Producing quality videos for your ecommerce site is hard, we know. Equipment is expensive, and specialists who know how to use that equipment cost even more. For that very reason, many ecommerce businesses will settle for photos and graphics just to get the job done. These video marketing statistics show that video might just be an investment worth making. Sure, you’ll have to dig a little deeper into those pockets at first, but the results will return more than you dreamed. Product Video Stats Marketers Need to Know1. Video is the #1 content type used by marketers to sell products and services.In our Not Another State of Marketing Report, marketers surveyed said that video is the top content type being produced in their content marketing programs, passing blog posts for the first time ever. 2. More than half of marketers invest in some sort of product-related video.Also in the HubSpot report noted above, we found that nearly one quarter of marketers invested in product promotion videos, while nearly one fifth invested in product demos. 3. 73% more visitors who watch product videos will make a purchase.Did you know that your products are more likely to sell if you create videos for them? There are quite a few reasons for this, which we’ll cover in the next points. The most important thing to note, however, is simply that videos for your products do prompt more purchases. That’s really the biggest and most important statistic you need. 4. 92% of marketers who use video say it's an important part of their marketing strategy — up from 78% in 2015.According to the late-2019 Wyzowl Survey that polled marketers about their video tactics, the number above was up from 78% in 2015. With a stat like this, there's almost no question that marketers are finding video valuable and worth their investment. 5. 71% of consumers prefer video over other marketing content.When consumers feel like they understand the products you sell, they’re more likely to take a chance on spending their money. Video clears up a lot of that confusion. Isn’t that what your marketing is all about, anyway? Answering questions with quality content? 6. 87% of Gen Z prefers branded videos or ads that show someone talking about a product.Gen Z is one of the most digitally connected, and most budget-conscious, generations out there. And, as they reach full purchasing potential, you'll want to keep their buyer's journey behavior in mind. As people in the age group research products, they'll look for video-based ads, demos, tutorials, unboxings, or video reviews from influencers in order to see how well the product works and what it looks like in real life. 7. 55% of consumers use videos for purchase decisions.While Gen Z most heavily relies on videos to research products, other age groups aren't that different. More than half of people in all age groups use video to make a purchasing decision, according to 2019 data from Google. Ultimately, authentic videos can lead to a greater sense of trust. By providing product videos, you give buyers quality information that doesn’t hide behind good angles and lighting. They understand the products they’re ordering and are happier with their purchases. With every great transaction, you build more and more trust. Video Stat Knowledge CheckThink you know your video stats? Test yourself with the interactive quiz below to see how well you soaked in the details above. Try not to peak as you answer each question: Creating an Engaging Product VideoA consumer who trusts your business is worth the investment you’ll make in product video production, isn’t it? If the stats above have intrigued you, and your ready to invest in your first product video, consider what you'd like to try out first. Here are a few examples of product video formats:
To learn more about video marketing, check out this handy ultimate guide. Editor's Note: This blog post was originally written in February 2016, but was updated in July 2020 for freshness and comprehensiveness. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/importance-of-product-videos-for-ecommerce
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Anyone who’s ever been a teenager is likely familiar with the question, "Why aren’t you doing something productive?” If only I knew, as an angsty 15-year-old, what I know after conducting the research for this article. If only I could respond to my parents with the brilliant retort, "You know, the idea of productivity actually dates back to before the 1800s." If only I could ask, "Do you mean 'productive' in an economic or modern context?" Back then, I would have been sent to my room for "acting smart." But today, I'm a nerdy adult who is curious to know where today's widespread fascination with productivity comes from. There are endless tools and apps that help us get more done -- but where did they begin? If you ask me, productivity has become a booming business. And it's not just my not-so-humble opinion -- numbers and history support it. Let's step back in time, and find out how we got here, and how getting stuff done became an industry. What Is Productivity?The Economic ContextDictionary.com defines productivity as “the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services.” In an economic context, the meaning is similar -- it’s essentially a measure of the output of goods and services available for monetary exchange. How we tend to view productivity today is a bit different. While it remains a measure of getting stuff done, it seems like it’s gone a bit off the rails. It’s not just a measure of output anymore -- it’s the idea of squeezing every bit of output that we can from a single day. It’s about getting more done in shrinking amounts of time. It’s a fundamental concept that seems to exist at every level, including a federal one -- the Brookings Institution reports that even the U.S. government, for its part, “is doing more with less” by trying to implement more programs with a decreasing number of experts on the payroll. The Modern ContextAnd it’s not just the government. Many employers -- and employees -- are trying to emulate this approach. For example, CBRE Americas CEO Jim Wilson told Forbes, “Our clients are focused on doing more and producing more with less. Everybody's focused on what they can do to boost productivity within the context of the workplace.” It makes sense that someone would view that widespread perspective as an opportunity. There was an unmet need for tools and resources that would solve the omnipresent never-enough-hours-in-the-day problem. And so it was monetized to the point where, today, we have things like $25 notebooks -- the Bullet Journal, to be precise -- and countless apps that promise to help us accomplish something at any time of day. But how did we get here? How did the idea of getting stuff done become an industry? A Brief History of ProductivityPre-1800sProductivity and AgricultureIn his article “The Wealth Of Nations Part 2 -- The History Of Productivity,” investment strategist Bill Greiner does an excellent job of examining this concept on a purely economic level. In its earliest days, productivity was largely limited to agriculture -- that is, the production and consumption of food. Throughout the world around that time, rural populations vastly outnumbered those in urban areas, suggesting that fewer people were dedicated to non-agricultural industry. Source: United Nations Department of International Economic and Social AffairsOn top of that, prior to the 1800s, food preservation was, at most, archaic. After all, refrigeration wasn’t really available until 1834, which meant that crops had to be consumed fast, before they spoiled. There was little room for surplus, and the focus was mainly on survival. The idea of “getting stuff done” didn’t really exist yet, suppressing the idea of productivity. The Birth of the To-Do ListIt was shortly before the 19th century that to-do lists began to surface, as well. In 1791, Benjamin Franklin recorded what was one of the earliest-known forms of it, mostly with the intention of contributing something of value to society each day -- the list opened with the question, “What good shall I do this day?” Source: Daily DotThe items on Franklin’s list seemed to indicate a shift in focus from survival to completing daily tasks -- things like “dine,” “overlook my accounts,” and “work.” It was almost a precursor to the U.S. Industrial Revolution, which is estimated to have begun within the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The New York Stock & Exchange Board was officially established in 1817, for example, signaling big changes to the idea of trade -- society was drifting away from the singular goal of survival, to broader aspirations of monetization, convenience, and scale. 1790 - 1914The Industrial Revolution actually began in Great Britain in the mid-1700s, and began to show signs of existence in the U.S. in 1794, with the invention of the cotton gin -- which mechanically removed the seeds from cotton plants. It increased the rate of production so much that cotton eventually became a leading U.S. export and “vastly increased the wealth of this country," writes Joseph Wickham Roe. Source: Gregory ClarkIt was one of the first steps in a societal step toward automation -- to require less human labor, which often slowed down production and resulted in smaller output. Notice in the table below that, beginning in 1880, machinery added the greatest value to the U.S. economy. So from the invention of the cotton gin to the 1913 unveiling of Ford’s inaugural assembly line (note that “automotive” was added to the table below in 1920), there was a common goal among the many advances of the Industrial Revolution: To produce more in -- you guessed it -- less time. Source: Joel Mokyr1914 - 1970sPre-War ProductionSource: Joel MokyrAdvances in technology -- and the resulting higher rate of production -- meant more employment was becoming available in industrial sectors, reducing the agricultural workforce. But people may have also become busier, leading to the invention and sale of consumable scheduling tools, like paper day planners. According to the Boston Globe, the rising popularity of daily diaries coincided with industrial progression, with one of the earliest known to-do lists available for purchase -- the Wanamaker Diary -- debuting in the 1900s. Created by department store owner John Wanamaker, the planner’s pages were interspersed with print ads for the store’s catalogue, achieving two newly commercial goals: Helping an increasingly busier population plan its days, as well as advertising the goods that would help to make life easier. Source: Boston GlobeWorld War IBut there was a disruption to productivity in the 1900s, when the U.S. entered World War I, from April 1917 to the war’s end in November 1918. Between 1918 and at least 1920 both industrial production and the labor force shrank, setting the tone for several years of economic instability. The stock market grew quickly after the war, only to crash in 1929 and lead to the 10-year Great Depression. Suddenly, the focus was on survival again, especially with the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941. Source: William D. O'NeilBut look closely at the above chart. After 1939, the U.S. GDP actually grew. That’s because there was a revitalized need for production, mostly of war materials. On top of that, the World War II era saw the introduction of women into the workforce in large numbers -- in some nations, women comprised 80% of the total addition to the workforce during the war. World War II and the Evolving WorkforceThe growing presence of women in the workforce had major implications for the way productivity is thought of today. Starting no later than 1948 -- three years after World War II’s end -- the number of women in the workforce only continued to grow, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That suggests larger numbers of women were stepping away from full-time domestic roles, but many still had certain demands at home -- by 1975, for example, mothers of children under 18 made up nearly half of the workforce. That created a newly unmet need for convenience -- a way to fulfill these demands at work and at home. Once again, a growing percentage of the population was strapped for time, but had increasing responsibilities. That created a new opportunity for certain industries to present new solutions to what was a nearly 200-year-old problem, but had been reframed for a modern context. And it began with food production. 1970s - 1990sThe 1970s and the Food IndustryWith more people -- men and women -- spending less time at home, there was a greater need for convenience. More time was spent commuting and working, and less time was spent preparing meals, for example. The food industry, therefore, was one of the first to respond in kind. It recognized that the time available to everyone for certain household chores was beginning to diminish, and began to offer solutions that helped people -- say it with us -- accomplish more in fewer hours. Those solutions actually began with packaged foods like cake mixes and canned goods that dated back to the 1950s, when TV dinners also hit the market -- 17 years later, microwave ovens became available for about $500 each. But the 1970s saw an uptick in fast food consumption, with Americans spending roughly $6 billion on it at the start of the decade. As Eric Schlosser writes in Fast Food Nation, “A nation’s diet can be more revealing than its art or literature.” This growing availability and consumption of prepared food revealed that we were becoming obsessed with maximizing our time -- and with, in a word, productivity. The Growth of Time-Saving TechnologyTechnology became a bigger part of the picture, too. With the invention of the personal computer in the 1970s and the World Wide Web in the 1980s, productivity solutions were becoming more digital. Microsoft, founded in 1975, was one of the first to offer them, with a suite of programs released in the late 1990s to help people stay organized, and integrate their to-do lists with an increasingly online presence. Source: Wayback MachineIt was preceded by a 1992 version of a smartphone called Simon, which included portable scheduling features. That introduced the idea of being able to remotely book meetings and manage a calendar, saving time that would have been spent on such tasks after returning to one’s desk. It paved the way for calendar-ready PDAs, or personal digital assistants, which became available in the late 1990s. By then, the idea of productivity was no longer on the brink of becoming an industry -- it was an industry. It would simply become a bigger one in the decades to follow. The Early 2000sThe Modern To-Do ListOnce digital productivity tools became available in the 1990s, the release of new and improved technologies came at a remarkable rate -- especially when compared to the pace of developments in preceding centuries. In addition to Microsoft, Google is credited as becoming a leader in this space. By the end of 2000, it won two Webby Awards and was cited by PC Magazine for its “uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results." It was yet another form of time-saving technology, by helping people find the information they were seeking in a way that was more seamless than, say, using a library card catalog. In April 2006, Google Calendar was unveiled, becoming one of the first technologies that allowed users to share their schedules with others, helping to mitigate the time-consuming exchanges often required of setting up meetings. It wasn’t long before Google also released Google Apps for Your Domain that summer, providing businesses with an all-in-one solution -- email, voicemail, calendars, and web development tools, among others. Source: Wayback MachineDuring the first 10 years of the century, Apple was experiencing a brand revitalization. The first iPod was released in 2001, followed by the MacBook Pro in 2006 and the iPhone in January 2007 -- all of which would have huge implications for the widespread idea of productivity. 