf people like we always need help.”

3. Longevity and intention matters.

Two consumers I chatted with recently expressed their frustration with brands who seemed to have a sense of entitlement about how consumers should respond to brands being more representative with their visual imagery.

One said it felt like the brands were saying, “OK, here you go, here’s a Black person. Come buy our product.” As a Black man, he felt that the actions of the brands did not embody authenticity. To him, it felt like the brands were just changing their imagery, so he’d think the product was for him.

A woman who wears plus-size clothing expressed similar frustrations. She told me that brands launching campaigns representing different bodies can feel gimmicky because it’s a sudden change to their track record. She says, “So now I’m supposed to feel like, ‘Oh, this product is for me’ because all of a sudden I see someone who looks like me?”

As we chatted further, she talked about how, for now, her loyalty remains with the brands that have long represented and served plus-sized people. She did express that if a brand, in its early stages of embracing representation, perseveres in supporting the community consistently over the long term, it has the potential to earn her trust.

Your customers are waiting for you to see them; what will you do next?

By promising to make your brand’s commitments to DEIA representatives throughout all areas of your marketing mix, in time, you will earn the attention, trust, and loyalty of consumers from underrepresented and underserved communities.

By committing to producing marketing, product, and visual content that features imagery representing the people you serve or who they aspire to be, you ensure that they feel seen and validated.

If you’re like most marketers, you’ve tried out a generative AI tool. You’ve played around with ChatGPT to generate headlines. Yet, these fragmented use cases don’t capture the full power of deploying AI strategically. In five years, many companies will be creating AI marketing campaigns.

According to McKinsey & Co., 90% of commercial leaders believe their organizations should use generative AI often, yet only 20% do. While individual teams are testing AI in small ways, most teams aren’t comfortable enough with the technology yet to use it for higher thinking or strategy.

Let’s take a look at how to create an AI marketing campaign: what the possibilities and limitations are, as well as what tools will give you the best results.

Table of Contents

• Benefits of Creating an AI Marketing Campaign
• 7 Ways to Use Generative AI in Marketing Campaigns
• 5 AI Tools [Reviewed] to Add to Your Marketers’ Arsenal
• Which AI tool pitches the best marketing campaigns?

Benefits of Creating an AI Marketing Campaign

First, why would you want to create an AI marketing campaign in the first place? Most of us associate higher-level strategy and thinking as a solely human function, but AI is becoming more competent in this area.

Think about how AI tools are trained: They use machine learning to analyze the top-performing campaigns across email, social media, and search results.

They use big data to find and replicate the top marketing campaigns, borrowing from their format and syntax while giving you an original campaign idea.

While they can’t ever replace human originality, they can help humans do their best work. Here’s why you should give AI marketing campaigns a try.

1. Launch Campaigns Fast

The best marketing campaigns take weeks, if not months, to develop. Or do they?

AI marketing campaigns help teams move from concept to execution in a matter of hours — saving valuable time and making it possible to react quickly to changes in your market.

Today, marketers work on an average of five campaigns at a time. This speed could be a game-changer.

2. Spark Fresh Ideas

AI tools may not give you an ADDY-winning campaign idea the first time or even the fifth time. Together with its prompter (that’s you), it can serve as a creative springboard to move through mediocre ideas to find an epic one.

Marketer Joe Lazer Lazauskas recently wrote about this phenomenon in The Storytelling Edge newsletter.

“Tools like ChatGPT allow us to have brainstorming sessions on-demand. It’s like having a thousand co-workers trapped inside your computer, eagerly waiting to yell ideas at you—except their ideas will probably be better,” Lazauskas writes.

3. Drive Revenue

Research by McKinsey & Co. found that companies who invest in AI are seeing a revenue boost of 3-15% and a sales ROI boost of 10-20%.

Though many factors determine how effective an AI marketing campaign will be, there’s evidence that strategic, consistent deployment can boost the bottom line.

7 Ways to Use Generative AI in Your Marketing Campaigns

Rather than feeding ChatGPT prompts like “Give me 10 headline ideas about…” put on your strategist hat for a minute. What do you need to know to produce a great marketing campaign?

• Who the audience is
• What your key messages or differentiators are
• What you want the audience to do
• Your tone or writing style

Once you feed this high-level information to the tool, it’s ready to start producing ideas and won’t waste your time on campaign pitches that miss the mark. At this point, you can ask artificial intelligence to brainstorm:

• AI campaign ideation. Ask AI to pitch an overall concept and hook for your campaign before building out individual content assets
• AI social media campaigns. Use AI to write a social media marketing campaign for you. In addition to suggesting a post, AI tools can describe an image, targeting parameters, and even a budget for your marketing campaign.
• AI advertising on Google Search. Envision a Google search campaign by researching keywords and asking AI to pitch you a PPC campaign complete with copy and targeting demographics.
• AI email campaigns. Build out an email series or email campaign by feeding your AI tool your call-to-action, demographics, and key messages.
• AI blog campaigns. Attract potential leads and save time with starter blog content for your website.
• AI commercials and video marketing. While AI video production is still in its early stages, you can absolutely request marketing campaign concepts and video scripts for just about anything.
• AI landing pages. Finally, make sure your campaign can convert by building out a landing page with messaging that matches your ad content. Keep your concept consistent from end to end to engage readers.

Starting to see the possibilities? Now, let’s get down to looking at the best tools where you can build your AI marketing campaign.

5 AI Tools [Reviewed] To Add To Your Marketers’ Arsenal

The flood of AI tools entering the market is more than a little mind-boggling.

To help you focus your time, I compared several of the top tools in a head-to-head test to see which creates the best marketing campaign. It’s like having your own bevy of ad agencies pitching you campaigns.

Let’s see how each one performed in our fictional campaigns.

Campaign Assistant by HubSpot

One barrier to implementing AI effectively is that the tools are so vast that they can be difficult to understand and use. This campaign assistant by HubSpot is designed exclusively for creating marketing campaigns and is virtually foolproof.

The campaign assistant asks you specific questions about your audience, your messages, your writing style, and your CTA, so you don’t miss anything important.

Tell the campaign assistant which campaign asset you want it to create. Then, you’re ready to go.

To put Campaign Assistant to the test, we fed it a fictional use case for an ecommerce brand that sells sustainable bags and luggage.

AI Email Campaign with Campaign Assistant

First, I selected a marketing email and put in my prompts for the campaign. I described my business and three key messages that I want my audience to know.

Then, I gave a desired action and up to three descriptors to create a writing style. I asked for a witty and confident tone.

Here’s the email that campaign assistant sent back. It shares a catchy subject line and pre-header, three paragraphs that hit my three main points, and an “Order Now” button at the bottom.

The email needs a little tweaking to make the writing tighter and more personalized, but it’s a good start.

AI Google Search Ad Campaign with Campaign Assistant

To continue the test, I asked the campaign assistant to convert this campaign into a Google Search ad campaign. I didn’t have to input the information again — HubSpot’s campaign assistant simply converted it over for me.

The result? Short and sweet Google ad content in preview mode as it would appear on Google. If I want to use it, I can simply copy/paste it over to Google Ads.

AI Social Media Campaign with Campaign Assistant

Finally, I asked the campaign assistant to create a social media campaign for Facebook.

The tool can also create campaigns for LinkedIn and Instagram (launching soon).

The platform suggested three ads with a headline and body copy for me to review and placed them in a preview pane.

While the images are just placeholders, it’s useful to envision how it might look.

Once you have a campaign draft you’re happy with or ready to edit outside the platform, you can copy/paste it in one click or publish it if you’re a HubSpot user.

Honorable mention: Content Assistant by HubSpot

While we always recommend strategy first, there’s also a benefit to ideating in the same space where you produce your content. This helps you see your campaign in layout and tweak the designs in real time.

That’s where HubSpot’s other AI tool can come in handy. Content assistant is generative AI built into HubSpot’s layout and publishing tool.

If you use HubSpot for email marketing or landing page creation, you can strategize, create, and publish all in the same window.

ChatGPT by OpenAI

ChatGPT is likely the most well-known AI tool, with more than 100 million users.

We tested it to see how it handles marketing campaign requests, giving it the same ecommerce campaign prompt.

Since ChatGPT doesn’t have a plug-and-play prompt feature like campaign assistant, I fed it the information in natural language prompts (see the example below). This test used ChatGPT version 3.5. Here’s the marketing campaign it created.

AI Email Campaign with ChatGPT

The first iteration of the email campaign that ChatGPT had some good lines (“Hey there, Eco-Explorer!”) and endearing emojis but was far too long for an ecommerce email. So, I asked ChatGPT to cut the length in half.

The final result was more scannable and still conversational. It even created a discount code for my campaign, EARTH25.

AI Google Search Ad Campaign with ChatGPT

To make my campaign cross-channel, I prompted ChatGPT to repurpose my campaign for Google search.

The tool brainstormed three ad groups for me and three ads within each group. The headlines aren’t bad. The output also includes the main keywords and discounts needed to draw a click.

Beyond the ad copy, ChatGPT can also recommend parameters to make your PPC campaign a success. It recommends ad extensions, a bidding strategy, and best practices.

AI Social Media Campaign with ChatGPT

Finally, I asked ChatGPT to convert this campaign into a companion ad campaign on Facebook.

ChatGPT produced social media copy that was similar to its email campaign draft. However, it also recommended an image, a CTA better suited for Facebook, and four hashtags for my post.

ChatGPT gave me three ad alternatives and some basic campaign details about my audience and campaign objective. It’s somewhat vague, but you could follow up with some additional prompts to get extra targeting recommendations.

LLaMA 2 by Meta

If you haven’t heard of this one, you aren’t alone. Released quietly in mid-2023, LLaMA 2 is Meta’s large language model (LLM), which is free and open to the public.

Unlike ChatGPT or Google Bard, LLaMA 2 is open-source, allowing users to flag and fix potential issues. To chat with LLaMA 2 on a browser, I used Chat Arena.

AI Email Campaign with LLaMA 2

First, I fed LLaMA 2 the exact same prompt as Campaign Assistant and ChatGPT asking for an email campaign. The email could use a shave for length but definitely delivered a witty tone.

The email came complete with emojis and a discount code suggestion but appeared to be missing a call to action — a big oversight in the email marketing realm.

AI Google Search Ad Campaign with LLaMA 2

Next, I served LLaMA 2 the challenge of converting this into a PPC campaign with the simple follow-up prompt, “Can you convert this into a Google Search ad campaign?”