2008 - 2014Search Engines That Talk -- and ListenWhen the iPhone 4S was released in 2011, it came equipped with Siri, “an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.” Google had already implemented voice search technology in 2008, but it didn’t garner quite as much public attention -- most likely because it required a separate app download. Siri, conversely, was already installed in the Apple mobile hardware, and users only had to push the iPhone’s home button and ask a question conversationally. But both offered further time-saving solutions. To hear weather and sports scores, for examples, users no longer had to open a separate app, wait for a televised report, or type in searches. All they had to do was ask. By 2014, voice search had become commonplace, with multiple brands -- including Microsoft and Amazon -- offering their own technologies. Here’s how its major pillars look today: The Latest Generation of Personal Digital AssistantsWith the 2014 debut of Amazon Echo, voice activation wasn’t just about searching anymore. It was about full-blown artificial intelligence that could integrate with our day-to-day lives. It was starting to converge with the Internet of Things -- the technology that allowed things in the home, for example, to be controlled digitally and remotely -- and continued to replace manual, human steps with intelligent machine operation. We were busier than ever, with some reporting 18-hour workdays and, therefore, diminishing time to get anything done outside of our employment. Here was the latest solution, at least for those who could afford the technology. Users didn’t have to manually look things up, turn on the news, or write down to-do and shopping lists. They could ask a machine to do it with a command as simple as, “Alexa, order more dog food.” Of course, competition would eventually enter the picture and Amazon would no longer stand alone in the personal assistant technology space. It made sense that Google -- who had long since established itself as a leader in the productivity industry -- would enter the market with Google Home, released in 2016, and offering much of the same convenience as the Echo. Of course, neither one has the same exact capabilities as the other -- yet. But let’s pause here, and reflect on how far we’ve come. 2015 to 2020Smart Devices are EverywhereThe Amazon Echo was just the beginning of smart devices that could help us plan out our day. We now have smart thermostats that schedule our heating and cooling, refrigerators that notify us when we're low on food, TVs with every streaming service we need, and a handful of other appliances that schedule themselves around on our lifestyle. While some might worry that smart devices could limit our level of motivation and productivity, others might disagree. Smart devices often free us up from mundane tasks while allowing us more time to focus on more productive things that are more important. Big Data Powers Business ProductivityWith technology like artificial intelligence, automation, analytics tools. and contact management systems, we are now able to gather more data about our audiences and customers quickly with the click of just a few buttons. This data has allowed marketers, as well as strategists in other departments to build tactics that engage audiences, please customers, generate revenue, and even offer major ROI. Want to see an example? Here's a great case study on how one successful agency used AI and analytics software to gather, report, and strategize around valuable client data. Offices Rely on Productivity ToolsWe've come a long way from Google Calendar. Each day, you might use a messaging system like Slack, a video software like Zoom, or task-management tools like Trello, Asana, or Jira to keep your work on track. Aside from keeping employees on task, these tools have been especially important for keeping teams connected and on the same page. As modern workplaces increasingly embrace remote and international teammates, they're also investing in digital task management and productivity tools that can keep everyone in the loop. Looking to boost your digital tool stack? Check out this list of productivity tools, especially if you're working remotely. Where Productivity Is Now -- and Where It's GoingWe started this journey in the 1700s with Benjamin Franklin’s to-do list. Now, here we are, over two centuries later, with intelligent machines making those lists and managing our lives for us. Have a look at the total assets of some leaders in this space (as of the writing of this post, in USD): Over time -- hundreds of years, in fact -- technology has made things more convenient for us. But as the above list shows, it’s also earned a lot of money for a lot of people. And those figures leave little doubt that, today, productivity is an industry, and a booming one at that. Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in January 2017, but was updated in July 2020 for comprehensiveness and freshness. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/a-brief-history-of-productivity Recently, a friend of mine asked me how my day was. "Busy, but productive," I replied. But what did that even mean? I suppose what I'd really meant was that all I did was work: I got to work early, worked through lunch, broke for dinner, and then proceeded to sign back online to wrap a few things up after that. And now that I think about it, I barely even moved. Many of us have this distorted idea of productivity where the more hours you put in, the more work you put out. The less you socialize during the day, the more work you put out. The less you move during the day, the more work you put out. Trouble is, that's not entirely true. In fact, countless studies have proven that some of the things we might think of as "a waste of time" -- preparing and eating a healthy breakfast, watching a kitten video, taking a midday run -- actually boost our productivity by leaps and bounds. To help put this idea in perspective, check out the following counterintuitive productivity hacks. Sure, they may sound a little strange, but don't let that deter you from trying them for yourself. 13 Unexpected Productivity Hacks That Actually Work1. Build your schedule around your energy levels.Each person has their own unique biological schedule called a circadian rhythm. This rhythm makes you tired at night and keeps you awake during the day. It also can determine your lulls and piques in energy. To optimize your schedule for the most productive work, be honest about when your pique energy hours and schedule your most intricate or important projects then. Scheduling work around pique energy and creativity times is a tactic HubSpot Marketing Blog Editor Caroline Forsey uses regularly. "I know I work best in the morning," Forsey explains. "I will snooze Slack notifications, put my phone away, and close my email tab, so I can focus during those two to three hours when I'm feeling most creative." 2. Consider working less each week.You might worry that working less will cause you to get less done. Actually, that's far from the truth. Not only does working long hours cause health problems, but there's a wide body of research that shows productivity actually improves with shorter hours. A study published by John Pencavel of Standford University found that how much employees get done takes a sharp drop after 50 hours of work in a week, and even more drastically after 55 hours. The study found that employees working 70 hours per week actually produce nothing more in those extra 15 hours. What gives? Well, the more you work, the more mentally and physically tired you become. At some point -- usually around the eighth hour of work in a given day, according to Sara Robinson in Salon -- the resulting fatigue causes a drop in productivity. Unless you're invigorated by something like a critical deadline, you're unlikely to deliver to your full potential at that point. In Jeff Sutherland's book Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, he writes about the threshold above which working more hours meant people stopped producing more output. It happened on a curve, he explains, which he calls the "Maxwell Curve": Image Credit: Slate The Y-axis is productivity and the X-axis is hours of work. Notice the peak of productivity falls just under 40 hours per week, although that curve will vary for different people -- or even for the same person, but at different times in his or her life. 3. Eat your breakfast.You might be thinking to yourself, "the faster I get out the door, the faster I'll be able to start working, and the more I'll get done." Not so fast, though. What we eat -- and whether we eat -- actually has a direct impact on our performance at work. We all wake up with low blood sugar first thing in the morning because we've technically been fasting for the past eight or so hours. That means that many of us wake up feeling tired, sluggish, apathetic, and even a little irritable. While your morning coffee can give you a solid caffeine boost, you're likely in for a crash later that'll harm your productivity. Instead, opt for healthy breakfast foods with the fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals that'll give you the energy you need to start a productive day. Foods rich in vitamin B -- like oatmeal, bananas, pineapple, and avocados -- can help improve your concentration. Avoid breakfast foods with added sugar like sugary cereal, donuts, Pop Tarts, and even bagels. Here are some more breakfast food ideas from our productivity diet infographic: 4. Get a proper amount of sleep.The rumors are true: You need an adequate amount of sleep if you want to get more work (and better work) done throughout the day. So before you hop back online after dinner to keep working, think twice. Not only does lack of sleep have both long- and short-term health implications, but it's also a big, big productivity killer. According to a study from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, sleep-related reductions in productivity cost $3,156 per employee with insomnia, and averaged about $2,500 for those with less severe sleep problems. How much sleep do you need to be productive? It varies a little from person to person, but not as much as you might think it does. Only 1–3% of people can actually pull off sleeping five or six hours a night without their performance suffering. In fact, most adults need seven or eight hours of sleep per night to operate at peak productivity the following day. Read this blog post for tips on getting the most out of your sleep. 5. Try not to be a perfectionist.Perfectionism, while helpful in certain contexts, can be a major roadblock for productivity. Yes, there will always be something you can do to make a piece of work a little better. But what are you sacrificing by making minor improvements? At some point, you should be asking yourself: When is good enough good enough? Keith Frankel wrote a thoughtful piece on our blog outlining a formula for "good enough." He wrote about how he used to think of "done" as spending "every possible moment working on something -- improving, polishing, and refining it -- until I absolutely have to ship it." But that wasn't realistic. Here's the formula for "good enough" that he came up with:
Once you come to the point where you feel comfortable deciding something's good enough to move on ... just move on. 6. Take a real lunch break, not a "working lunch."In a recent article for Jezebel (warning: NSFW language), Tracy Moore took a humorous yet science-backed stance on why we should take breaks regularly. Apparently, only one in five people actually leave their desks or the office for a lunch break. NPR took a look at the consequences of this, and found that staying in one place all day is "bad for thinking, bad for creativity, bad for productivity, [and] bad for your body." It doesn't even matter if you eat during that lunch break -- "you just need to get out," Kimberly Elsbach, a professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management who studies workplace psychology, told NPR. "And it doesn't have to be between 12:00 P.M. and 1:00 P.M. to have a positive impact. It can be just going outside and taking a walk around the block. That in itself is really restorative." 7. Don't discredit the power of naps.There's a reason many modern workplaces boast nap rooms in the office: It's to boost employees' productivity during the rest of the workday. How? While a nap won't make up for a poor night's sleep, studies show taking a power nap in the middle of the day can help you process new information and even learn new skills. Recently, CBS News investigated the benefits of napping in the workplace. In the report, which you can watch below, CBS interviewed a number of psychologists in executives about the topic. They even featured our own CEO, Brian Halligan. If you find it impossible to take a nap in your work environment, try taking a break to take a walk or even daydream. 8. Look at pictures of cute baby animals.I'll never forget the day in 2012 when a study by Hiroshima University in Japan blew up the internet. It found that the simple act of viewing images of cute animals can significantly increase your performance on tasks involving concentration. After looking at images of baby animals, participants in the study performed 44% better in concentration tasks than they did when they performed the same task before looking at images of baby animals. And it was images of baby animals -- as opposed to adult animals or pleasant-looking foods -- that caused the biggest productivity increase. In a hilarious medley of simple and technical language, the study concluded that "cute objects may be used as an emotion elicitor to induce careful behavioral tendencies in specific situations, such as driving and office work." In other words, bookmark this BuzzFeed article for when you need a productivity boost. (And bookmark this one for when you need a mood boost.) 9. Clean your workspace.Many of us find it hard to concentrate when our desks look like a tornado just went through. The papers, the crumbs, the piles of books we're never going to read ... it can all cause quite a bit of stress, and has actually been proven, in some cases, to undermine our productivity. For instance, OfficeMax surveyed over 1,000 American adults and found that 90% of them believe clutter has a negative impact on their lives and work. Specifically, they found that 77% of them believe cluttered workspaces damage their productivity, and more than half believe it impairs their state of mind and motivation levels. If you're one of the many people now working remotely, a messy workspace or home can make things even more distracting than office disorganization. But. on the other hand, some people claim to love their messy desks, and there are actually studies out there that have found, for example, that disordered environments make people focus on their goals more effectively. In the end, it's all about "being honest about your clutter style," Julia Mossbridge, M.A., PhD, and visiting scholar at Northwestern University Department of Psychology, told Fast Company. Otherwise, you'll find yourself wasting time working against your natural tendencies. 10. Make a work playlist.Can listening to music while you work actually make you more productive? Yes -- but it's not a direct cause-and-effect relationship. It turns out listening to music while you work can increase productivity, but mostly because it makes you happy, which prompts your brain to increase dopamine. One study published by the University of Windsor in Canada looked at how listening to music affected work quality and time-on-task of software design, specifically. The study found that software developers who listened to music finished tasks more quickly and came up with better ideas than those who didn’t -- but for a very specific reason: because the music improved their mood. “When you’re stressed, you might make a decision more hastily; you have a very narrow focus of attention,” said Teresa Lesiuk, who headed the study. “When you’re in a positive mood, you’re able to take in more options.” The study found that personal choice for what you were listening to mattered a lot. After all, if you don't like classical music, why would listening to it make you happier? So put on a pair of headphones and check out this list of six science-backed music playlists for increasing your productivity. 11. Visit a coffee shop.While music by itself may not be responsible for a productivity boost, studies show that the ambient sounds of a coffee shop can be. A study published by the Journal of Consumer Research explored the effects of ambient noise on creativity. Results from five experiments concluded that a moderate level of ambient noise (70 decibels, which is roughly how loud the music in a coffee shop would be) enhances performance on creative tasks. A high level of noise (85 decibels, or about how loud a motorcycle sounds when it passes you) hurts creativity. If you can't escape to a coffee shop, you can recreate the ambient buzz of a coffee shop with Cofftivity. It offers non-stop coffee shop background sounds at varying intensities, from "Morning Murmur" and "University Undertones" to "Lunchtime Lounge" and "Brazil Bistro." 12. Exercise during the workday.Chances are, you've heard that regular exercise can do wonders for your health, happiness, and productivity. But what about exercising during the workday? Researchers have actually found that people who exercise during normal working hours are actually more productive at work, even though they technically logged fewer hours. Here are 10 ideas for sneaking in exercise at work without looking silly, from taking short "active breaks" to replacing your desk chair with a stability ball. 13. Use your vacation time.Burnout is real, folks. When you work for months and months without taking a significant break, you risk sliding into a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. The benefits of taking time off for your productivity and work performance are more numerous than you might think. Almost nine out of ten American workers feel like time off increases their happiness -- which, in turn, can do wonders for your productivity. Not to mention 91% of business leaders believe their employees return recharged and ready to work more effectively. Plus, a healthy dose of time off means you'll create lasting memories with family and friends, which can reduce your stress levels and risk of depression, high blood pressure, and weight gain. But it's up to you to give yourself that time off: No one's gonna do it for you. In the end, you'll be more productive for it. More Productivity TipsIf you don't think some items on this list aren't doable for your lifestyle or schedule, don't worry, This list isn't exhaustive -- and people have been developing productivity hacks for centuries. For more productivity tactics, check out this post on productivity hacks for remote employees, and this list of productivity tools. Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in January 2016, but was updated in July 2020 for comprehensiveness and freshness. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/productivity-hacks-counterintuitive When you're thinking about investing in a product or service, what's the first thing you do? Usually, it’s one or both of the following: You'll likely ask your friends whether they've tried the product or service, and if they have, whether they would recommend it. You'll also probably do some online research to see what others are saying about said product or service. Nowadays, 90% of consumers used the internet to find a local business in the last year, and 82% of consumers read online reviews. This shows that the majority of people are looking to peers to make a purchasing decision.Most customers know that a little online research could spare them from a bad experience and poor investment of your budget. What Is a Marketing Case Study?A case study is the analysis of a particular instance (or "case") of something to demonstrate quantifiable results as a result of the application of something. In marketing, case studies are used as social proof — to provide buyers with the context to determine whether they're making a good choice. A marketing case study aims to persuade that a process, product, or service can solve a problem. Why? Because it has done so in the past. By including the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the study, it appeals to logic while painting a picture of what success looks like for the buyer. Both of which can be powerful motivators and objection removers. Why Use Case Studies?In essence, case studies are an invaluable asset when it comes to establishing proof that what you're offering is valuable and of good quality. According to HubSpot's State of Marketing Report 2020, 13% of marketers name case studies as one of the primary forms of media used within their content strategy. This makes them the fifth most popular type of content, outshined only by visual content, blogs, and ebooks. Okay, so you know case studies work. The question is, how do they work? And how can you squeeze the most value out of them? When to Use a Case StudyHere are the ways you can market your case studies to get the most out of them. As a Marketing or Sales Asset1. Use a case study template to create PDFs for email or downloads.Do not underestimate the value of providing social proof at just the right time in order to add value and earn their business. Case studies are extremely effective in the consideration stage of the buyer's journey when they are actively comparing solutions and providers to solve a problem they're experiencing. For this reason, case studies in an independent PDF format can be helpful in both marketing and sales. Marketers can use these PDFs as downloads in web content or email campaigns. Sales reps can utilize these assets in demonstrations, in a follow-up, or to overcome objections. The easiest way to create PDF case studies is by using a case study template. Doing so can decrease the amount of time you spend creating and designing your case study without sacrificing aesthetics. In addition, you can ensure that all your case studies follow a similar branded format. We've created a great case study template (and kit!) that's already locked and loaded for you to use. All you have to do is input your own text and change the fonts and colors to fit your brand. You can download it here. On Your Website2. Have a dedicated case studies page.You should have a webpage exclusively for housing your case studies. Whether you call this page "Case Studies, "Success Studies," or "Examples of Our Work," be sure it's easy for visitors to find. Structure on that page is key: Initial challenges are clear for each case, as well as the goals, process, and results. Get Inspired: Google’s Think With Google is an example of a really well structured case study page. The copy is engaging, as are the goals, approach, and results.
3. Put case studies on your home page.
Give website visitors every chance you can to stumble upon evidence of happy customers. Your home page is the perfect place to do this. There are a number of ways you can include case studies on your homepage. Here are a few examples:
Get Inspired: Theresumator.com incorporates testimonials onto their homepage to strengthen their value proposition. Bonus Tip: Get personal.Marketing gurus across the world agree that personalised marketing is the future. You can make your case studies more powerful if you find ways to make them “match” the website visitors that are important to you. People react to familiarity -- for instance, presenting someone from London with a case study from New York may not resonate as well as if you displayed a case study from the U.K. Or you could choose to tailor case studies by industry or company size to the visitor. At HubSpot, we call this "smart content." Get Inspired: To help explain smart content, have a look at the example below. Here, we wanted to test whether including testimonials on landing pages influenced conversion rates in the U.K. The landing page on the left is the default landing page shown to visitors from non-U.K. IP addresses. For the landing page on the right, we used smart content to show testimonials to visitors coming from U.K. IP addresses.
4. Implement slide-in CTAs.Pop-ups have a reputation for being annoying, but there are ways to implement that that won't irk your website visitors. These CTAs don't have to be huge, glaring pop-ups -- instead, relevant but discreet slide-in CTAs can work really well. For example, why not test out a slide-in CTA on one of your product pages, with a link to a case study that profiles a customer who's seen great results using that product? Get Inspired: If you need some help on creating sliders for your website, check out this tutorial on creating slide-in CTAs. 5. Write blog posts about your case studies.Once you publish a case study, the next logical step would be to write a blog post about it to expose your audience to it. The trick is to write about the case study in a way that identifies with your audience’s needs. So rather than titling your post “Company X: A Case Study," you might write about a specific hurdle, issue, or challenge the company overcame, and then use that company's case study to illustrate how the issues were addressed. It's important not to center the blog post around your company, product, or service -- instead, the customer’s challenges and how they were overcome should take centre stage. For example, if we had a case study that showed how one customer generated twice as many leads as a result of our marketing automation tool, our blog post might be something along the lines of: "How to Double Lead Flow With Marketing Automation [Case Study]." The blog post would then comprise of a mix of stats, practical tips, as well as some illustrative examples from our case study. Get Inspired: Check out this great example of a blog post from Moz, titled "How to Build Links to Your Blog – A Case Study." 6. Create videos from case studies.Internet services are improving all the time, and as a result, people are consuming more and more video content. Prospects could be more likely to watch a video than they are to read a lengthy case study. If you have the budget, creating videos of your case studies is a really powerful way to communicate your value proposition. Get Inspired: Check out one of our many video testimonials for some ideas on how to approach your own videos. 7. Use case studies on relevant landing pages.Once you complete a case study, you'll have a bank of quotes and results you can pull from. Including quotes on product pages is especially interesting. If website visitors are reading your product pages, they are in a "consideration" mindset, meaning they are actively researching your products, perhaps with an intent to buy. Having customer quotes placed strategically on these pages is a great way to push them over the line and further down the funnel. These quotes should be measured, results-based snippets, such as, “XX resulted in a 70% increase in blog subscribers in less an 6 months” rather than, “We are proud to be customers of XX, they really look after us." Get Inspired: I really like the way HR Software company Workday incorporates video and testimonials into its solutions pages. Off Your Website8. Post about case studies on social media.Case studies make for perfect social sharing material. Here are a few examples of how you can leverage them on social:
Get Inspired: MaRS Discovery District posts case studies on Twitter to push people towards a desired action.