First, LLaMA 2 organized my campaign into three different ad groups based on product type. Each ad within the ad groups focused on a different angle or audience, setting it up well for A/B testing.

Here’s the headline, ad copy, and CTA that LLaMA 2 wrote for the search campaign. While I can’t preview how it would look in campaign assistant, it did save me time by pulling the top keywords I can use for the campaign.

AI Social Media Ad Campaign with LLaMA 2

Finally, I asked LLaMA 2 to create a Facebook Ad campaign for me based on the campaign parameters already entered. Since LLaMA 2 was created by Facebook’s owner Meta, it’s no surprise that the results were very thorough.

LLaMA 2 gave me a target audience with suggested demographics and interests to target. The ad creative included an idea image, headline, text, four hashtags, and a CTA. It also suggests a budget of $1,000 and a 30-day duration.

The model also gave me some tips to increase sales through Facebook ads, such as running retargeting ads and creating a lookalike audience.

Want to learn more? Read the State of AI in Marketing report or visit our resources and best practices for AI marketing campaigns.

Which AI tool pitches the best marketing campaign?

Looking at these AI tools side by side, you can see that each one has its own strengths in marketing campaign creation.

Campaign Assistant by HubSpot is best for ease of use and plug-and-play capabilities that make it easy for marketers. It also gives design previews to help users visualize their campaigns and integration that saves existing HubSpot users time.

ChatGPT is likely the most flexible tool, with natural language processing enabling you to make customization requests to tweak your campaigns. Its emoji-filled copy hits the right notes, and it delivers strategy and campaign advice for paid ads.

With Meta’s influence, LLaMA 2 gives the most detailed strategy recommendations for paid ad campaigns. It also managed to pull off some wordplay that’s impressive for a machine: “Buckle up (or should we say buckle in?)”.

Just remember, AI marketing campaigns are a complement to human creativity. All three of these tools suggested very similar campaigns: images of bags and their wearers with scenic backdrops behind them.

While this is a solid idea, if every company followed it, no one would stand out. Always give the ideas a gut check against what you know about your audience and industry, and edit and tweak AI content to make it brand-perfect.

I’ve submitted hundreds of electronic resumes throughout my career. These digital job applications hold so much weight in the job search process. It’s always nerve-wracking to make sure I’m doing everything right.

I always ask myself: Does this meet the submission requirements? Did I use the right font? Will my resume surpass the employer’s applicant tracking system (ATS)?

If you’ve also wanted to ensure you have the highest chance of standing out and securing an interview, here’s how to make the most of electronic resumes.

Table of Contents

• What is an electronic resume?
• The Benefits of Electronic Resumes
• How to Make an Electronic Resume
• Electronic Resume Tips

What is an electronic resume?

An electronic resume is any resume that’s submitted online. Employers will request electronic resumes in plain text (ASCII), HTML, or PDF.

This helps applicant tracking systems (ATSs) easily scan and decipher the hundreds of resumes they receive. To meet these standards, electronic resumes are typically created with limited design or formatting.

The Benefits of Electronic Resumes

In my experience, electronic resumes helped me refine my approach to better position myself for a job. I found that I was more likely to land an interview when

I tailored my resume to the job posting, used simple fonts, and included keywords.

Here are a few benefits of using electronic resumes.

You’ll match the ATS.

Only 30% of resumes are accepted by applicant tracking systems (ATS). But when they’re done right, ATS-approved resumes yield successful results.

When I spoke to Rodolphe Dutel, the founder of remote job board Remotive, about his experience with electronic resumes, he shared with me an incredible story.

Early in his career, he was part of a batch of new hires at Google. Dutel later learned that his electronic resume was the sole reason he landed the role.

“It just so happened that I was one of two people that were not peer-recommended,” he recalls, “meaning that my resume actually got picked up by the ATS, and they decided to contact me.”

Dutel went on to work at Buffer, where he helped grow the team from 20 to 80 people as the director of operations before founding Remotive.

If you want to match a company’s ATS and ensure your resume gets scanned, use your electronic resume to make sure you’re presenting the right information for the job.

You can focus on content.

One of the very first resumes I created was, admittedly, over the top.

I used a chunky, bright-colored font for my name, followed by weirdly formatted experience and skills sections separated by vertical and horizontal lines.

I would show you what it looked like, but I’m pretty sure I deleted it out of sheer embarrassment.

I did all of this to hide the fact that I didn’t have much work experience yet.

Looking back, it probably would’ve been better to keep it simple and focus on writing a resume that showcased my strengths. Instead, I tried to hide my lack of experience.

This is where a simple electronic resume would help. When you’re required to submit a plain text, no-frills version of your resume, you’re forced to focus on the actual skills. Write about the results you’ve achieved and can bring to a new role.

Demonstrates your ability to follow instructions.

If a job application asks you to submit a plain text version of your resume, you can guarantee that Microsoft Word Doc resumes will immediately be discarded.

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Employers look for applicants who can demonstrate their ability to pay attention to details and follow instructions.

Your resume is the first impression you make on an employer. Use your electronic submission to stand out and start your interview process off on a positive note.

How to Make an Electronic Resume

To demonstrate how to make an electronic resume, I’m going to create one for myself for a specific job posting.

Here’s a job listing for a content writer at Orchard that aligns with my skills and experience:

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Here’s how I would put together my electronic resume if I wanted to apply for this position.

1. Start with your contact information.

Your resume should start with the basics. Include your name, location (you can list this as “remote” if you’re seeking remote-only positions), and your email. You can also include your phone number.

Remember, the key to creating an electronic resume is to limit the formatting and design elements. Here’s how I’d format my contact information on my electronic resume (this isn’t my real contact information, of course):

Sam Lauron

Austin, TX, [email protected], (111) 222-3333

2. Mention your education.

If applicable, mention your education. This section typically includes the name of the school you went to, the type of degree you obtained, and any additional achievements you accomplished while in school.

Here’s how my education section would look for an electronic resume:

B.A. Mass Communication, Public Relations

Texas State University

3. Identify your target keywords.

To catch the attention of the ATS, it’s essential to use keywords that were mentioned in the job posting you’re applying to.

These keywords are what the ATS will scan for, so if your resume doesn’t mention any of the words from the job listing, it will automatically be discarded.

For example, if we take a look at the job listing for the content writer at Orchard, we can see keywords like “real estate,” “SEO best practices,” and “content strategy.”

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Using that information, these are the keywords I’d target for the specific job posting at Orchard. Aim to incorporate these keywords throughout your resume.

Notice that I capitalized the beginning of each new keyword. This helps the ATS identify them as separate phrases.

Keywords: Content writer, Content strategy, SEO marketing, SEO best practices, Content marketing, Real estate

3. Highlight your skills.

With any resume you put together, it’s important to tailor it to the job you’re applying for. This includes adjusting your skills section to match the job listing if you want to increase your chances of the ATS picking up your resume.

Here’s an overview of what types of skills the role at Orchard is looking for:

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Similar to the keywords, I can take language from this posting to generate skills I want to highlight.

Keep in mind that bullet points don’t often translate well in plain text. Instead, you can use a dash or asterisk. These are the skills I’d highlight on my electronic resume for this job.

Skills:

– Content writing

– Search engine optimization (SEO)

– Real estate industry knowledge

– Homeownership

– Writing explainer content

– Updating and optimizing content

4. Describe your work experience.

Now, time for the work experience section. You’ll do the same thing for this section as you’ve done for the last few. Use language and keywords from the job posting to describe your own experience.

Here’s the job description for the content writer role at Orchard:

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Here’s how I would translate my work experience to match the job listing. Like the skills section above, I used dashes instead of bullet points.

Work Experience:

– Write educational explainer content

– Update and optimize older articles to ensure accuracy, and improve quality and overall search rankings

– Conduct research for data-based articles

– Execute SEO best practices

Electronic Resume Tips

Based on my experience of creating an electronic resume, here are some of my tips for making the most of the digital format. I also asked Dutel for his suggested best practices.

Use keywords.

Including keywords that were mentioned in the job posting is essential.

These words and phrases are what the ATS will scan for, so if your resume doesn’t mention any of the words the system is looking for, it will be automatically discarded.

“For instance, if you’re applying to be a business analyst and the job description wants someone who is proficient with data, it is your job to understand that you’re going to have to include keywords such as VBA, Excel, and Gantt chart,” says Dutel.

While incorporating the right words and phrases is important, they have to make sense.

“Remember that an ATS is looking for keywords whereas humans are looking for [experiences] that make sense,” says Dutel.

“If you don’t have the ability to fit in the keywords in your work experience section, you can add a section at the bottom of your electronic resume for other skills and add the keywords that you think are interesting.”

Keep context in mind.

You don’t want to stuff your digital resume with keywords, as this will be obvious and unenjoyable for a recruiter to read.

Instead, your resume should be a balance of careful targeting and original content to appease both the robots and the humans who will be reviewing your resume.

“Your resume should reflect who you are as a professional and individual,” suggests Dutel. “You have to articulate your work accomplishments and your learnings in such a way that’s understandable and friendly to an ATS and understandable and friendly to HR.”

Remove formatting.

In my experience, the simpler the resume, the better.

Some applications require you to paste your resume into the application, and a resume that’s overly designed doesn’t translate the same way when it’s submitted electronically. Unless you save it as a PDF, your format won’t remain intact.

Use simple fonts for your electronic resume. Acceptable fonts to use include Times New Roman, Arial, or any other type of web-safe font. The reason for this is that some fonts are hard to read while others simply don’t transfer if you submit your resume as a Microsoft doc, for instance.

You should also remove vertical lines, bullet points, and bold and italicized fonts as these can all mess up your resume when it’s scanned by the ATS and decrease your chances of getting through to the next stage.

Follow a standard structure.

While you want to include keywords that match the job description, it’s also important to follow a standard structure that will be understood by both ATS and HR.

Dutel recommends following the STAR method to structure your electronic resume. The STAR method is an interview technique that helps you answer a question in four parts. The acronym stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result.

You can follow the same method when putting together your resume content.

Take a look at the job description and identify the skills you want to incorporate into your resume. Then, list those talking points in a similar way that you’d answer an interview question. Structuring your key points this way makes it easy for both robots and humans to follow along.

Another element of your electronic resume structure that should be standardized is the headings. Use standard headings like “work experience” or “skills” rather than trying to get creative.

The ATS is trained to pick up common phrases, so using less common words like “skillset” or “expertise” can impact whether or not your resume gets noticed.

Use a resume builder.