9. Use case studies in your email marketing.Case studies are particularly suited to email marketing when you have an industry-segmentable list. For example, if you have a case study from a client in the insurance industry, emailing your case study to your base of insurance-related contacts can be a really relevant addition to a lead nurturing campaign. Case studies can also be very effective when used in product-specific lead nurture workflows in reactivating opportunities that have gone cold. They can be useful for re-engaging leads that have gone quiet and who were looking at specific areas of your product that the case study relates to. Get Inspired: It's important that your lead nurture workflow content includes the appropriate content for where prospects are in the sales cycle. If you need help on how to do this, check out our post on how to map lead nurturing content to each stage in sales cycle. 10. Incorporate case studies into your newsletters.This idea is as good for your client relations as it is for gaining the attention of your prospects. Customers and clients love feeling as though they're part of a community. It’s human nature. Prospects warm to companies that look after their customers; companies whose customers are happy and proud to be part of something. Also, whether we are willing to admit it or not, people love to show off! Get Inspired: Newsletters become stale over time. Give your newsletters a new lease of life with our guide on how to create newsletters that don't suck. 11. Equip your sales team with case studies.Tailored content has become increasingly important to sales reps as they look to provide value on the sales call. It's estimated that consumers go through 70-90% of the buyer's journey before contacting a vendor. This means that the consumer is more knowledgeable than ever before. Sales reps no longer need to spend an entire call talking about the features and benefits. Sales has become more complex, and reps now need to be armed with content that addresses each stage of the buyer’s process. Case studies can be really useful when it comes to showing prospects how successful other people within a similar industry has benefited from your product or service. Get Inspired: Case studies are just one type of content that helps your sales team sell. They don't always work by themselves, though. Check out our list of content types that help sales close more deals. 12. Sneak a case study into your email signature.Include a link to a recent case study in your email signature. This is particularly useful for salespeople. Here's what my email signature looks like:
Get Inspired: Did you know that there are lots more ways you can use your email signature to support your marketing? Here are 10 clever suggestions for how you can do this. 13. Use case studies in training.Having customer case studies is an invaluable asset to have when onboarding new employees. It aids developing their buy-in, belief in, and understanding of your offering. Get Inspired: Have you completed our Inbound Certification course yet? During our classes, we use case studies to show how inbound marketing is applied in real life. In Lead-Gen Content14. Include case studies in your lead gen efforts.There are a number of offers you can create based off of your case studies, in the form of ebooks, templates, and more. For example you could put together an ebook titled “A step-by-step guide to reaching 10,000 blog subscribers in 3 months…just like XX did.” You could create a more in-depth version of the case study with access to detailed statistics as an offer. (And don’t forget, you can also use quotes and statistics from case studies on the landing page promoting the ebook, which adds credibility and could increase your conversion rates.) Or, you could create a template based on your customer's approach to success. Get Inspired: If you think you need to be an awesome designer put together beautiful ebooks, think again. Create ebooks easily using these customisable ebook templates. You can also use case studies to frame webinars that document how to be successful with X. Using case studies in webinars is great middle-of-the-funnel content and can really help move your leads further down the funnel towards becoming sales qualified leads. Get Inspired: Webinars are really effective as part of a lead nurturing workflow. Make sure your next webinar is spot on by following these simple webinar tips. 15. Create a bank of evergreen presentations.It’s important to build up a bank of evergreen content that employees across your organisation can use during presentations or demos. Case studies are perfect for this. Put together a few slides on the highlights of the case study to stir people’s interest, and then make them available to your sales and customer-facing teams. It's helpful if the marketer who created the presentation is the one who presents it to anyone who might use them in the future. This ensures they can explain the presentation clearly and answer any questions that might arise. Get Inspired: What to create presentations people want to use? Here's a list of tools to make your presentations great. 16. Create SlideShares based on case studies.Following on from a few short slides, you could also put together a more detailed presentation of the case study and upload it to SlideShare. After all, not only is SlideShare SEO-friendly (because Google indexes each presentation), but there is a huge pre-existing audience on SlideShare of over 60 million users you can tap into. SlideShare presentations are also easy to embed and share, and allow you to capture leads directly from the slides via a lead capture form. Get Inspired: Want to generate more leads with SlideShare, but not sure how to get started? Check out this blog post. Now that you understand the value of a marketing case study and the different ways that they can be used in your content marketing (and even sales) strategy, your next step is to think about what would convince your target audience to do business with you. Have you recently accomplished something big for a client? Do you have a process or product with demonstrable results? What do your potential clients hope that you'll do for them? The answers to those questions will help you craft compelling content for your case study. Then, all that's left is putting it into your audience's hands in formats they want to consume. Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/case-studies-marketing Whether you're conducting a blog traffic audit or analyzing the success of your most recent social media campaign, it's undeniable that data is an integral part of any marketing role. As HubSpot's Director of Analytics, Bridget Zingale, says, "Reporting and attribution haverevolutionized marketing in every industry. Marketing data allows businesses to make more informed decisions about their audiences’ needs, challenges, and interests." Fortunately, there are dozens of analytics tools for marketers with the ability to collect data from different sources, crunch it effectively, and deliver helpful campaign analysis. Ultimately, reporting tools should do more than just calculate — they should also make the marketer’s job easier, and more productive. Creating attractive and readable reports is key to ensuring that the results of your work are clear for your entire team. Here, let's dive into some of the best data reporting tools, as well as some effective business intelligence (BI) platforms, to enable you to properly analyze your work. Best Business Intelligence & Data Reporting ToolsAs Zingale notes, "Data points such as age, ethnicity, gender, location, education, and employment have informed marketing teams and heightened the impact of campaigns across the board." Good tools you use should give you the above metrics — but greattools give you more. If you're one of the 75% of marketerswho report ROI from marketing campaigns, you're going to need reliable, accurate data. Let's explore the 14 best tools to help get you the data you need. 1. HubSpotPrice: Free HubSpot’sfree marketing analytics softwareis useful for keeping all of your needs, including reporting, in one place. HubSpot lets you combine all of your marketing efforts into one report, or mix-and-match your different assets to create different reports for different clients and needs. HubSpot’s marketing analytics dashboard is just as customizable, allowing you to add and remove different reports with ease. Best of all, you can get both a general overview and specific insights into your work’s performance, since you can easily move between different marketing reports within HubSpot. 2. CalendarPrice: Free plan, or $6-$8/mo. Calendar offers analytics of a slightly different sort: productivity. It has a number of features designed to analyze how your team’s time is spent. By tracking your moment-to-moment activities on a daily basis, you can identify key areas in which your schedule could be improved. As important as it is to have your marketing analytics at your fingertips, knowing how you use your time is just as important for maximizing output. Calendar’s clear and simple reporting tools give you helpful reports on what your agenda looks like and what you can do to make it better. 3. DashThisDashThis is an effective tool for keeping up with marketing analytics at a glance. As its name suggests, DashThis is a dashboard that provides clear data on your KPIs for campaigns. You can access quick metrics and reports from your dashboard, shown below: DashThis lets you select a template and then automatically fills that template with your data, greatly streamlining the reporting process. It also exports data into PDF files, which can be easily shared between team members. 4. Raven ToolsRaven Tools offers many of the tools expected from reporting software — SEO analysis, social media engagement, funnel performance tracking — as well as competitor comparison. Whether it’s big-picture analyses like domain authority or small-scale comparisons of site functionality, Raven Tools lets you stay on top of how you’re faring in competitive spaces. Additionally, its drag-and-drop editor and report generator makes creating custom, professional-grade marketing reports easier. 5. MegalyticMegalytic eases the process of combining marketing data from lots of different sources. Plenty of tools on this list allow for the integration of different types of data, but Megalytic is especially designed to import data from a range of marketing software. It takes only a couple of moments to access data from Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Adwords, and more on Megalytic, and it can even process and report data stored in CSV files. If you’re looking to produce a comprehensive report that pulls together loads of disparate data into one place, Megalytic is a smart choice. 6. KlipfolioAs important as it is for reporting tools to effectively take in and analyze data, they need to be able to produce readable reports, as well. Klipfolio is great for making sure your reports can be read and accessed with ease across technologies. Your results can be accessed on a single dashboard that updates in real-time. Additionally, Klipfolio allows you to share access to your reports through Slack, email, or custom links, and it also enables you to sync your dashboards in real time across multiple devices such as smartphones, web browsers, and even TV screens. Being able to easily pull up your analytics dashboard at any moment on any number of devices is crucial for being able to report on-the-go or from various locations. 7. MixpanelMixpanel is a tracking and reporting software tool that was initially created primarily for product managers, not marketers. As a result, its interface isn’t as streamlined or marketing-driven as some of the other options on this list, but it makes up for this with powerful analytics tools that give insight into how your work is faring. Mixpanel is particularly attuned to identifying trends in engagement and count. It tracks how people engage with certain products over time and how different features influence user behavior with bright, colorful graphs. If you’re especially interested in keeping track of how a certain site or product is performing, it can be a valuable tool for reporting on that kind of information. Mixpanel allows you to produce readable reports of uniquely high-level data analysis. 8. IntercomAlthough Intercom is a messaging platform first and foremost, it also delivers a deep view of a company’s customer base. Through integrations with over 100 marketing tools, Intercom lets marketers track, segment, and identify similarities between their customers. One of the best use cases for Intercom’s BI features is account-based marketing and messaging.
Intercom displays performance figures for each stage of your sales and marketing funnel, helping you see where the best opportunities lie and how to tap into them. You can also break down metrics by individual representatives, teams, timeframes, and more. 9. G2Price: Free G2 is the go-to website for stacking up software tools against one another. G2 gives detailed charts for every category of marketing software, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of each available product. Need an enterprise resource planning tool? G2 covers those. What about an e-commerce platform? G2 can help you pick the best option in that category, too. Certain services, including staffing and translation services, are also reviewed by G2. 10. DataboxPrice: Free plan, or $49-$248/mo. Through integrations with HubSpot CRM, Google Analytics, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more, Databox compiles popular marketing services and social media into one interface. It comes with pre-configured report templates, but users can also design custom reports.Think of Databox like a dashboard for your dashboards, where you can see valuable marketing and sales metrics. The reporting tool lets you view campaign KPIs, check progress, calculate investment returns, and receive notifications when metrics fall outside of specified ranges. Databox has a desktop version, of course, but it also displays data on mobile and via applications like Slack. Statisticians and analysts may be more comfortable with reporting and BI than marketers, but these tools make it easy. Pick the right ones, and get data-driven campaign insights with ease. 11. MaxGPrice: Free plan, or $49-$499/mo. MaxG is a platform that leverages AI to drive results. Their software prioritizes recommendations when delivering insights to eliminate guesswork about how to improve content. The reports are broken down into metrics, shown below. MaxG's software keeps track of how many users interacted with various content across your webpages. The platform offers insights on multiple metrics, including email campaigns, landing pages, and CTAs. In addition to performance recommendations, the tool also provides resources that educate its users about various topics, like an informative blog post. 12. Microsoft Power BIThis service is offered by Microsoft. If you want to integrate data directly into reports, this is a good tool for you. Power BI is a useful tool, and was formulated by the engineers at the company so users can get powerful, full-scale analytics at a low cost. Power BI's analytics are able to scale for organizations of any size. It boasts built-in AI software that offers custom data metrics. You'll also have a brilliant display of visualizations to go along with your insights. You can use Power BI to query your data and edit it without affecting other programs you use. In addition to an Excel integration, the software's dashboard is easy to navigate. 13. DatapineWith Datapine, you'll have access to reporting tools that communicate KPIs on a single dashboard. The quick access to real-time, accurate metrics saves you time and keeps your team on the same page. If you don't have much technical experience, you won't have to worry — Datapine is easy to navigate and analyze. The platform is also highly integratable, so you can customize results from other sources. Personalize further by dragging and dropping KPIs that mean the most onto your dashboard. Datapine gives you access to a global performance filter and predictive analysis. Essentially, the AI-powered software combs through data and suggests improvements. Let's say you need an inclusive, sophisticated report that's quick to gather. Datapine lets you export dashboards by emails, URL, or with an embed code, which is handy for your presentation. 14. Zoho AnalyticsZoho Analytics is a part of the larger Zoho Cloud software suite. With it, you can synchronize data that's spread across multiple sources. The data will sync on a periodic basis so you won't have to worry about continuously deducing the numbers. Like other platforms, Zoho's reports are completely customizable. Some of the options you can include are split columns, cleanup data, and calculated fields. This is so you can receive the data that matters most to your business goals. If you want to compare data from multiple sources, add lookup columns so they'll be included in reports. As another feature of reports, format the data to your liking. With over 40 chart types, like geographical maps, funnels, tables, and heat maps, reports can be extremely detailed and streamlined. As marketers, we use data daily. It's an integral part of what we have to do for our jobs. That's why it's a necessity to have data that works for you. If, right now, your data reporting tool is nothing short of a headache, one of these tools can be a great places to start. They're going to offer you personalized results that you can share with your team, which will keep everyone aligned. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-reporting-and-bi-tools Technical marketing is a key aspect of a successful content marketing strategy, particularly if your organization deals with complex products and services. But it can be difficult when your marketers don't have a firm understanding of the technical aspects behind your product. Without technical expertise, your marketing team likely has a difficult time executing on content that will resonate with your core audience and — ultimately — turning readers into customers. In this blog, we'll take a look at why technical marketing is so important, as well as the skills necessary to successfully implement it as part of your wider marketing strategy. But first, let's take a look at what technical marketing actually is. What is technical marketing?Technical marketing may be a confusing term, with differing definitions. In more recent times, it has been used to reference the technology increasingly used in the marketing industry. Historically, however, it refers to a specific type of marketing that focuses primarily on the specifications and, of course, 'technical' aspects of a product or service. It's this second understanding that we will be focusing on. This type of marketing centers on exactly how a product or service works, and therefore the detail of exactly how it will benefit the user. This is typically more necessary in technical fields where the products are more complex such as engineering electronics, and equally in other complex areas such as finance. Why is technical marketing important?Technical marketing is a crucial part of any marketing strategy, particularly when consumers are very knowledgeable about the subject matter and have a detailed understanding of the product or service. More generalist marketing, and providing more of an 'overview' of a product, is not likely to cut it with these consumers — they require more in-depth information. Technical marketing is therefore a necessary component of content strategy, in order to engage, attract, and delight a more technical audience. Since Google's Medic Update, there's been a huge spotlight on EAT-ing, or content that demonstrates Expertise, Authority & Trust. Positioning content that covers technical aspects of a service or product, then, should also help to improve rankings… if it's done properly. So, technical marketing is clearly a key part of your marketing strategy. But how do you achieve it? Technical Marketing SkillsTo successfully incorporate technical marketing into your content strategy, there are some key skills that your technical marketing team will need to hone. Let's break this down into content marketing as a whole, qualities required of a technical marketing manager, and those of a technical marketing writer. Technical Content MarketingTechnical content marketing should play just as big of a role in your content strategy as any other marketing activity. Marketing is all about understanding your audience's needs and pain points, and navigating them towards a useful solution. Yet typically, this form of marketing will require an even greater dose of creativity, with a need to continually search for new avenues to make technical and complex products and services fascinating, and arrive in the hands of the right people. To incorporate technical content marketing into content planning and wider strategy, we've put together some key considerations and essentials:
Technical Marketing ManagerSo what does it take to be a technical marketing manager and to implement all of the above into your content marketing strategy? There are certainly some key characteristics necessary to this role, and some definite skills to hone. Here are some of the most important aspects to consider:
Ultimately, all of this comes down to the technical marketing manager's strategic planning ability. It's not just about all of this information that you've gathered from the industry and personas, but what you do with it. You have to think about how best to engage a technical audience, which takes real time, planning, and market research, as well as how this may fit in with wider business goals. Technical Marketing WriterSo we've looked at how you incorporate technical marketing into your strategy, as well as who's responsible for the overarching goals, but we're forgetting one exceptionally key piece of the puzzle: the technical marketing writer. A technical marketing writer has a real responsibility to commit these ideas to paper (or video, as the case may be). Their content will be the driving force behind better qualified leads. Here are a few aspects of content you'll want any technical marketing writer to understand:
Ultimately, technical marketing can be a really important component of your content marketing strategy if your industry or products and services lend themselves to it. Technical marketing can help you attract more qualified leads and showcase your company as an expert in the industry. Create a clear technical marketing strategy so that you can cut through the marketing noise, and deliver an exciting and engaging message to your audience. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/technical-marketing How many times have you interacted with an ad on Facebook and gotten lost down a rabbit hole? If you're like me, your answer is probably up in the dozens. I could click on an ad about ice cream, and five minutes later, find myself looking at YouTube videos of homemade sundaes. Sometimes, though, I come across an ad that's seamless — They're quick to grab my attention, and it tells me everything I need to know when I reach the landing page. This morning, for example, I checked my timeline. I came across this ad while scrolling, and because I saw my favorite colors in the ad, I had to click on the image. The landing page wasn't busy. In fact, the simplicity caught my attention. All the page had was text, an image, and a CTA. I noticed how the ad and landing page were centered around the same product. It was effective because its only purpose was to get me to fill out the free trial offer, and that's exactly what I did. After all, I wanted to track my personal Instagram posts. As far as Facebook landing pages go, this one was great. Have you ever made a landing page specifically for Facebook ads? If the thought of creating another landing page just for social media sounds like a burden you'd rather avoid, don't worry. In most cases, you won't need to make more than a few small adjustments to one you already have. If you're ready to dive into what makes Facebook landing pages a must for ads, read on, and let's get started. A landing page is a web page visitors "land" on when they engage with an ad or offer. The purpose of a landing page is to drive action by offering something of value in exchange for lead information. Usually, they'll have a form to download a free ebook, receive a demo, get a template, or something similar. Good landing pages, like the one above, reflect the company and include at least one CTA. Facebook landing pages have the same goal. Facebook landing pages refer to the ones attached to Facebook ads. They're still meant to entice audience members to take action, but are optimized for use on Facebook. Just like there's best practices for creating landing pages for your website, there's some for those linked to Facebook ads. They have to do with your ad goals and optimizing the content for audiences. They shouldn't differ largely from landing pages on your website, in fact, they should mirror your brand. You'll just have different things to look for — So instead of traffic being the number one priority, now it might be the number of shares or comments. If you're someone who benefits from visual examples like I do, don't worry, we'll go over best practices, as well. So let's dive into how to create a landing page that'll be an amazing experience for your Facebook audience. There's no landing page creation tool for Facebook, but you can insert them into ads via Ad Manager to boost leads and conversions. Even without this function, the website has general pointers for making your pages stand out to audiences. Facebook suggests making the page easy to navigate. The content should be straightforward and relevant to its supporting ad to prevent confusion. And finally, match the page with the overall branding of your website. Those are pretty straightforward, right? Upload a page that's comprehensive and branded. But there's a little more to it than that — let's take a deeper look at creating Facebook landing pages. For this example, let's pretend I'm creating a Facebook landing page for an ebook offer. The ebook is directly related to the services my fictional PR company, Off The Press Release, provides. This offer and ad are intended to increase conversions. 1. Choose a template.I am not a website designer, so I decided to use a landing page builder to make mine, and it turned out looking awesome. For this design, I decided to use Wix, but you can use any software with webpage tools, like HubSpot or Mailchimp. When picking my template, I wanted to go with one that would best serve my offer. I decided that one with a simple form and text — that way, I wouldn't have much to edit, and the static design wouldn't distract Facebook viewers. A simple template for a conversion ad is ideal. Landing pages should be a simple design so they don't distract audiences from engaging with the right content. In this case, an ebook offer. 2. Brand the content.With a template picked out, I changed the design to fit with my brand. First, I added new colors: Pink, and midnight blue, to match my company. Then, I changed the text to appear more conversational and relevant to my offer. I wanted my copy to connect with my Facebook audience. Additionally, I chose colors that were appealing — They weren't too bright or dim. Think about which logo, images, and copy will make your message come across the best to your Facebook audiences. If you've noticed your audience responds really well to cool tones, use the darker versions of your company colors for assets like landing pages. If you're stuck with coming up with copy that'll speak to your customers, or want branding advice from experts, we've got you covered. 3. Make the CTA the star of the page.This ad's goal was to earn as many downloads as possible. To make that happen, I used the design to make the CTA the star by placing it in a visible position on the page. Doing this makes it only easier for audiences to complete the action. The action you want Facebook users to take on your landing page should be clear. All copy should point to a clear CTA. It's helpful to make the button a different color. I chose gray, for instance, because it was a color I hadn't previously used. Or let's say you work for a retail company. If the ad intent is to boost sales, the landing page could be an offer for a percentage off in exchange for signing up for emails. Whatever you're giving the consumer should be front and center, along with the button to get there. 4. Preview and test your page.When you're satisfied with your page, view it in preview mode. Seeing it from the viewer's perspective catches mistakes. Additionally, you can make last minute changes to best fit multiple screen types. If you have the time, test your page. One of Facebook's Paid Ads managers, Nicole Ondracek, cites testing landing pages as a must. "Testing is very useful because we have the most concrete data about how to make our pages more effective for Facebook," she says. Check to see if your software has testing features. Mine did not, but HubSpot's CRM and Facebook both have testing tools that could give useful data, like conversions and click-through rates. I could run a landing page A/B test using HubSpot's software, then test the ad using the winning A/B test page. 5. Upload it into the Ad Manager.When you're satisfied with your landing page ad, save it and switch gears over to Ad Manager. From here, the process is pretty intuitive — especially if you've created an ad before. After picking your ad type, it's pretty much just filling in numerous fields. The fields "Primary Text," "Headline," and "Description" are going to be visible to audiences, so fill them in accordingly. For example, the primary text of my ad introduces my company, the offer, and what's inside. Headlines emphasize the offer's subject, while the description gives more detail. Every field but primary text is optional, so you don't have to make the ad as wordy as I have. Add enough text to convey what you're advertising and the tone of your company. As soon as you've got these fields settled, you've chosen your target audience, your ad is ready to run. Click "Publish!" to finish configuring details like budget and duration. And, if you need a full guide on setting up a Facebook ad, this post is an amazing help. So now, you know how to make a landing page for Facebook ads. Now, it's time to go over how, and why, to optimize those landing pages for audiences. Facebook Landing Page Best PracticesThink about the intent of your audience. What kind of landing page will make them interested in your offer? These design and optimization tips are a handy bookmark to make sure the content lines up with customer preference. 1. Give the page its own URL.If you're using a landing page that already exists, and you want to track leads from Paid ads, give the page its own URL. Direct response ads, ads that are meant to incite immediate action, are generally used for lead generation. When you give your Facebook ad landing page its own URL, you'll be able to see the leads earned specifically from that ad. Additionally, if you want to make small tweaks for Facebook performance, you can do so without modifying the original page. 2. Keep the design free of distractions.As marketers, we know that landing pages should be simple. For Facebook ad landing pages, this is especially true. Your ad goals most likely center around audiences taking action, and a clean landing page supports that. If your landing pages outside of Facebook usually include clickable logos and text, remove them for this version. For instance, this landing page on HubSpot's site has a clickable logo and text. The Facebook version, however, doesn't. It distracts from the overall purpose of the ad. When you're designing your landing page, use the page space to make CTAs visible. Copy should succinctly reflect what's being advertised on Facebook. For instance, the Facebook landing page above leverages branding, large fonts and photos, and an actionable button. 3. Create according to your ad goals.When you create a Facebook ad, you have to choose an ad type. These ad types reflect the ultimate goal of your campaign, like lead generation. Your landing page should be designed according to that campaign objective to maximize their effectiveness. A landing page should be made with a purpose in mind. For example, a brand awareness ad can be broad — it's just introducing audiences to a company. However, a page for conversions should specifically lead viewers to download the ebook or demo. This landing page, for instance, has the form at the top of the page to help grow conversions. There's little room for distraction — the only interaction available is filing out the form. 4. Add the Pixel feature for optimization.Pixel is a Facebook feature that was designed to boost ad performance. Adding Pixel to your ads is like adding an extra targeting feature. Let's say a 35-year-old woman in an urban area clicked on the landing page and completed an offer for a brand awareness ad. Facebook then tells Pixel to suggest the ad to profiles with similar demographics in order to reach more qualified leads. Essentially, Pixel targets audience members based on the demographic information of people who've previously interacted with the ad, and increases the amount of traffic your landing page earns. 5. Track the right metrics.If you want to track landing page performance, make sure you're looking at the right metrics. Facebook will offer you an analytics report based on your ad type, and there's a few you can attribute to the landing page. Ondracek recommends looking at the amount of money spent, forms filled, and conversions. Staying in budget for your ad campaign is a no-brainer. The amount of forms completed lets you know if your form was effective for converting leads, and conversions shows you how many. When tracking performance outside of Facebook, add UTM parameters. This is basically a special tag on a URL that'll track page performance. UTM codes can be imported into analytics software, like Google and Looker. You don't have to track landing pages using different services. However, if you made your page using marketing automation software that offers analytics, they're worth keeping in mind. Additionally, UTM codes will give you analytics you can compare with Facebook and other software. Having multiple sources of data, Ondracek recommends, gives you a more holistic view of landing page performance. 