Staring at a blank page is intimidating. Instead of creating your electronic resume from scratch, use a resume builder or template to get started.

There are plenty of free resume builders available to job seekers. Some offer customizable templates, while others offer expert tips throughout the creation process.

Personally, my experience using HubSpot’s resume templates was seamless and fast. The template I used made it easy to stick to the common structure and acceptable format for electronic resumes while still being able to customize it to match my needs.

There are so many elements of the job searching and interviewing process that require a lot of time and preparation, but your electronic resume doesn’t have to be one of them.

By following these expert best practices, keeping your resume simple, and using professional resume templates, your electronic resume can be created and accepted in no time.

Getting Started

Electronic resumes don’t need to be daunting. This of them as a place where your work and skills can shine. Follow the steps above, and you’ll get noticed by both resume crawlers and humans.

Are you eager to uncover the latest insights into landing page statistics? Well, you’re in for a treat.

In July 2023, we surveyed 101 seasoned marketing and advertising experts from various corners of the United States to learn more about the latest trends for landing pages.

Landing pages, often hailed as the gateway to online success, play a pivotal role in today‘s digital landscape. They are the crucial bridges that connect potential customers to your brand’s offerings.

A well-crafted landing page can differentiate between a fleeting visitor and a devoted customer.

In this article, we‘ll not only uncover the invaluable insights gleaned from these industry leaders but also highlight the immense value that a strategically optimized landing page can bring to your business. Let’s dive in.

16 Stats That Make a Case for Landing Pages

1. The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 5.89%.

10% is the benchmark for a good conversion rate. To hit this mark, you must create landing pages that benefit you and your target audience.

Whether you sell SaaS or clothing, a higher conversion rate from landing pages means a longer list of leads to nurture into paying customers.

2. 43.6% of marketers report generating leads as their goal, while 33.7% say direct customer purchase is their top priority.

If you’re in either category, landing pages can be a valuable element of your marketing strategy. You can use them to generate leads, increase customer acquisition, and get free or paid subscribers.

3. 33.7% of marketers see higher conversion rates in 2023 than in 2022.

Our survey shows landing pages that convey positive emotions can help you get higher conversion rates.

That doesn’t mean you should ditch negative emotions like sadness and anger. When using emotions in marketing, consider your business and the goal of the landing page.

For instance, a donations landing page doesn’t have to convey happiness. It can be between happy and sad, causing the audience to empathize, connect, and give to the cause.

4. Marketers drive traffic to landing pages with multiple tactics.

3% of the marketers we surveyed didn’t have a landing page promotion strategy, but the others do. Here are the tactics they use:

• 7.9% — link building.
• 32.7% — paid advertising.
• 43.6% — email marketing.
• 5.9% — podcast promotion.
• 13.9% — YouTube promotion.
• 51.5% — social media promotion.
• 28.7% — Internal links in blog posts.
• 35.6% — search engine optimization.
• 17.8% — Partner/affiliate marketing.
• 20.8% — CTAs and banner advertisements on the website.

5. 38.6% of marketers say video is the #1 landing page element that impacts conversion.

If you already use video in your marketing, incorporating it into your landing page strategy can help you increase conversion rates.

In fact, 9 out of 10 people want companies to create more videos in 2023 — making videos an excellent tool for brand awareness and lead generation.

 

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6. 30.7% of marketers say the ideal number of questions on a landing page form to get the best conversions is four.

There’s no one-size-fits-all for the number of questions to ask on your landing page form.

In a different study of e-commerce brands, Omnisend found that the highest number of converting form fields is 3, with an average conversion rate of 10%.

The most popular combinations use email address and name (7%) and email address and birthdate (5.7%).

While three questions work for some, two could work for you. So, experiment to find what works. At HubSpot, creating multi-page forms is a form optimization strategy that works for us.

7. 10.9% of marketers report only the name and email are essential for a landing page form.

Other marketers collect information like role, company size, location, years of experience, phone number, company address, contact location, and the company’s industry.

8. 6.9% of the surveyed marketers use HubSpot to design landing pages.

Marketers use multiple content management systems to design their landing pages. When choosing one, ensure it’s versatile to address your needs.

9. Landing pages are the least popular type of signup form, but they have the highest conversion rate (23%).

Using landing pages to get customer contact information for lead nurturing will likely increase conversions.

10. Businesses using optimization software for their landing pages see an average conversion lift of 30%.

While optimization is always an essential factor for generating traffic, using optimization tools for your landing page strategy is valuable for increasing conversions.

11. Addressing buyer fears on landing pages can increase conversion rates by 80%.

Marcus Sheridan, a keynote speaker at Inbound 2019, shared an experiment he ran about customer fears. He found that addressing fears like email spam or personal data use on his landing pages increased his form conversion rate.

If your landing pages aren’t converting much, consider using Sheridan’s strategy. Be upfront with consumers about what will come from completing forms on your landing pages.

12. Personalized CTAs convert 202% better than default versions.

Consumers prefer personalization because it ensures they aren’t overloaded with irrelevant information that doesn’t interest them. Given this, using personalized and targeted CTAs in your landing pages will likely increase your conversion rates.

13. 55% of top landing page submissions on the HubSpot blog came from ebook offers.

If you have a blog or website that wants to distribute long-form instructional content, offering ebooks on your landing pages can help increase your business conversion rates.

14. Portent says pages that load in one second convert 3x higher than those that load in 5 seconds.

Customers won’t stick around if your landing page takes forever to load. So, ensure you do everything to improve your page speed.

15. The cost of creating one landing page is between $75 to $3000.

What affects your cost of creating a landing page depends on several factors. Are you working with an in-house creator or outsourcing to a freelancer or company? Is the landing page simple or complex? Do you require a landing page design?

16. Landing pages have the best signup rates.

Compared to popups, signup boxes, and wheels of fortune, landing pages have the best signup rates at 23%.

The interesting part? Popups make up about 66% of all signup forms. Compare that to landing pages that make up 5.1% of all signup forms, and what you see is an opportunity to create more landing pages and maximize conversions.

Landing Pages are a Valuable Piece of Your Marketing Strategy

Considering the above stats, marketers who create landing pages that build trust with page visitors, provide valuable information, and use different content types see higher conversion rates.

Whether you already use them and aren’t obtaining the results you desire or you’re new to landing pages in general, using them (and following best practices) will likely help you draw in new customers and drive revenue.

The instrumental to Missy Elliott’s “Pass That Dutch” is blaring through your speakers while Lindsay Lohan is on your screen walking through the halls of North Shore High School. Did you just transport back to the early 2000s?

No, chances are you were just served Walmart’s latest Black Friday ad.

The movie Mean Girls has been a pop culture classic since its release in 2004. Nearly 20 years later, Walmart is capitalizing on the film’s enduring popularity with a Mean Girls-themed Black Friday campaign.

Walmart’s series of ads features five of the film’s original cast members reprising their roles and even includes a cameo from Missy Elliott herself. Instead of the notorious “burn book” featured in the original movie, the Walmart ads are centered around a “deal book” highlighting discounts the retailer is offering this holiday season.

Today we’re breaking down why this campaign is brilliant marketing by Walmart.

Want to sell to millennials? Reference Mean Girls

Mean Girls is a generation-defining film for millennials. This generation was the target demographic for the film when it was initially released, and has since been a mainstay in millennial pop culture.

Since the film is regarded positively by so many members of this generation, it’s the perfect backdrop for nostalgia marketing, which tends to be especially effective for millennials.

Nostalgia marketing leverages familiarity to evoke positive emotions from potential customers. Millennials came of age during a major technological revolution, giving them a unique disposition: an analog childhood and a tech-savvy young adulthood.

This leaves many millennials especially susceptible to nostalgia marketing if it reminds them of “simpler times” before we were all online and Mean Girls debuted during the tail end of that time period.

Selling to millennials is especially important for mega-retailers like Walmart during the holiday season. Millennials are now the largest living group of adults in the U.S. and are expected to be spending more than other generations this holiday season. In other words, if retailers want to bring in holiday sales, they need millennials to buy from them.

Capitalizing on the film’s remake

The campaign adds to the buzzing Mean Girls universe. Walmart’s Black Friday ad dropped one week before the first trailer for the upcoming Mean Girls remake was released, which likely wasn’t a coincidence.

The 2024 film is an on-screen rendition of the Mean Girls musical, and though they aren’t formally connected it’s easy for viewers to associate the Walmart ad with the new film’s promo. In fact, some X users expressed favoritism for the Walmart ads over the trailer for the upcoming film:

While we won’t know the full impact of Walmart’s campaign until Black Friday sales figures start rolling in, so far the campaign has been a well-received conversation starter for the retailer’s customer base.

If you’re noticing some droopy shoulders around the office or in your Zoom meeting, it’s time to plan a team outing. It’s fun and a great way for team members to bond and get to know one another outside of the work desks and joint tasks.

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

We have something for everyone — from perfect activities for remote teams to large or small in-house groups to events that enhance teamwork and events that all team members can enjoy outdoors.

Table of Contents

• Why should you do team-building activities for work?
• 5 Benefits of Team Building Activities
• How to Plan a Team Building Event
• Team Building Activities
• Company Outing Ideas

Why should you do team-building activities for work?

Team-building activities and games boost morale, break down barriers, and create a supportive and pleasant environment to work in.

As people with different backgrounds, needs, ambitions, and personalities make up teams, their group performance improves, resulting in smoother operations and enhanced business productivity.

Team-building activities also help to break down silos that may be detrimental to business performance.

Furthermore, they foster diversity and inclusion (D&I) by promoting collaboration, mutual understanding, and appreciation of individual differences. Activities create opportunities for employees from diverse backgrounds to work together, reduce biases, and build a more cohesive team.

5 Benefits of Team Building Activities

1. Improved Communication Skills

Engaging in activities encourages employees to open up, leading to an atmosphere of open communication, which improves understanding and collaboration.

2. Enhanced Productivity

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

3. Identification of Strengths and Weaknesses

Managers get to see employees in action. Who performs better under pressure? Who holds everyone together? Who leads the pack? Qualities shine, and new leaders are discovered.

4. Higher Employee Retention

Companies that invest time and money in team-building activities enjoy higher employee satisfaction and team camaraderie, resulting in low turnover rates.

In recent HubSpot research, we discovered that marketing leaders are concerned about quiet quitting and find it unacceptable, even though 57% say it is happening in their organization.

They view it as a sign of poor work ethic, though they also recognize it is their responsibility to prevent and address it by boosting morale, encouraging work-life balance, and supporting workers’ mental health.

5. Enhanced Creativity

Employees get creative. They think outside the box and explore new approaches to problem-solving.

Before planning any team-building activities, it’s important to take specific variables into account for a successful outing.

1. Define your goals.

Determine what you want to achieve during team-building events. Have a clear goal in mind, whether it’s improving communication, fostering collaboration, or enhancing problem-solving skills. Align activities with your desired outcomes.

2. Set a budget.

Set aside a budget and plan activities accordingly. Pick activities that serve the purpose without exceeding financial constraints.

3. Set up a planning and execution team.

Hire professional facilitators who possess the expertise to plan and lead the event effectively. You’ll need moderators who can ensure activities are executed properly and help derive meaningful insights from the experience.

4. Make it inclusive.

Ensure you design inclusive and suitable activities for all employees.

Take into account the cultural backgrounds of diverse employees and the physical restrictions of disabled employees. Select activities and venues accordingly.

For example, choosing a venue that is inaccessible to disabled employees can have a counterproductive effect.

5. Select the right activities.

Consider the interests and preferences of your team members when selecting activities while ensuring they align with your goals. Choose activities that are interactive and build collaboration among employees.

6. Get your timing right.

Pick a time that works for all employees without causing disruptions to business operations. Also, take weather conditions and season into account, especially when planning outdoor activities.

7. Choose a good location.

Select a convenient location and arrange the necessary logistics in advance to ensure a smooth and comfortable experience.

8. Market the event internally.

Marketing the event internally will elevate its significance and help create a memorable experience. Creating and sharing an “Event Day Agenda” that showcases all activities increases anticipation and gets folks excited.

9. Follow up and gather feedback.

Include a follow-up process to evaluate the impact of the activities on team dynamics and productivity. You can then use this feedback to improve future activities.

Featured Resource: Company Culture Code Template

Download HubSpot’s Free Company Culture Code Template to explain and promote your upcoming corporate team-building activities and frequency.

Remote Team Building Activities

1. Virtual Break Room

This is an excellent team-building activity.

Create a virtual break room via Zoom or another platform. Your staff can log in and join over their lunch or during their break time. This allows employees to catch up and get well acquainted, just like in a physical office setting.

Keep water cooler moments alive by encouraging workers to share interesting photos and videos.

2. Virtual Escape Room

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This activity brings mystery and thrill to your workers wherever they might be.

Depending on the Virtual Escape Room you pick, team members can choose from various activities, such as escape rooms or solving puzzles or murders.

3. Beer Making

In this team-building exercise, team members become brewers for a day right from their homes.

The process does not require any prior knowledge as the Beer Making Experience walks participants through each step of the journey. Kits are also delivered to interested staff.

4. Virtual Scavenger Hunt

You can quickly organize this team-building activity over a Zoom call. Challenge team members to collect different items from around their homes. The first person to show all the required items wins the hunt!

5. Fitness Challenge

Give your team a fitness challenge like “chair squats” or a “plank challenge” with a time limit. Those who finish first win. This activity is not only fun, it also gives your employees a great workout.

6. Icebreaker Quizzes

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Quizzes are an exciting and safe way to do team-building weekly, especially if there are many new hires on your team.

Choose an online icebreaker quiz, like Quizbreaker, which sends out a new round of quizzes weekly to your team. Remote teams learn more about each other while having fun.

7. Professional Development Workshop

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

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

8. Visit Paris Virtually

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A challenge many HR departments face is onboarding new hires.

Visiting new places virtually with tools like Woyago is a unique and exciting icebreaker. The virtual tour Woyago offers has real-life Parisian guiding participants with several challenges along the way.

Team Building Activities for Larger Groups

9. What’s my name?

Each player is assigned the name of a person — dead or alive — and displays that name on their back, head, or part of their body so that only the other players can read it. Write these names on index cards or Post-it notes.

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

10. Cook-Off

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This culinary team-building activity could end in dessert or disaster.

Divide your team into smaller groups, pick a food category, and challenge each team to whip up something delicious. Anything from ice cream to pizza.

Want to make it interesting? Pick a single ingredient that all teams must use, like maple syrup or Oreos. Or, spark creativity by specifying a unique shape everyone must create.

11. Sneak a Peek

In this game, team members break off into groups of at least four and take turns recreating objects from memory.

Use LEGOs, clay, building blocks, or a similar set of construction items. The leader will craft an object or structure for every group to recreate.

A member from each group then has 10 seconds to “sneak a peek” at the structure (which is hidden), return to their groups, and describe what they saw to the rest of the group so they can try to recreate it.

12. Board Game Tournament

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Host a team-wide board game tournament by selecting a single game. Enlist one team member to coordinate specific time slots when participants can step away from their desks and enjoy the game.

This way, everyone gets a chance to have some fun and engage in friendly competition within their available free time.

Some great games with reasonable play times include Boggle, Jenga, or games using good ol‘ playing cards. Don’t forget to incentivize.

13. Office Trivia

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Who says trivia night can only take place at the bar? This activity can easily be arranged at the office for both larger and smaller teams.

You can write your own trivia questions. Trivia questions are generally sorted into categories — four or five trivia questions per category — with optional bonus questions at the end of the game.

Give each question a point value, or assign each team certain points per category they can bet. Each team can then bet as many or as few points as they want per question until they’ve used all their points for that category.

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

14. Question Mingle

This activity has each team member moving around and meeting each person individually. It’s great for back-to-the-office teams or newly formed ones.

Equipped with four thoughtful questions, participants get to know their coworkers on a deeper level, fostering stronger connections and promoting teamwork.

15. Origami Contest

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Indulge your employees in a friendly and creative paper-folding competition.

Form teams and provide each with a set of designs all participants must complete within the time limit. Give resources and instructions. Every team member must complete each design for the team to proceed to the next round.

Employees will collaborate, help each other, and distribute tasks to complete all the designs efficiently. Completing origami not only brings a sense of accomplishment but also serves as a stress-relieving activity.

16. Talent Show

Unleash your employees’ unique talents and skills on stage with a talent show. They can perform individually or in groups. This encourages employees to step out of their comfort zones and form bonds with coworkers.

From tuneful duets and energetic aerobics to entertaining skits and side-splitting standups, get ready for a memorable showcase of the diverse talents and creativity of your workers.

17. Dance Battle

Clear up the conference room for a dance competition you’ll be talking about for years to come. Decide on a date and divide everyone into teams. Assign each team a dance style they’re comfortable with.

Provide plenty of time to rehearse, allowing teams to regroup online or at each other’s place. It’s an excellent way for employees to bond over laughs and teaching moments. Arrange for snacks and give prizes to the team with the loudest applause.

Small-Group Team Building Events

18. Improv Workshop

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

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

19. Two Truths and One Lie

This classic house party activity is an excellent ice-breaker.

Start by organizing the entire group into a circle and give each person the floor to introduce themselves. Every team member tells three things about themselves —only two of which are true.

It’s up to the rest of the group to determine which statement is the lie.

20. Karaoke Night

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Have your employees come out of their shells with some karaoke? You can even have a contest for the best group karaoke performance.

Bonus points if there are feather boas and cowboy hats involved. This activity works best for a more extroverted group, so if your team isn’t comfortable performing on stage, explore other ideas from this list that better align with their preferences.

21. The “Suddenly” Story

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

Gather in a circle. One person offers three opening sentences to a story about anything. At the end, they say “Suddenly …” and pass the story on to the next person.

They have to take the three sentences and build on the story with another three sentences, followed by “Suddenly …” — and so on. Each member adds their own twist to the story, resulting in an amusing compilation.

22. Concentration (Marketing Edition)

This is a modern take on the classic 1960s game show “Concentration.”

Display 30 numbered tiles up on a board, with each tile with an identical counterpart somewhere else on the board. What is the commonality? Matching prizes on the back.

Over time, as contestants open up more tiles, they choose the tiles they believe match and win the corresponding prizes written on the back.

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

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

Fun Team Building Activities

23. Jigsaw Puzzle Race

While assembling a jigsaw puzzle alone can be tedious, turning it into a problem-solving activity with your colleagues makes it enjoyable. Divide into teams for a thrilling multi-puzzle race.

Grab several copies of the same puzzle and turn your weekend activity into a contest. Offer prizes just like you would in a game of office trivia.

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

24. Escape Room Games

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Create lasting, positive memories for your office with activities like Escape the Room, Puzzle Break, AdventureRooms, etc.

Participants are confined to a room for an hour. They must find hidden objects, solve puzzles, and decipher clues to locate the key that unlocks their escape.

Seems easy, right? Did you know only 20% of players actually make it out before the hour is up?

If you’re not sure how to convert your office space into an escape room, hire a service to do it for you.

Companies like Outback Team Building & Training host events that turn your office into a team-building escape challenge. This can invoke some great, positive memories in a space where your team works every day.

25. The Egg Drop Challenge

Chances are, you’ve done this during school or at summer camp. The Egg Drop Challenge is a beloved tradition that challenges teams to create small structures around an uncooked egg to protect it from a high fall.

Provide each group with specific items to build their egg protection, from straws and newspaper to tape and cardboard. For a coworker-friendly version, consider making it less challenging by allowing them to use anything available at the office.

26. Catchphrase

In this classic party game, players from teams engage in rounds of describing words and phrases to their teammates without stating the actual word or phrase.

Phrases can include celebrities, expressions, or simple items around the house.

This game is often played with a basket filled with slips of paper with phrases on them.

27. Game of Possibilities

In this game, team up and distribute random objects to one member of each team. They must physically demonstrate the purpose of the object to their teammates without using any words. Each team has to guess what the object is.

28. Group Yoga Session

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Organize a group yoga session led by a certified instructor. Partner up and explore yoga poses that require collaboration and trust between team members.

It’s a great way to meditate and do some physical exercise. To add a playful touch, play some yoga games that allow your employees to have fun, relieve stress, and build stronger bonds with each other.

29. Domino Challenge

Who doesn’t love dominos?

Bring in some and have your employees whip up some creative designs and work together to make intricate structures.

This activity provides a fantastic opportunity for teams to collaborate effectively, ensuring all the dominos remain upright.

Each member will be assigned smaller tasks to ensure the effective and timely completion of the entire structure.

This promotes sharing ideas and brings out the collective creativity of your employees. It inspires individuals to help and support each other to complete their structures quickly.