6. Test landing pages frequently.Test your landing page before it goes live, if possible. If you used software that offers testing features, use them to test the effectiveness of your page. Even though it won't be connected to Facebook, you can make small changes before uploading based on test results. "We build landing pages using HubSpot, so we use the A/B testing feature before and while we use the page. We choose one thing to tweak at a time to keep results accurate. Over time, we'll build the most effective Facebook landing pages possible," says Ondracek. You don't have to use specific software to test your landing page. You can even use Facebook's A/B testing feature for ads. If you decide to go that route, make your ad goal conversions so landing page design will be a factor. When created for your audience, Facebook landing pages can be an awesome tool. They jumpstart buying journeys, earn leads, and expand reach. When you track their performance, you can learn more insights about how customers interact with your company on Facebook. Use landing pages to further inform and delight your audience. I, for one, love a good landing page, and will be looking forward to seeing yours on my Facebook timeline next. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/create-landing-page-on-facebook So, you've read dozens — if not hundreds — of SEO articles online. You've digested countless tips and tricks for improving your website's SEO. You've even (over)paid that self-proclaimed "expert" to help you develop an SEO strategy that aligns with your business goals. But after all of the reading and learning and strategizing, it dawns on you: You haven't actually done anything yet. Perhaps you're intimidated. Maybe you're crunched for time. Regardless, when it comes to on-page SEO, there's no excuse for dragging your feet. On-page SEO has the power to bring countless new visitors — and customers — right to your website. On-page SEO is also completely up to you: You get to establish what the topic and/or goal of each page will be. You get to decide on the target audience for that page. And you get to choose the target keywords and phrases you want to focus on. All you have to do is get started, and we built this guide to help you. Google's algorithm ranks your website on three main factors: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO:
Note: This SEO "trilogy" isn't always divided into three clean sections; some of these SEO elements will overlap. You'll see how and why throughout this piece. Why is on-page SEO important?On-page SEO is important because it tells Google all about your website and how you provide value to visitors and customers. It helps your site be optimized for both human eyes and search engine bots. Merely creating and publishing your website isn't enough — you must optimize it for Google and other search engines in order to rank and attract new traffic. On-page SEO is called "on-page" because the tweaks and changes you make to optimize your website can be seen by visitors on your page (whereas off-page and technical SEO elements aren't always visible). Every part of on-page SEO is completely up to you; that's why it's critical that you do it correctly. Now, let's discuss the elements of on-page SEO. All on-page SEO elements fall into three main categories: You'll see these elements divided into sections below.Content ElementsContent elements refer to the elements within your site copy and content. In this section, we'll focus mostly on crafting high-quality page content that benefits your visitors and tells Google that your website provides value. High-Quality Page ContentPage content is the heart of on-page SEO. It tells both search engines and readers what your website and business are all about. The first step to creating high-quality content is choosing relevant keywords and topics. Conduct keyword research by searching Google for terms and seeing what surfaces for competitors and other websites. You can also use tools like Ahrefs, AnswerthePublic, and UberSuggest. Also, read our Beginner's Guide on How to Do Keyword Research for SEO. Next, consider how your page content falls into the buyer's journey and visitors' search intent. These will impact how you will use your keywords and what types of content you will create:
Now, it's time to write your page content or clean it up if you're currently auditing your on-page SEO. Here are a few best practices for writing high-quality page content (we'll touch on some of these in more detail below, in our Checklist):
Page content is your opportunity to communicate value to Google and your site visitors; it's the heart of the on-page SEO process. All other on-page SEO elements stem from high-quality page content, so invest ample resources to develop and optimize it. HTML ElementsHTML elements refer to the elements in your source code. Note: To see the source code for any page in your browser, click View > Developer > View Source in the top menu. Page TitlesYour website page titles (also known as title tags) are one of the most important SEO elements. Titles tell both visitors and search engines what they can find on the corresponding pages. To ensure your site pages rank for the proper intent, be sure to include the focus keyword for each page in the title. Incorporate your keyword as naturally as possible. Here are some best practices for when developing a page title:
Check out our free data-driven guide to writing effective page titles. HeadersHeaders, also known as body tags, refer to the HTML element <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and so on. These tags help organize your content for readers and help search engines distinguish what part of your content is most important and relevant, depending on search intent. Incorporate important keywords in your headers, but choose different ones than what's in your page title. Put your most important keywords in your <h1> and <h2> headers.Meta DescriptionsMeta descriptions are the short page descriptions that appear under the title in search results. Although it's not an official ranking factor for search engines, it can influence whether or not your page is clicked on — therefore, it's just as important when doing on-page SEO. Meta descriptions can also be copied over to social media when your content is shared (by using structured markup, which we talk about below), so it can encourage click-throughs from there, too. Here's what makes for a good meta description:
Image Alt-textImage alt-text is like SEO for your images. It tells Google and other search engines what your images are about ... which is important because Google now delivers almost as many image-based results as they do text-based results. That means consumers may be discovering your site through your images. In order for them to do this, though, you have to add alt-text to your images. Here's what to keep in mind when adding image alt-text:
Structured MarkupStructured markup, or structured data, is the process of "marking up" your website source code to make it easier for Google to find and understand different elements of your content. Structured markup is the key behind those featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other content features you see when you search for something on Google. It's also how your specific page information shows up so neatly when someone shares your content on social media. Note: Structured data is considered technical SEO, but I'm including it here because optimizing it creates a better on-page experience for visitors. Site Architecture ElementsSite architecture elements refer to the elements that make up your website and site pages. How you structure your website can help Google and other search engines easily crawl the pages and page content. Page URLsYour page URLs should be simple to digest for both readers and search engines. They are also important when keeping your site hierarchy consistent as you create subpages, blog posts, and other types of internal pages. For example, in the above URL, "blog" is the sub-domain, "hubspot.com" is the domain, "sales" is the directory for the HubSpot Sales Blog, and "startups" indicates the specific path to that blog post. Here are a few tips on how to write SEO-friendly URLs:
Internal LinkingInternal linking is the process of hyperlinking to other helpful pages on your website. (See how the words "internal linking" are linked to another HubSpot blog post in the sentence above? That's an example.) Internal linking is important for on-page SEO because internal links send readers to other pages on your website, keeping them around longer and thus telling Google your site is valuable and helpful. Also, the longer visitors are on your website, the more time Google has to crawl and index your site pages. This ultimately helps Google absorb more information about your website and potentially rank it higher on the search engine results pages. Download our free guide to Internal Linking for SEO. Mobile ResponsivenessGoogle started favoring sites that are optimized for faster mobile speeds — even for desktop searches. Mobile responsiveness matters. It's critical to choose a website hosting service, site design and theme, and content layout that's readable and navigable on mobile devices. If you're not sure about your own site's mobile readiness, use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Site SpeedWhether being viewed on a mobile device or desktop, your site must be able to load quickly. When it comes to on-page SEO, page speed counts big-time. Google cares about user experience first and foremost. If your site loads slowly or haphazardly, it's likely your visitors aren't going to stick around — and Google knows that. Moreover, site speed can impact conversions and ROI. Check your website's speed anytime using Google's PageSpeed Insights tool. If your website is movin' slow, check out 5 Easy Ways to Help Reduce Your Website’s Page Loading Speed. Note: Mobile responsiveness and site speed are considered technical SEO, but I'm including them here because optimizing them creates a better on-page experience for visitors. Now that you understand the different on-page SEO elements, let's talk through the steps of auditing and improving your on-page SEO. If you've been in search of a solution for organizing and tracking the various on-page SEO elements, you're in luck. The HubSpot marketing team released an updated version of our On-Page SEO Template, an Excel document that allows you to coordinate pages and keywords — and track changes — all in one place. In this section, we'll be using this template as a guide as we walk you through a checklist for your on-page SEO management, step by step. Download the template now and follow along. Note: The fictional website "http://www.quantify.ly" will be used as an example throughout this post. It's simply meant to help you imagine how your own website will fit into the template. 1. Crawl your website.Get an overview of all of your website pages that search engines have indexed. For HubSpot customers, our Page Performance tool (under Reports) will allow you to do this. If you're not using HubSpot, you can try using a free tool like Xenu's link crawler. After crawling your site and exporting the results into an Excel (or .csv) file, there will be three key columns of data that you should focus on:
The URL should be pasted into column B, the page title into column C, and the description into column E. 2. Conduct an SEO audit and define your site architecture.Now that you have a basic index of your site in the template, you'll want to organize and prioritize your web pages. Start by defining where within your site architecture your existing pages currently sit. Do this in column A. Note whether a page is your homepage (ideally you'll only have one of those), a page in your primary (or secondary) navigation menu, an internal page, and so on. 3. Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.Review your current URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions to see if they need updating. (This is the beauty of using a template to organize your SEO: You get a broad overview of the type of content you have on your website.) Notice how column D and column F automatically calculate the length of each element. The recommended length for page titles is anything under 60 characters. (And, actually, a quick and easy optimization project is to update all page titles that are longer than 60 characters.) The recommended length for page meta descriptions is 155-160 characters. This is the perfect length to ensure none of the description is cut off by the ellipses. Make sure you're not too repetitive with keywords in this space. Writing a good meta description isn't tough, but it deserves just as much consideration as the page content itself. (Note: For some sites, you may also have to update the URLs, but that's not always the case and thus was not included as part of this optimization template.) 4. Make sure your keyword is in your URL.
As we mentioned above, add your keyword to your URL. For example, image you own a hot yoga studio called ADYoga. You have a web page that includes videos of your classes. The keyword for this page is "hot yoga online classes" — so, you'd want to include that keyword in your URL. The URL for this web page may look like this: www.ADyoga.com/hot-yoga-online-classes. 5. Include your keyword throughout your web page.In addition to your URL, you'll want to add your keyword throughout your web page(s). This includes your title and headers. Sprinkle your keyword throughout your content as well where it fits naturally. 6. Track keywords and topics for each page.Think of your target keyword as the designated topic for a particular page. If you're using the HubSpot template, In column O, define just one topic per page. By doing this, you'll be able to go more in-depth and provide more detailed information about that topic. This also means that you are only optimizing for one keyword per page, meaning you have a greater chance to rank for that keyword. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. Your homepage is a classic example. The goal of your homepage is to explain what your entire website is about, and thus you'll need a few keywords to do that. Another exception is overview pages like services and product pages, which outline what all of your products and services may be. 7. Don’t keyword stuff.We just covered many examples in which keywords are both helpful and necessary for SEO purposes. However, one mistake many first-timers make when improving their on-page SEO is "keyword stuff". Keyword stuffing can be detrimental to your website and web page's SEO and it can feel spammy to readers/ visitors. 8. Establish value propositions for each page.A very important next step, which is often overlooked, is establishing a value proposition for each page of your website. Each page should have a goal aside from just ranking for a particular term. If you're using the template, you'll do this in column G. 9. Define your target audience.Define your target audience — do you have a single buyer persona or multiple personas? Keep this persona in mind as you optimize your site's pages. (Remember, you are optimizing for humans, too — not just search engine robots.) In column H of our template, you'll have the opportunity to define your page's target audience. 10. Plan new page titles.Now that you've documented your existing page titles and have established value propositions and target audiences for each of your pages, write new page titles (if necessary) to reflect your findings. You can do this in column K of the template — and double check each title length in column L. People usually follow the formula of "Keyword Phrase | Context." The goal of the page title is to lay out the purpose of the page without being redundant. You should also keep the additional recommendations we made above related to titles. 11. Add new meta descriptions.As we covered above, meta descriptions should be a short, declarative sentence that incorporates the same keyword as your page's title. It should not reflect the content verbatim as it appears on the page. Get as close as you can to the 150-character limit to maximize space and tell visitors as much as possible about your page. If you need to create new meta descriptions, do so in column M of the template. 12. Review and edit page content as needed.Good copy needs to be thorough, clear, and provide solutions ... so, be compelling! Write for your target audience and about how you can help them. Compelling content is also error-free, so double check your spelling and grammar. Aim to have at least 500 words per page, and format content to make it easier to read and digest with the use of headers and subheaders. Columns P through R can be used to keep track of changes that you've made to your content or to note where changes need to be implemented. 13. Incorporate visual content.
Content can be more than just text, so consider what kind of visual content you can incorporate into each page (if it adds value and serves a purpose, of course). Columns S and T allow you to note which visual elements need to be added. When adding an image to a page, be sure to include a descriptive file name and image alt-text. 14. Optimize your visual content.We talked earlier about image alt text. You'll want to optimize your visual content this way — and be sure to include your keyword in your image alt text. It'll help with the page's SEO as well as offer the potential to rank in image search (e.g. on a search engine image results page or image carousel). 15. Add internal links.
As stated earlier, incorporating links throughout your pages is a must, but it's often something that's easily overlooked. Make sure that your anchor text includes more than just your keywords. The goal isn't to stuff in as many keywords as possible, but to make it easy for people to navigate your site. Use columns U through W to plan for these elements if you don't already have them, or to document how you'll improve them. 16. Include external links.It may seem counterintuitive to include external links throughout your page considering we just covered multiple reasons why internal linking is so important for on-page SEO. However, external links are also important. By externally linking, to credible and trustworthy sites, Google will know your page is also credible and trustworthy. Not only does Google want to know your site is well-referenced, but your visitors do, too. 17. Optimize for conversions.
If you're also not optimizing your site to increase the number of leads, subscribers, and/or customers you're attracting ... you're doing it wrong. Remember that each page of your website presents a conversion opportunity. That means every page of your website should include at least one call-to-action (CTA), though many pages may have multiple CTAs. Columns X through AF allow you to plan for conversions. Be sure that your site has a mix of CTAs for different stages of the flywheel. (Note: The On-Page SEO Template refers to the stages of the buying funnel — top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. If you are a HubSpot customer, you can even use Smart Content to display these specific CTAs only to people in a specific part of the funnel.) Also, as you add, edit, or update CTAs, be sure to note conversion rate changes in columns Z, AC, and AF. Put Your On-Page SEO to WorkOnce you finalize your SEO plans, implement these changes on your website or pass them along to someone to implement for you. This will take time to complete, so aim to work on 5 to 10 pages per week. Remember: SEO is not a one-and-done deal. It's something you should continually improve upon. You should treat this On-Page SEO Template as a living, breathing document that will help guide your SEO strategy for months (or years) to come. Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33655/a-step-by-step-guide-to-flawless-on-page-seo-free-template.aspx At age 11, I dreamed of being an editor at a major magazine. I even put together my first publication, Teen Scene Magazine, using colored construction paper, yarn, and in-depth feature interviews with ... my dad. Flash forward to today. I've swapped my colored construction paper and yarn for PowerPoint and InDesign. I've replaced my dad with marketing experts and influencers (in the office, that is). And week after week, I have the satisfaction of being an ebook creator. What Is an Ebook?Ebook is short for "electronic book," and uses either a computer, mobile device, or ebook reader to display long-form texts in book form. Ebooks have multiple digital "pages" that people can navigate through, and are often packaged as a PDF document so they can easily be sent from one user to another. What Are the Benefits of an Ebook?Let's say you have an amazing blog full of long-form content. Why in the world would you want to offer your readers an ebook? Is it even worth your time? Here's some advantages ebooks offer content creators:
Perhaps more importantly, ebooks offer a number of advantages for your audience:
How Is an Ebook Structured?There's no set rule for organizing your content into an ebook. It generally mimics the structure of a novel or textbook (depending on what it is you're writing about). But, there are some aspects of an ebook you should be sure to adhere to. Ebooks have some system of chapters and supporting images. Similar to a blog post, they also do well when further segmenting their text with subheaders that break down the discussion into specific sections. If you're writing about professional sports, for example, and one of your chapters is about Major League Baseball (MLB) in the U.S., you might want to establish subchapters about the various teams belonging to the MLB.
What Can an Ebook Be About?Anything. Well, within reason. Ebooks are simply a marketer's way of delivering lots of critical information in a form their potential customers are most willing to read it. An environmental company might write an ebook all about water conservation. They also might focus an ebook entirely on how their water-saving product is used, or how it helped a customer solve a problem. Discover more ebook ideas at the end of this article. No matter what subject your ebook takes on, research is a significant part of ebook creation. Unlike short-form content like articles and videos, the content of an ebook is predicated on trust and evidence. A user who obtains (or requests access to) your ebook wants the full story, not just the bullet points. That includes all the content and testing you went through to produce the ebook. Can You Edit an Ebook?Nope. An ebook can't be edited once it's been saved in one of the file formats described above, so it's best to ensure you have an editable version saved in a program like Microsoft Word. But why would you want your ebook to be uneditable? Making ebooks uneditable ensures the content remains unchanged -- both the format and the information -- as it's shared between multiple uses. You can edit ebooks if they're saved using an editable PDF, a feature that is specific to Adobe Acrobat -- the founding program of the PDF file type. Learn how to edit PDFs in this blog post. How Do You Read an Ebook?You can read an ebook on many different devices: iPhone, Android smartphones, a Macbook, PC, and e-readers such as the Nook and Kindle. The latter two devices are typically used to read novels in digital form. Nook and Kindle owners can store thousands of books (literally) on a single Nook or Kindle. But making an ebook can be overwhelming. Not only do you have to write the content, but you also need to design and format it into a professional-looking document that people will want to download and read. With lead generation being the top goal for content marketing, however, ebooks are an essential part of an successful inbound marketing program. In this post, we'll walk you through the ins and outs of creating an ebook by, well, creating an ebook. And if you're worried about your lacking design skills, fret not ... Got your free ebook templates? Ready to make an ebook? Great -- let's get to it. In What File Formats Can You Save an Ebook?Ebooks can be saved in one of several formats. Depending on your end user, though, you might find a use for any of the following file types: PDFs are likely the most well-known file type. The "PDF" extension stands for "Portable Document Format," and is best for ebooks that are meant to be read on a computer (digital marketers, you'll want to remember this one). We'll talk more about how to save your ebook as a PDF later in this article. EPUBThis file type stands for "Electronic Publication," and is the more flexible ebook formats. By that, I mean EPUB ebooks can "reflow" their text to adapt to various mobile devices and tablets, allowing the ebook's text to move on and off different pages based on the size of the device on which a user is reading the ebook. They're particularly helpful for viewing on smaller screens, such as smartphones as well as the Nook from Barnes and Noble. MOBIThe MOBI format originated from the Mobipocket Reader software, which was purchased by Amazon in 2005 but was later shut down in 2016. However, the MOBI file extension remains a popular ebook format with compatibility across the major e-readers (except the Nook). While the format comes with some limitations, such as not supporting audio or video, it does support DRM, which protects copyrighted material from being copied for distribution or viewed illegally. Newer Kindle formats are based on the original MOBI file types. AZWThis is an ebook file type designed for the Kindle, an e-reader device by Amazon. However, users can also open this file format on smartphones, tablets, and computers. ODFODF stands for OpenDocument Format, a file type meant primarily for OpenOffice, a series of open-source content creation programs similar to Microsoft Office. IBAIBA is the proprietary ebook format for the Apple iBooks Author app. This format does support video, sound, images, and interactive elements, but it is only used for books written in iBooks author. It is not compatible with other e-readers. How to Write an Ebook
1. Choose a topic that matches your audience's needsRemember: The goal of your ebook is to generate leads for your sales team, so pick a topic that will make it easy for a prospect to go from downloading your ebook to having a conversation with your sales team. This means your ebook shouldn't deviate much from the topics you cover in your other content marketing channels. Rather, it's your opportunity to do a deep dive into a subject you've only lightly covered until now, but something your audience knows they need to learn more about. For example, in listening to sales and customer calls here at HubSpot, I've learned ebooks for use in content marketing is a huge obstacle for our audience, who are marketers themselves. So if I can provide not only this blog post, but resources to make ebook creation easier, I'm focusing on the right topic for opening up a sales conversation. To get your creative juices flowing, here are some example ebook titles to consider. (Note: Replace "x" with an appropriate number.) You can also use our free Blog Topic Generator tool to come up with more ideas. Most blog topics can be made comprehensive enough to serve as longer form ebook topics.
For this blog post, I'm going to use the PowerPoint version of template two from our collection of five free ebook templates. Through each section of this post, I'll provide a side-by-side of the template slide and how I customized it. Below, you'll see my customized cover with my sales-relevant ebook topic. For help with writing compelling titles for your ebooks, check out the tips in this blog post. 2. Outline each chapter of your ebook.The introduction to your ebook should both set the stage for the contents of your ebook and draw the reader in. What will you cover in your ebook? How will the reader benefit from reading it? For tips on how to write an effective introduction, check out this post. Some ebook creators say that an ebook is simply a series of blog posts stitched together. While I agree you should treat each chapter like an individual blog post, the chapters of your ebook should also flow fluidly from one to the other. The best way to outline your ebook is by thinking of it as a crash course on the sales-relevant topic you selected. In my example of creating an ebook, I know I need to cover how to:
While my example has a few chapters, keep in mind that your ebook does not need to be lengthy. I have one golden rule for ebook length: Write what is needed to effectively educate your audience about your selected topic. If that requires five pages, great! If that requires 30 pages, so be it. Just don't waste words thinking you need to write a long ebook. With that, let's move on to the actual copy you're writing. 3. Break down each chapter as you write.Get writing! Here, you can approach each chapter the way you might write a long blog post -- by compartmentalizing each chapter into smaller sections or bullet points, as shown in the picture below. This helps you write simply and clearly, rather than trying to use sophisticated language to convey each point. It's the most effective way to educate readers and help them understand the new material you’re providing. Be sure to maintain a consistent structure across each chapter, as well. This helps you establish natural transitions between each chapter so there's a clear progression from one chapter to the next (simply stiching blog posts together can rob you of this quality). These practices should hold true for all your other marketing efforts, such as email marketing, call-to-action creation, and landing page development. “Clarity trumps persuasion,” as Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of MECLABS often likes to say. Want to make sure you're keeping your ebook exciting for readers? Here are some key tips to keep in mind:
4. Design your ebook.Our downloadable ebook templates are offered in both PowerPoint and InDesign. For this example, we'll show you how to do it in PowerPoint, since more people have access to that software. You'll notice we only have one "chapter page" in the template (slide three). To create additional chapter pages, or any pages really, simply right click the slide and choose Duplicate Slide. This will make a copy of your slide and allow you to drag it to its proper place in your ebook via the sidebar or Slide Sorter section of PowerPoint. You can then customize it for any subsequent chapters. 5. Use the right colors.Ideally, our free ebook templates would magically match your brand colors. But, they probably don't; this is where you get to truly personalize your work. However, because ebooks offer more real estate for color than your logo or website, it's a good idea to consider secondary colors within your brand's color palate. Ebooks are where this color scheme can truly shine. To learn how to add your brand's colors to PowerPoint, check out this blog post. That way, you can customize the color scheme in our ebook templates to match your brand! 6. Incorporate visuals.Images and graphics in ebooks are hard to get right. The key to making them fit well is to think of them as complementary to your writing. Whether you add them during or after you’ve finished writing your ebook’s copy, your visuals should serve to highlight an important point you’re making or deconstruct the meaning of a concept in an easy-to-understand, visual way. Images shouldn’t just be there to make the ebook easy on the eyes. Rather, they should be used to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material you’re covering. If you need help gathering visuals, we have three sets of free stock photos that might help you along the way: And if you're compiling a data-heavy ebook, you might want to download our free data visualization ebook for tips about designing compelling charts and graphs for your content. 7. Highlight quotes or stats.Another way to enhance your ebook is by highlighting quotes or stats within your design. Just be sure the quote or stat you're using genuinely adds value to the content. Whether you're emphasizing a quote or adding a visual, keep all your content within the same margins. If your copy is consistently 1-inch indented on your page from both the left and right side, keep your designed elements aligned using that same spacing. 8. Place appropriate calls-to-action within your ebook.Now that your content is written and designed, it's time to optimize it for lead generation, reconversion, and promotion. Think about how you got here -- you clicked on a call-to-action (CTA) in an email, on a social media post, or somewhere else. A CTA is a link or visual object that entices the visitor to click and arrive on a landing page that will get them further engaged with your company. Since your ebook readers have probably converted into leads in order to get their hands on your ebook to begin with (more on this in Step 2 below), use the CTAs within your ebook to reconvert your readers and propel them further down your marketing funnel. For instance, a CTA can lead to another offer, your annual conference's registration page, or even a product page. Depending on what this next action is, CTAs can be an in-line rectangle or a full page teasing the next offer (see both images below). To hyperlink the CTA in your ebook (or any image or text in your ebook) to your destination URL, simply go to Insert >> Hyperlink in PowerPoint. We've even designed 50 customizable calls-to-action in PowerPoint you can download and use in your ebooks. You can grab them here. Now, we don't have a dedicated CTA template slide in the PowerPoint ebook templates for you to customize ... but it's still simple! All you have to do is duplicate slide four (the Header/Subheader slide) and customize copy or add images as needed. You can also go to Insert >> New Slide and work from there. 9. Convert it into a PDF.Once you've finished writing your ebook -- CTAs and all -- it's time to convert it to the right file type so it's transferrable from you to your recipient. To convert your ebook to a PDF, click File >> Save As in the ebook template you have open. Under File Format, select PDF and select a destination on your computer for this new file. Why can't you just attach what you have to a landing page and be done with it? Word documents, PowerPoints, and similar templates are perfect for creating your ebook, but not for delivering it. Because these templates are editable, the contents of your ebook are too easily corrupted, distorted, or even lost when moving from your computer to the hands of your future leads. That's where PDFs come in. You've seen these letters at the end of files before. Short for Portable Document Format, the .PDF file type essentially freezes your ebook so it can be displayed clearly on any device. A popular alternative to PDFs is the .EPUB file type. See a comparison of EPUB to PDF here. 10. Create a dedicated landing page for your ebook.Your ebook should be available for download through a landing page on your site. A landing page is a web page that promotes/describes your offer and provides a form that visitors need to fill out with their contact information in order to access your ebook. This is how you are able to convert your visitors into business leads that your sales team can ultimately follow up with. For instance, you went through this landing page in order to access this ebook template. To learn more about how to optimize your landing pages for conversion, download this free ebook. 11. Promote your ebook and track its success.Once your landing page is all set, you can use that destination URL to promote your ebook across your marketing channels. Here are five ways you can do this:
After your content is launched and promoted across your marketing channels, you’ll also want marketing analytics in place to measure the success of your live product. For instance, you should have landing page analytics that give you insight into how many people downloaded your ebook and converted into leads, and closed-loop analytics that show how many of those people ultimately converted into opportunities and customers for your business. Learn more through HubSpot's Landing Pages App. And with that, we've built an ebook, folks! You can check out the packaged version of the example I built through this post here:
After your content is launched and promoted across your marketing channels, you’ll need to have marketing analytics in place that measure the success of your ebooks. For instance, having landing page analytics that give you insight into how many people downloaded your ebook, or show how many of those downloaders converted into opportunities and customers for your business.