30. D&D Marathon

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is an immersive and interactive tabletop role-playing game that encourages employees to work collaboratively to win against other teams. It can be easily arranged within the office or for remote teams.

With each player taking the role of a unique character within the game, participants will face challenges, engage in combat, and solve mysteries together.

This will require teams to strategize and support each other for effectively overcoming obstacles, making it an ideal activity to improve communication and collaboration within the office.

31. Scavenger Hunt

Organize an exciting scavenger hunt around the city on a beautiful day. Break everyone into groups, and let the adventure begin.

You can either design the hunt yourself or consider hiring professional services like The Go Game (with notable clients like Netflix, Facebook, and HBO) or Stray Boots for an unforgettable experience. Don’t forget to take pictures to have a slideshow when everyone regroups at the end.

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

32. Go-Kart Racing

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Injecting a touch of healthy competition can bring a group closer together. An adrenaline-pumping activity like kart racing is a great way to get employees to interact with one another.

Make sure everyone pays attention during the safety lecture.

33. Cooking Class

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In the mood for something a little more culinary? Change up the usual outing to a bar or your local restaurant, and try a cooking class.

Hire a professional chef through Kitchensurfing to cook a fancy meal for you in your home or office kitchen.

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

34. Sales Exercise

Ideal for your marketing team, this activity is equally enjoyable for all kinds of teams. Each group is given an item, from the mundane to the strange. With five minutes on the clock, each team must devise a creative sales pitch for their item.

The team with the most creative advert wins. Engage other employees as judges and involve them in your activity.

35. Laser Tag

Another great way to get your team to bond is with a good old game of laser tag.

It’s a great opportunity for employees to exercise their strategy and logic skills while working on team building.

36. Volunteer

Giving time to support a good cause isn‘t just good for the soul; it’s also an excellent way for your team members to bond.

Place-based volunteering ideas include volunteering at a local soup kitchen, helping build a Habitat for Humanity house, or delivering gifts to children’s hospitals during the holidays.

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

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

37. Mystery Dinner

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

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

What makes them a mystery dinner? The only thing participants should know about the dinner ahead of time is the date and time.

Send each group an email with the name of the restaurant they‘re going to and who they’ll be going with, so they can arrange transportation together.

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

38. Kayaking/Canoeing

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

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

39. Trampoline Park

Who says trampolines are just for kids? Take your team to a trampoline park for some jumping fun and a chance to work off the day’s stress.

Many cities have local places with trampoline activities. If you’re in the Boston area, check out Skyzone for trampoline dodgeball and basketball games.

40. Something Touristy

Embrace your city! Pick a hot tourist destination and go as a team. You can even do a Segway tour. (Fanny packs: optional.) Turn it into a picnic and enjoy a delightful day of exploration and camaraderie with your colleagues.

41. Painting Class

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If you’re looking for a slightly more relaxing activity, take a group painting class.

Paint Nite hosts painting classes by local artists at various bars throughout major cities for painting on canvases, wine glasses (like in the picture below), and so on.

It’s a great way to let your team members unwind, catch up over some drinks, and express their creativity.

42. Going to a New Place

Take a refreshing break and go on a picnic or to a new place. Explore nearby parks, scenic spots, or a picturesque beach to enjoy the great outdoors together.

Organize fun games like capture the flag, tug of war, ultimate frisbee, three-legged race, or kickball.

43. Sporting Events

Pick a day with great weather conditions and plan a sporting event for your employees. Book a suitable venue and have all employees participate in friendly matches. Some companies do this regularly.

Get your meeting team to challenge HR to a friendly baseball match, or have your sales team go head-to-head with the accountants in a volleyball match.

44. Camping

There’s nothing more refreshing than getting back in touch with nature. Get away from the hustle and bustle of work and city life at a nearby camping site. Bond over building camps and campfires and go on hikes together.

You’ll begin with strangers, but employees will transform into close, good friends and collaborative partners by the end.

45. Movie Night

Unwind and have some fun with an outdoor movie night featuring a comedy. It’s simple and budget-friendly. Have your employees bond over popcorn and movie trivia during breaks.

It’s a great opportunity for employees to share some laughs and strengthen their relationships outside of work.

46. The Amazing Race

This is an adventure-filled race filled with destination challenges along the way. It takes a bit of extra legwork, but trust me, it’ll all be worth it in the end.

Collaborate with different small businesses like restaurants or bars in your area to create an exciting route for the participants.

Place challenges and roadblocks at each destination, like intricate puzzles, finding hidden objects, decoding cryptic messages, or making Lego structures.

Teams will strategize, communicate effectively, and showcase their problem-solving powers to overcome each challenge. The team to complete all challenges successfully and reach the final destination first wins.

47. Sand Sculpting Competition

Take a beach day and turn it into a team-building exercise by having your employees make creative and intricate sand sculptures.

Divide into groups, provide a time limit, and let the creativity flow. The team with the most innovative sculpture wins the bragging rights.

48. Bowling Extravaganza

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This lighthearted activity is the perfect escape from the monotonous office routine. It’s an excellent opportunity to see each other outside of work while engaging in some friendly competition.

Form teams and head to the bowling alley for a fun night out with your coworkers. This activity requires minimal planning and is budget-friendly. Make sure to choose a time and place convenient for all employees.

49. Bingo Night (or Day)

Arrange for a casual game of bingo at a nearby cafe or within the office.

Play it in teams, provide each team with bingo cards, and assign one team member as the caller.

The caller’s job is to randomly draw numbers and announce them to teams. To involve everyone, rotate the caller among team members after each round.

Encourage teams to work together to identify numbers and strategize their marking. Discuss possible winning patterns. You could make additional patterns like “four corners” or “full house.” Have prizes and rewards for the winners.

BINGO!

50. Arts and Crafts Class

Arrange for a creative class and bring employees together to participate in a guided artistic workshop.

Have a professional instructor lead the group through various creative projects, such as painting, pottery, jewelry making, or any other craft-based activity.

This provides a safe space for team members to unwind and showcase their creativity. It encourages discussion as people exchange tips and ideas to help one another.

Bring Fun to the Workplace

Now that you have an amazing list of our 50 awesome team-building activities, it’s time to start building a strong company culture that enhances employee retention, fosters fun, and allows everyone to decompress together.

Choose some fun team-building activities that you can use to get the best out of your team and instill a sense of purpose among your employees.

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

Creating an email newsletter is one of the most effective ways to provide value to your customers, drive them to buy more products, and encourage them to keep engaging with your brand.

Overall, newsletters are a staple in any high-performing email marketing strategy.

They also have a significant ROI. On average, brands get back $36 for every $1 spent leveraging email marketing.

If you want to ensure you won’t miss any steps when making a newsletter, keep reading. We’ve pulled together a comprehensive checklist for anyone looking to send an email newsletter.

How to Start an Email Newsletter

When starting an email newsletter, you’re juggling many responsibilities at once.

You have to proofread the copy, create compelling calls-to-action, design the email to work for multiple inboxes and devices, avoid spam triggers, and brainstorm clickable subject lines.

And you have to do all the aforementioned while staying within the confines of email law (yes, there is such a thing).

And if you mess up any part of your email, there’s no undoing it once you send it to your subscribers.

If you’re sending newsletters, bookmark the following steps in your browser or print it out and hang it up next to you. You want to take advantage of these crucial steps.

Ready to get started? Here are the steps to create the best email newsletter for your business or personal goals.

Step 1: Choose an email newsletter tool.

First, choose an email newsletter tool that fits your budget, goals, and technical skills.

HubSpot offers one of the best email marketing tools you can use to send optimized, well-designed newsletters. It’s part of Marketing Hub, marketing automation software for small-to-enterprise businesses.

The email newsletter tool is easy to learn — there’s virtually no learning curve, especially if you have experience using drag-and-drop page editors on a content management system.

Even if you’ve never touched a drag-and-drop editor before, HubSpot’s email marketing tool is intuitive to learn. And you can start for free.

We highly recommend starting to build your newsletter using HubSpot’s free tool, and to illustrate, we’ll include screenshots as we progress from step to step.

HubSpot also contains many integrations and alternative email newsletter design tools like BEE Pro.

Step 2: Figure out your newsletter’s goal.

Learn the types of newsletters you can send in our free email newsletter guide.

Before you start drafting a single word, ensure you‘re fully aware of the newsletter’s goal and how it fits into your larger content strategy. (Have one in place? Skip to the next section.)

Is your newsletter supposed to drive more traffic to your blog? Help you generate leads? Get more email contacts? Send traffic to your website? Or promote new products and services?

Figure out your goal and let the rest of your decisions flow from it.

You should also note some key performance indicators for each of these goals. Remember that your KPIs should go beyond “how many people opened it.” Instead, it should closely tie to your overall business goals.

Your email‘s open rate can indicate the newsletter’s performance, but it shouldn’t be the only number you care about each month. Here are some email marketing metrics to consider.

Step 3: Choose a template and gather your content.

Once you have a goal for your newsletter, it’s time to choose a template and find content for it. I‘d recommend looking into pre-made templates if you’re unfamiliar with designing emails — it can save you a lot of heartache.

If you’re using HubSpot, you can access pre-made templates in the email tool.

Depending on how early you set your newsletter‘s goal and how often you plan on sending this newsletter, you could actively or passively find content in the time between two email sends.

Active means you’re hunting for content that‘ll solve a specific goal. Passive means you’ll randomly stumble on it when browsing for other content but realize it could fit nicely.

When I put together newsletters, I tended to do a lot of active searching, but I could‘ve saved myself a lot of time if I were passive.

Since I knew a newsletter needed to be sent each month, bookmarking links throughout the month would’ve been a great timesaver. Instead, I usually spent several hours clicking the “Back” button on my blog, hunting for content.

How you like to gather content is up to you. Still, great places to look for content are your company’s blog, social media accounts, lead-generation offers, internal newsletters, and training documents.

Featured Resource: Email Newsletter Lookbook

Need inspiration on what content to include in your newsletter? HubSpot’s Email Newsletter Lookbook highlights some of the best email newsletters across industries to help your email newsletter planning.

Step 4: Personalize your template.

A template is a great starting point, but it’s time to personalize it. Using a template will give you an idea of how your newsletter will look before writing copy.

That way, you’ll know exactly how much space you have to promote a piece of content — there are a few things more frustrating than trying to squeeze copy into too tight a space.

Your template doesn’t have to be flashy or anything. Even newsletters with minimal text and color formatting will look great. The design should make it easy for your recipients to read, scan, and click email elements. 

Pro tip: Use HubSpot’s AI Email Writer to design your newsletters. The tool can generate your copy, and you can then select a template that suits your needs.

This means it should be mobile-friendly, too. According to data from Litmus, 41.6% of people open their email on a mobile device — around 25% higher than email opens on a desktop.

In Marketing Hub, you can adjust your template by clicking on elements and editing the specifications on the left-hand panel. Check out this post for inspiration for a great email newsletter design.

Step 5: Set your email newsletter size.

Unfortunately, email newsletters don’t size themselves when you send them to subscribers.

But because everyone opens their email on their device and email service of choice, how are you supposed to know what size or resolution they should be?

Most providers will default your email newsletter size to 600px wide, with email body padding another 30px wide on all sides. And when this happens, the content inside your newsletter might not survive the adjustment.

Therefore, ensuring your newsletter design fits inside that universal 600px width is essential.

What about height? Ultimately, your email can be as high (or, rather, as long) as you want it to be without the email client distorting its design.

However, people are much less likely to click through to your website if the email goes on forever — and email clients with sensitive spam filters might also take notice.

As a general rule, try not to make your email recipients scroll for more than a second before reaching the end of it.

Step 6: Add in your body content.

Next up: filling in the template with words and pictures. This will be the meat of your email newsletter, so spend time perfecting it.

Most people keep the copy short and sweet to encourage click-throughs, though some notable newsletters take the opposite approach. This post can help you with email newsletter copy if you need it.

Be sure to add in some images if they can help support your copy.

Don‘t forget to edit your email thoroughly — maybe even send it to one of your teammates for a once-over. Remember, once you send the thing, you can’t fix those embarrassing typos like you can with web content.

Ben Berkley, managing editor for The Hustle, says it should be clear to your audience what kind of value to expect from the newsletter but ensure the content isn’t predictable.

“What works about The Hustle is that we’re built around the central expectation that readers will get the most relevant business and tech news in the quickest, most entertaining package —yet every email is packed with surprises and topics you wouldn’t find anywhere else,” he explains. “The format is always fixed, but no two emails feel repetitive editorially.”

Berkley says readers never know what they’ll get, but “they know it’ll be worth their while to read through it.”

Step 7: Add in personalization tokens and intelligent content.

The best email newsletters I get feel like they’ve been written personally for me — like a friend took the time to put together a newsletter with things only I would like. I open them, click on them, and share them every time.

If you want your digital newsletters to feel that personal, you should do three things:

• Segment your emails and choose content that only that group of people will love. Add in personalization tokens. If your marketing software supports personalization, this is a straightforward thing to implement that could significantly affect your conversion rates.

Pro Tip: Only add a few personalization tokens — you don’t want to creep out your email recipients. In Marketing Hub, you can add personalization tokens by clicking “Personalize” in the top navigation bar.

• Also, add in smart content. This is content that shows one thing to one part of your audience and one thing to another.

Pro Tip: An example would be a smart CTA — your leads would see a CTA for talking to your sales reps, and your customers would see one about getting tickets to a customer-only event.

Neither audience would want to see the other audience’s CTA, so smart content will show only the proper CTA to the right person.

Step 8: Choose your subject line and sender name.

Your audience may like different things, but having a real person‘s sender name increased opens and click-throughs. Try running an A/B test to see if it works for you, too.

Whatever you choose, make sure it’s recognizable so recipients aren‘t confused about why they’re receiving your email.

Subject lines are a little trickier. Many things can help you create a click-worthy subject line, including brevity and an immediately actionable value proposition.

That said, some great marketing emails have been sent with the subject “Not Cool, Guys.” Use the subject line best practices as a jumping-off point, then run your A/B tests to see what your audience loves.

Berkley suggests meeting your audience halfway by giving them some information without withholding it all.

“A subject line that says ‘This unlikely partnership is crazy’ gives too little; a subject line that says ‘Crocs partnered with WHO?!’ gives an idea of what you’re talking about but induces click-through to find out the rest of the story,” he says.

He explains, “Finding balance is critical — nobody likes a movie trailer that gives every plot point away, and nobody likes one that tells you nothing at all about the movie either.”

Step 9: Support your newsletter content with alt text and plain text.

At this point, you‘ll have the email ready to go. While going through the steps above, I’m guessing you forgot two crucial things (I know I forget them almost every time I make an email): the alt text and plain text.

Alt text is the text that appears when a picture isn‘t loaded. Since not all email providers load images correctly, you must ensure the alt text is there so your recipients know what they’re looking at.

If you include a CTA that’s an image, your conversion rates will suffer without alt text.

Some email clients also won‘t display HTML correctly, so you need to ensure your emails look great in plain text. Make sure the links are easy to click and that it’s clear what the email is about without the photos.

Step 10: Make sure you’re legally compliant.

Before you hit “Send,” be sure that your emails are all good from a legal perspective. What are the two most significant laws you need to worry about? CAN-SPAM and GDPR.

• CAN-SPAM requires that you have a footer in your email with your address and an easy way to unsubscribe from your emails if they don’t want to receive them anymore.
• GDPR is a similar but more comprehensive privacy law that requires (among other things) that email marketers only send newsletters to those who have manually opted in to receive them.

In other words, wherever you collect email subscribers on your website, you cannot automatically check the “opt-in” box for them if these recipients live in Europe. They must deliberately check this box themselves.

Step 11: Test different browsers and email providers.

Email providers don’t all read email code the same way — what looks fine on Gmail in Chrome might look terrible in Outlook, for example. So, you must test emails in the most popular browsers and email providers.

If you have HubSpot, you can test emails for different providers in the tool. If you don’t, create fake email accounts on various providers’ websites and test everything manually.

Step 12: Send your email.

The moment of truth! Ensuring all your email recipients have subscribed to receive this email and your email has all the branding and legal compliance it‘s worthy of, it’s time to click send. Then, wait for the data to roll in.

Step 13: Analyze and iterate.

Fast-forward a few days: The data’s in. How did your newsletter do? What do you do next?

Check how your email newsletter performed on your goals in step one. See which parts of your email got the most clicks and which factors of the newsletter contributed most to your goal.

If you have closed-loop analytics, measuring this all will be easy.

Once you have that data, you have a direction for your email newsletter. Whether your next send is in a day, a week, a month, or a quarter, you’ll have insights to make the following newsletter even better.

Start Creating Your Email Newsletter

Email newsletters are a critical part of any scalable email marketing strategy. With the steps above, you’ll be sure to create a winning email newsletter that will help you convert more leads and grow your business.

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

Like many of the people who currently work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Since then, the industry has evolved at breakneck speed, sprouting many more types of marketing.

From search engine marketing to account-based marketing, every brand can use a combination of these tactics to attract its target audience and increase revenue.

Keep reading to discover the top marketing trends in 2023 and more.

Types of Marketing

1. Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on offline channels before the rise of the internet. Think billboards, flyers, TV ads, and radio spots.

These marketing channels still play an essential role for some brands.

In fact, a global survey of CMOs found that more than 40% of marketing budgets go to offline channels — but today, marketers are increasingly relying on digital alternatives.

2. Digital Marketing

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In contrast to traditional marketing, digital marketing leverages a wide variety of previously unavailable technologies to reach audiences in new ways.

This is the fastest-growing type of marketing, encompassing all marketing efforts that live online.

Businesses investing in digital marketing use numerous digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, websites, and more, to connect with their current and prospective customers.

3. Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing refers to unsolicited, outgoing promotions such as cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists, and print ads.

This marketing method is called “outbound” because it involves pushing a message out to consumers to raise awareness of your products or services — regardless of whether consumers have demonstrated interest in them.

In many industries, outbound marketing has grown less effective, as consumers today are inundated with so many marketing interruptions that they often need to pay more attention to these messages.

4. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing, however, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them.

Inbound leads are both more likely to convert and less expensive to acquire, with one recent report finding that inbound leads cost 67% less than outbound ones do.

While some inbound marketing tactics live offline, the majority fall under the umbrella of digital marketing, as consumers are empowered to do research online to help them progress through their buyer’s journeys.

Inbound is built on three pillars: Attract, engage, and delight. The initial goal is to create valuable content and experiences that resonate with your audience and attract them to your business.

The next step is to engage them through conversational tools like email marketing, chatbots, and, of course, continuously adding real value. Finally, delight them by acting as a long-term, empathetic advisor and expert.

5. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, includes all strategies to ensure your business is visible on search engine results pages. With SEM, you can get your business to the top spot when a user searches for a particular keyword.

According to HubSpot’s 2023 State of Consumer Trends report, online search is the number one way today’s buyers discover new products — so it’s critical to make sure your business comes up on search platforms like Google or Bing.

There are two types of SEM: search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored search engine results.

To get started with SEO, familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and common keywords relevant to your industry and products. Then, get proactive about producing content for search engines to index that use these terms.

Conversely, PPC involves bidding on keywords to get your ads placed through platforms like Google Ads. Consider investing in ad management tools that help you create and manage your PPC campaigns.

6. Content Marketing

As one of the best ways to attract your target audiences, content marketing is a critical component of an effective digital inbound marketing strategy.

That is probably why nearly nine in ten marketing professionals who have already invested in content marketing plan to maintain or increase that investment in 2023.

This form of marketing involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target audience through free and gated channels, such as social media platforms, blogs, videos, ebooks, and webinars.

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The goal of content marketing is to help your audience along their buyer’s journey while adding value and providing a supportive, delightful experience.

To do so, first, identify common questions and concerns your buyers are likely to have before they are ready to purchase.

Then, create an editorial calendar to track when you will create and share content related to those topics. A content management system (CMS) can also help you stay organized and keep your content and publication schedule on track.

7. Social Media Marketing

With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, brands can promote their businesses and engage with their audiences on a more personal basis.

Social media is an increasingly effective strategy to reach buyers of all ages, with 24% of Boomers and 46% of Gen X consumers surveyed in 2023 reporting that they discovered a new product on social media in the past three months.

However, with social media, two factors are crucial to success: relevance and consistency.

First, relevance: No one logs on to social media looking for something to purchase. As such, it’s essential to balance promotion with entertainment.

Compelling images and captions that encourage your audience to like, share, and comment will bring your brand that much closer to gaining a customer.

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Now, onto consistency: A consistent posting cadence will keep your followers returning. How can they get invested in your brand if they rarely see it on their timeline?

To make publishing content across platforms accessible, several social media tools automate the process.

8. Video Marketing

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According to a recent study, 87% of marketers say incorporating video into their marketing strategy has had a positive ROI.

Whether on your website, YouTube channel, email newsletters, and/or social media, video can boost brand awareness, generate conversions, and close deals.

Some video marketing apps even allow you to analyze, nurture, and score leads based on their activity.

9. Voice Marketing

Voice marketing refers both to optimizing your website for voice search by incorporating the right keywords and to initiatives that leverage smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to add value to your audience and answer questions about their topics of interest.

Consider opportunities to get inventive by developing a Google Home action or an Alexa skill. For instance, Uber created an Alexa skill that allowed users to request a ride with a simple voice request.

Similarly, TED developed a feature that allowed Alexa users to search for and play TED talks based on topic, tone, or speaker.

These tools may be relatively new, but they’re increasingly popular among marketers.

HubSpot’s 2023 marketing trends survey found that 40% of marketing leaders who currently leverage some form of voice marketing plan to increase that investment in the next year.

10. Email Marketing

Email marketing connects brands to leads, prospects, and customers via email. Email campaigns can increase brand awareness, generate traffic to other channels, promote products or services, or nurture leads toward a purchase.

Moreover, one 2022 study found that returns on email marketing could be as high as $36 for every dollar invested.

Email can be a potent tool — but it’s essential to use it responsibly and within legal restrictions. Regulations like the GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act require brands to comply with responsible commercial email practices, which boil down to three principles:

• Only email people expecting to hear from you (i.e., people who have opted in).
• Make it easy for subscribers to opt out.
• When you make contact, be transparent about who you are and why you’re emailing.

With these guardrails in mind, the first thing you’ll need to do is strategize how to build your email list or the database of contacts to whom you can send emails.

Standard methods include lead capture forms on your website or lead generation partnerships.

Then, you’ll need email marketing software and a CRM to send, track, and monitor the effectiveness of your emails.

To push your email strategy to the next level and maximize productivity, you may also want to look into email automation software that sends emails based on triggering criteria.

To learn more about the ins and outs of email marketing, take the free email marketing course from HubSpot Academy.

11. Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing refers to any form of 1:1 conversation with your audience.

This is arguably one of the most natural ways to connect with customers, and research shows that conversations can be an effective way to remove friction from the buying process.

It’s essential to meet customers how, when, and where they want. As a result, these dialogues can happen across multiple channels.

This is more than just live chat: It extends to phone calls, texts, Facebook Messenger, email, Slack, and many other media.

When you‘re getting started, you’ll first identify the channels on which your audience is most active.

This may sound relatively straightforward, but things can get tricky when managing multiple channels while avoiding slow response times, internal miscommunication, or productivity loss.

That’s why it can be helpful to use conversational marketing tools, such as a unified inbox, to streamline your efforts.

12. Buzz Marketing

Buzz marketing is a viral marketing strategy that leverages refreshingly creative content, interactive events, and community influencers to generate word-of-mouth marketing and anticipation for a product or service a brand is about to launch.

This marketing approach is grounded in research-backed psychological effects such as FOMO (fear of missing out) and the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known as the frequency illusion, where after encountering a new product, consumers start to feel like they’re seeing it everywhere).

Buzz marketing works best when you reach out to influencers early and put a plan in place to generate buzz surrounding your brand.

In addition, to track the effectiveness of your efforts, invest in social listening software that will help you keep a pulse on how your audience responds.

13. Influencer Marketing

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By partnering with influencers in your space, influencer marketing enables your brand to tap into an existing community of highly engaged social media followers.

Influencers are considered experts in their niches and have built loyalty and trust with an audience you want to reach.

These programs are a substantial part of a modern marketing strategy:

Today, 88% of marketers have a dedicated influencer marketing budget, and one in four social media users report buying a product based on an influencer’s recommendation in 2023.

To get started with influencer marketing, you must first build your influencer marketing strategy and define what type of influencer you‘d like to work with.

Then, you’ll want to create criteria for your influencer to ensure they align with your strategy and budget.

Factors to consider include their niche, the size of their audience, and their current metrics. From there, you can find influencers and reach out to them by:

• Manually reaching out on social media.
• Using an influencer marketing platform.
• Hiring an agency to do the research and outreach for you.

14. Acquisition Marketing

The goal of any marketing strategy is to attract and retain customers—however, different types of marketing focus on other, specific stages of the buyer’s journey.

Acquisition marketing focuses on the “attract” and “convert” phases, in which you’re aiming to turn strangers into sales-qualified leads.

What differentiates acquisition from other marketing types is that it extends beyond the marketing team, often involving collaboration with customer service and success teams.

Why? Because satisfied customers are your biggest promoters.

Acquisition marketing can involve several tactics to create a lead generation engine for your organization.

These tactics can include offering freemium products, launching education hubs, tightening the copywriting on your website, conversion rate optimization, and lead optimization.

It may include a lead optimization and nurturing strategy to facilitate the hand-off between marketing and sales.

15. Contextual Marketing

Contextual marketing refers to efforts that target online users with different ads on websites and social media networks based on their unique online browsing behavior.

More than 40% of respondents in a recent study said that they’re more likely to buy from brands that tailor ads specifically to them, suggesting that this kind of context-specific approach can have a significant impact on your conversion rates.

So, what does it take to put this into practice?

A CRM combined with powerful marketing tools such as intelligent CTAs can make a website seem more like a “choose your own adventure” story, empowering users to find the information they need and take action quickly and effectively.

Of course, contextual marketing takes strategy and careful planning. To start on the right foot, look at HubSpot’s free contextual marketing course.

16. Personalized Marketing

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Personalized marketing aims to create a customized marketing experience for every user across your brand.

This can be as simple as adding a user’s name in the subject line of an email or sending product recommendations based on past purchases.

For example, software products like Versium Reach make it easy for marketers to target their B2B or B2C customers with robust, personalized audience insights.

To be sure, it’s easy for this kind of marketing to come across as creepy accidentally.

However, studies suggest that consumers are surprisingly comfortable with personalized experiences, mainly when they boost convenience and enable a more enjoyable purchasing journey.

For example, one recent report found that 7 in 10 consumers are okay with personalization as long as marketers only use data that consumers have knowingly and directly shared with them.

17. Brand Marketing

Brand marketing encompasses everything you do to shape your brand’s public perception and forge an emotional connection with your target audience. This includes storytelling, creativity, humor, and inspiration.

The goal is to be thought-provoking and generate productive conversations so your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment.

Don’t underestimate the power of a compelling story: Research from Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner has shown that facts are 22 times more likely to be remembered if shared as part of a story.

To begin brand marketing, you must deeply understand your buyer persona and what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what differentiates you from your competitors.

This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you crucial fodder for your storytelling campaigns.

18. Stealth Marketing

Stealth marketing occurs when brands promote their products or services to consumers who don’t realize they’re being marketed to.

For instance, if you’re watching a television show and a branded product is integrated into the shot, you might have just been on the receiving end of a stealth marketing campaign.

As long as you and any influencers you work with stay within the bounds of any relevant ad disclosure regulations — and avoid unethical or misleading campaigns — stealth marketing can be an effective way to advertise your products.

But for this marketing style to work, brands have to find opportunities that align with their brand identity and values.

19. Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing spreads brand awareness by placing bold, clever brand activations in high-traffic physical locations.

Examples of guerilla marketing include altering outdoor urban environments, promoting during a live event (without permission from sponsors or organizers), public stunts, and treasure hunts.

This can be a cost-effective way to garner widespread attention.

However, unconventional guerilla tactics can also backfire if the audience needs to understand them, comes across as insensitive, or is interrupted by weather conditions, law enforcement, or other factors beyond the brand’s control.

If you’re looking for inspiration, look at this list of effective guerilla marketing examples, from Bounty’s human-sized popsicles and coffee cups littering the streets of New York to Deadpool’s Tinder profile.

20. Native Marketing

Native marketing is when brands customize their ads and other content to blend in as seamlessly as possible with the feel, look, and function of the platform on which they’ll be published.

This is important whenever brands collaborate with publishers to create and distribute sponsored content to their audience.

By leveraging their editorial expertise while ensuring that ads are designed not to disrupt the user experience, brands can increase conversion rates and drive brand awareness.

Indeed, native ads are a huge component of many companies’ marketing strategies, with native display ad spending in the U.S. expected to reach nearly $100 billion in 2023.

There are lots of creative ways to approach native marketing. For instance, a recipe blogger could feature a sponsored guest post from a wine collector titled “The Best Wine-Infused Desserts for the Holiday Season.”

This would fit perfectly alongside the blog’s standard recipe posts, serving as a subtle yet effective promotion for the wine brand.

To benefit from native marketing, you must contact media publications or go through a native advertising network that helps find and facilitate ad placement.

21. Affiliate Marketing

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When a business rewards another brand — an affiliate or affiliate partner — with a commission for each purchase a customer makes through the affiliate‘s promotion tactics, that’s affiliate marketing.

This approach is trendy among influencers, but it can also be used by brands to promote other companies’ products or services that align with their own. 83% of marketers use some form of affiliate marketing to raise brand recognition.

If you already have marketing assets performing well, such as a website that consistently generates leads or an engaged social media network, affiliate marketing is a great way to leverage those assets further.

Choose a product or brand that closely aligns with what you sell (but does not compete with you) and promote it to your audience.

Affiliate marketing is also a cost-effective way to spread awareness of your brand and an excellent revenue-generating alternative to influencer marketing.

And the best part is, when launching an affiliate program, every business can design its own rules to meet its unique needs.

22. Partner Marketing

Partner marketing, also known as co-marketing, is a marketing collaboration in which two or more brands partner up on a marketing campaign and share the results.

It’s a great lead-generation tool that allows brands to tap into an audience they may still need to reach.

The idea of marketing partnerships has been introduced previously.

Still, this approach has gained popularity recently: In 2022, marketers allocated 40% of their marketing budgets to partnership activities, and 72% planned to increase their partnership investment further.

For partnerships to work, brands must have complementary products or services and similar user personas. Most importantly, they must also align on their shared goals and embrace a mindset of cooperation and teamwork.

23. Product Marketing

Product marketing isn’t just taking product pictures or running launch campaigns. It’s about driving demand for a product and its adoption through consistent positioning, messaging, and market research.

Product marketers sit at the intersection of product, sales, marketing, and customer success teams.

It’s a critical role for any company, which may be why more than one in three marketing leaders surveyed in 2023 plan to increase recruitment efforts for product marketing managers.

These product-focused marketers work with various organizational functions, supporting sales enablement and aligned marketing strategies.

24. Account-Based Marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a hyper-focused marketing strategy where teams treat an individual prospect or customer as their market.

These marketing teams create content, host events, and launch campaigns dedicated to the specific people associated with that single account rather than targeting an entire industry or territory.

This strategy allows brands to design personalized campaigns for their ideal clients and dedicate their time and resources to prospects exhibiting high-intent behaviors.

A recent study found that two in three brands and 70% of marketers leverage ABM in their marketing efforts. Here’s how you can join them:

1. Start by identifying key accounts.
2. Next, create messaging based on issues that matter to them most.
3. Finally, learn how to put that messaging into action with HubSpot’s introductory ABM lesson.

To streamline your efforts, you can also determine whether ABM software might be a good fit for your team.

25. Customer Marketing

In contrast to acquisition marketing, where the focus is on acquiring new customers, customer marketing is focused on retaining existing customers.

The goal is to turn your customers into long-term brand advocates by delighting them with your product or service and providing excellent customer service.

The cost of customer acquisition is much higher than the cost to retain or upsell existing customers, so brands stand to gain a lot from investing in this type of marketing.

But to reap these benefits, customer marketing teams must constantly work to improve the customer experience.

That means doing everything you can to ensure your customers are left with a great impression after you’ve provided them with your product or service.

Simple ways to do this include eliminating friction in the customer service process, providing self-service resources like online knowledge bases, and using customer service software to manage and automate interactions.

26. Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Whose opinion do you trust more: Your friend‘s or a brand’s? The answer is obvious.

That’s why word-of-mouth marketing is so powerful. According to a recent Nielsen survey, 92% of consumers put more stock in recommendations from friends and family than in any form of advertising.

Of course, you can’t force it to happen — but you can position your brand in a way that makes it more likely. For example, the following strategies can help make it easy for satisfied customers to spread the word about your brand:

• Creating shareable, viral-worthy content.
• Offering referral and loyalty programs.
• Requesting reviews after providing a product or service.

27. Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is a type of customer marketing that focuses on cultivating more profound, more meaningful relationships with customers to foster long-term brand loyalty.

These efforts aren’t focused on short-term wins or sales transactions. Instead, they’re about creating true brand evangelists who promote your brand across their networks.

The key to doing this effectively is to focus on delighting the customers who you know are already satisfied with your brand.

Start using customer feedback software to run a Net Promoter Score (NPS) campaign to help you identify those customers.

Then, develop ways to transform those happy customers into raving fans. From there, you can request that they leave a testimonial, participate in a case study, or help you achieve your goals another way.

28. User-Generated Marketing

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User-generated marketing is when businesses leverage their audiences to participate in creating marketing materials.

There are many creative ways to encourage users to generate this content. You could run a social media hashtag challenge asking your followers to develop a jingle.

Or invite users to share pictures or videos of themselves using your product and launch a raffle giveaway to incentivize people further to participate.

Why do brands use this approach? More than two in three marketers agree that social contests, campaigns, and other user-generated content boost engagement and conversion rates.

Plus, it’s cost-effective, builds stronger connections with your audience, and increases brand awareness.

29. Campus Marketing

Some brands target college students, and who better to market to them than their peers?

Campus marketing refers to promoting products or services to students on campus, often in collaboration with student brand ambassadors who help bring awareness to the business.

This strategy is particularly effective because U.S. undergrads spend nearly 70% of their waking hours on campus.

As such, it’s not uncommon to find campus marketers promoting products at event booths, hosting their events, or handing out giveaways on the quad.

30. Proximity Marketing

Proximity marketing is a local, highly-targeted marketing strategy that leverages users’ location to show them relevant product or service promotions.

For instance, if you’re walking by an ice cream shop, you may receive a notification informing you of a special discount for a flavor at that shop. There are a few ways marketers can implement proximity marketing campaigns:

• Bluetooth beacons.
• Wi-Fi.
• QR codes.
• NFC.
• Geofencing.

As these technologies advance, the proximity marketing industry will grow to nearly $300 billion by 2030.

And it’s more than location-specific notifications: Brands can also use these tools to organize treasure hunts, retarget users who don’t make a purchase, or simply learn more about their users’ behavior.

31. Event Marketing

You‘ve got an event coming up to launch a new product. Now, how do you get your target audience to show up? That’s where event marketing comes into play.

In a survey of more than a thousand global marketing leaders, more than half listed in-person or virtual events as one of the most effective marketing channels.

An event — a workshop, seminar, trade show, conference, or pop-up shop — helps brands connect directly with their target audience and build lasting relationships.

But making the most of these (often expensive) investments requires brands to plan a comprehensive promotion strategy, develop creative assets that drive anticipation, and determine the best channels to spread awareness.

32. Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing goes beyond traditional event marketing to encompass in-person and virtual events, experiences, and interactions that forge lasting emotional connections between a brand and its target audience.

These initiatives take event marketing a step further, with the goal of crafting a truly magical experience for attendees.

Experiential marketing provides participants with something they can take with them after the event is over — other than just information, of course.

Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that 83% of marketers plan to continue or increase their experiential marketing investments.

At HubSpot, we do our best to make our INBOUND conference an immersive experience that extends beyond breakout sessions to include networking opportunities, parties and happy hours, food truck lunches, and other unique events.

Instead of a conference, INBOUND becomes a celebration.

33. Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing is a trigger-based marketing strategy that creates a dialogue between a brand and its audience.

Based on certain predefined trigger events, the brand automatically adapts its approach, making it possible to respond to users’ behavior in real-time.

For instance, let‘s say you’re searching for a memoir on a bookstore’s website, but you log off without making a purchase. The next time you log on, you may see recommendations for more memoirs from other authors.

This strategy adjusts to meet consumers where they’re at, boosting conversion rates and enabling a superior customer experience.

34. Global Marketing

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Global marketing refers to the process of scaling your marketing efforts beyond your home base to appeal to new audiences around the world.

This is no small task: Effective global marketing requires lots of market research to determine where a product or service may best resonate and how best to market it in that region.

Take, for instance, a food company based in Germany.

If the team decides to expand to the United States, it may be necessary to make changes in menu items, packaging, pricing, and advertising that will be a better fit for an American audience.

As the world grows ever more interconnected, many businesses will find themselves facing similar challenges.

In fact, a recent survey found that growing a global audience was one of the top two issues today’s marketing leaders struggle with.

To address this, marketers will need to adopt a global mindset and invest in a comprehensive global marketing strategy.

35. Multicultural Marketing

Of course, geographical expansion isn’t the only time a brand will encounter new audiences.

To target people of different ethnicities and cultures within a brand’s overarching audience, developing and executing a multicultural marketing strategy is a must — and as populations grow more diverse, the need for a multicultural approach will only become more urgent.

This involves in-depth research to understand the needs and values of these diverse communities, as well as careful work to figure out the right messaging to resonate with those groups.

36. Informative Marketing

A lot of marketing tactics focus on emotions, but sometimes, it makes more sense to focus your messaging on facts and figures. This sort of approach is known as informative marketing.

As researchers from Indeed explain: 

“Consumers value informative marketing campaigns that allow them to understand the value of promoted material. Rather than abstract visuals, demonstrating product features can show audiences how a product might be beneficial for them to have.”

That means highlighting the benefits of your product‘s features, how they solve your customers’ problems, and how they compare to those of your competitors.

37. Persuasive Marketing

Unlike informative marketing, persuasive marketing intentionally taps into users’ emotions. These campaigns aim to make their audience feel something, to associate those emotions with a brand, and to trigger desired actions.

There are countless techniques that marketers can use to persuade consumers to purchase a product or service.

For example, the scarcity principle refers to the psychological phenomenon that people are more likely to buy a product if they think it’s unlikely to be available for much longer.

Similarly, studies have shown that prices ending in “.99” are perceived to be significantly lower than those that are just one cent higher, making consumers more likely to buy despite the negligible actual difference in price.

Of course, as with any marketing effort, these strategies only work if you understand your buyer persona and know what will resonate with your target audience.

38. Cause Marketing

With cause marketing, brands tie themselves to social issues while promoting their goods. For instance, a company may advertise that a purchase from their brand will result in a donation to a certain charity.

Cause marketing can also go beyond a single campaign. Some brands’ entire identity aligns with a particular issue. For instance, luxury jewelry brand Civil donates 20% of its profits to underrepresented founders and entrepreneurs.

Whether it’s temporary or long-term, there are three questions you should consider before starting with cause marketing:

1. What causes does my brand care most about?
2. How can we leverage our position to support those causes?
3. How can we tell our prospects and customers about our efforts and encourage them to get involved?

39. Controversial Marketing

Controversial marketing uses shocking, controversial topics to drive attention to a campaign. Importantly, this isn’t about polarizing audiences.

Effective controversial marketing aims to grab people’s attention and spark discussions but doesn’t drive consumers away.

There are pros and cons to this approach. On one hand, controversial stunts have the potential to go viral and generate buzz around your brand.

However, there‘s a risk that you’ll turn off potential customers and negatively impact your brand’s image.

Indeed, there have been many examples of failed controversial marketing plays — from Burger King’s moldy whopper ad to McDonald’s infamous “dead dad” commercial — so be sure to tread carefully when going this route.

40. Field Marketing

Field marketing, also known as field selling, is a form of traditional marketing that involves going out into a community to promote your products or services directly to your target audience.

You can do this by distributing product samples, offering product demos, or leafleting.

Despite the rising popularity of digital marketing strategies, marketing leaders agree that there’s still an important place for these in-person marketing efforts.

More than half of recently surveyed marketers listed physical events and tradeshows, as well as customer communities and groups, among the top most effective marketing channels.

41. Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing leverages neuroscience to gain insight into consumers’ decisions and predict their behaviors.

For example, P&G conducted a study in which researchers used an eye-tracking tool to measure user engagement levels when viewing different kinds of mobile ads.

This empowered its marketing team to identify the messages that were most emotionally resonant with their target audience and optimize their ad campaigns accordingly.

Neuromarketing studies like these can involve tracking eye movements, analyzing brain scans, and measuring various physiological functions in response to marketing stimuli, all of which can be used to inform data-driven marketing decisions.

The Best Type of Marketing

There’s no right or wrong way to do marketing — as long as it connects with your desired audience and provides a return on investment.

Most companies use a combination of the strategies outlined above to generate leads and acquire customers.

Ultimately, you’ll want to choose what makes the most sense for your business based on your unique product, audience, and resources.