Ebook IdeasSo, what should you write about in your ebook? I'll answer that question with another question: What do you want your readers to get out of this ebook? To identify an ebook idea that suits your audience, consider the type of ebook you're trying to create. Here are a few ideas. New ResearchConducting an experiment or business survey? This is a great way to develop proprietary knowledge and become a thought leader in your industry. But how will you share your findings with the people who care about it? Create an ebook that describes the experiment, what you intended to find out, what the results of the experiment were, and what these findings mean for your readers and the market at large. Case StudyPeople love success stories, especially if these people are on the fence about purchasing something from you. If you have a client whose business you're particularly proud to have, why not tell their story in an ebook? Ebook case studies show your buyers that other people trust you and have benefited from your product or service. In your ebook, describe what your client's challenge was, how you connected with them, and how you were able to help your client solve their challenge and become successful. Product DemoThe more complex your product is, the more information your customers will need to use it correctly. If your product or service can be used in multiple ways, or it's hard to set up alone, dedicate a brief ebook to showing people how it's done. In the first section of your ebook, for example, explain how to launch your product or service. In the second section, break down the individual features and purposes your product is best used for. InterviewInterested in interviewing a well-known person in your market? Perhaps you've already sat down with an influencer to pick their brain about the future of the industry. Package this interview into an ebook, making it easy for your customers to read and share your inside scoop. PlaybookA "playbook" is a document people can use when taking on a new project or concept that is foreign to them. Think of it like a cheat sheet, full of tips and tricks that help your customers get better at what they do. When done right, a playbook equips your customers with information they would need to excel when using your product. For example, a software vendor for IT professionals might create a "virus protection playbook" that makes support teams better at preventing viruses at their respective companies. Blog Post SeriesSometimes, the best ebook for your business is already strewn across a series of blog posts. If you've spent the last month writing articles all on the same subject for your business, imagine how these posts would look stitched together? Each article can begin a new chapter. Then, once this ebook is created, you can promote it on a landing page, link to this landing page from each individual blog post, and generate leads from readers who want to download the entire blog series in one convenient ebook. Ebook Creation Resources
Do you have any other tips or resources for making ebook creation easier? Apply them to your content marketing strategy. I'd be remiss not to admit every company's ebook will come to fruition differently. It all depends on the needs of your brand. Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-an-ebook-free-templates Working Remotely? Try These 35 Tools for Better Communication Collaboration & Organization7/29/2020 Today, you and your team are expected to perform at the same level no matter where you're working from. With the help of internet connection, it's relatively easy for us to get most our daily work done, whether it's related to publishing a blog post, sending a follow-up email, conducting a video call with a team member of prospect, or setting up a workflow to nurture prospects and customers in your CRM. But, when it comes to remote work, we all know internet connection doesn't solve everything . Tasks and obstacles are bound to arise that are challenging to manage remotely — when it comes to these complex tasks and cross-team collaboration, communication and productivity can get messy. As the need for remote work has grown, many companies have discovered and started implementing tools and resources that enable employees to be as productive as possible while working from home. To help determine which tools are ideal for your remote team, we've compiled a list of some of the best tools for you to use:
35 Helpful Remote Work Tools and SoftwareThe following 35 remote work tools are segmented by use case to help you determine the type of resource you and your team would benefit most from. Let's get started. Remote Work Tools For General Collaboration1. Google SuiteGoogle Suite (G Suite) is a budget-friendly Google platform that allows your teams to collaborate on Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slide, among other easy-to-use Google Drive tools. You can also share a team calendar and create work emails through the G Suite. 2. Microsoft Office TeamsWhile G Suite can be used entirely online within one platform, Microsoft Office Teams allows you to download apps like Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint to your computer or mobile device. Like G Suite, you also can use this general suite of tools to manage, share, store, and edit documents in team folders. Aside from the more specific apps, Microsoft Teams also allows you to communicate with your teammates via video calls, email, and through an internal discussion platform where your colleagues can create posts or ask questions. Remote Work Tools For Task and Project Management3. TrelloTrello allows you to create a dashboard that highlights large projects or categories and tasks related to them. Each small task, called a "card" can be labeled with a colored tag and text. For example, if you want to say something is "Urgent" you could create a red card tag that says "Urgent" on it and stick it to the appropriate Trello cards. You can also assign cards and deadlines to members of your team and track each card's progress through its Activity area. 4. AsanaAsana lets you create and delegate tasks, organize, and check off tasks into shared projects, chat within each task so conversations stay organized, and add attachments from your computer, Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive. It also has calendar features, dashboards for projects, and your very own to-do list. 5. AssemblaProject management for web developers seems to be Assembla's niche, though it could handle project management for just about any type of freelancing. It tracks tickets and time, produces reports, and simplifies product releases and bug-fixing — plus many say it's easier to set up than Jira. 6. BasecampBasecamp is a simple and easy-to-use project management software that helps you arrange your calendars, set meeting schedules, track assignments, and store documents. All of your project management occurs on one organized dashboard to give you a digestible birds-eye-view of everything that's happening. 7. RingCentral and GlipThere's another great tool by Ring Central and Glip. While RingCentral enables company calls to your business line to be forwarded to a mobile phone when you're working remotely, Glip helps you manage basic project management and text-based team communication. For task management, shared calendars, file sharing, annotating images, and real-time group chat, Glip is a strong tool. It also helps ensure all those chats are fully searchable. Along with group chats and standard project management features, you can activate video chats on the Glip app which allows you to talk to your teammates about ongoing tasks. 8. GithubWeb developers will love GitHub because it's designed to build software with remote teams. The platform allows teams to virtual participate in code review and the management of both open source and private projects. The GitHub Marketplace offers coders a variety of tools that can help them do their jobs more efficiently, regardless of where they log in. 9. JiraJira is another project management tool primarily for developers, customer support, and IT reps that allows you to assign and track work as well as issues that need to be solved. It also has a handy mobile and desktop interface for project management on the go. 10. PodioPart project manager, part Facebook for companies, you can use Podio to keep track of what you need to do, and chat while doing it. With the mobile app and website, you can create "workspaces" for different aspects of your work or projects. These workspaces look similar to a Facebook page as colleagues can comment or share information on them similarly to how they would share a Facebook post. You can also use the platform to communicate with teammates or manage client contacts privately since it has a wide range of privacy settings. 11. TaskworldThe sweet spot for Taskworld is managing projects and keeping track of tasks and subtasks. Its evaluation feature lets you measure and give feedback on job performance, setting it apart from other similar project management programs. 12. Monday.comMonday.com is a web task management platform specifically for businesses and agencies. It offers similar features to Asana and Trello in that you can watch the progress of tasks on a dashboard and assign projects to team members. But, additionally, it also allows marketing teams to plan tasks with their budget in mind. Remote Work Tools For Scheduling and Hosting Virtual Meetings13. ZoomZoom is an easy-to-use desktop platform and app that allows you to schedule, launch, and record virtual meetings with your team. These meetings can be entered remotely from a computer, smartphone, or voice via a dial in phone. During Zoom meetings, you can also share your screen with teammates so they can see your work or presentations. 14. GoToMeetingGoToMeeting allows you to schedule and launch virtual meetings or webinars where users can log in or call to hear only hosts speak. These meetings can be recorded and sent to participants after they're completed. 15. Google HangoutsGoogle Hangouts is a popular option because Google is usually convenient for those who use Google Calendar to manage your schedule and GMail for emails. 16. Join.meJoin.me is great for fast and easy screen-share meetings. In addition to being able to schedule and launch quick virtual meetings with screen-share, you can also create a shareable URL to your own personal meeting room that people can log on to when they'd like to meet with you. 17. SkypeAt this point, many of us have already used Skype. Along with allowing you to host free small virtual meetings, Skype also enables you to create group chats. If you want to use the paid version of Skype, you can also have meetings with groups or make international voice calls. 18. UberConferenceWith UberConference, there's no wondering who joined the call, who said what, or what the heck your meeting PIN number is. It also allows screen sharing and has a mobile app. You can create video calls in your own name and when someone signs in, you can easily see them on the video calls dashboard. Then, when someone is talking, their video feed will be highlighted so you can easily see what's happening and stay focused. 19. Google CalendarRather than having a full conversation over an instant messaging platform about when to have a meeting, you can use G Suite's Google Calendar feature. With the feature, you can share your Google Calendar with your colleagues. Then, when you want to schedule a meeting with them, simply search their names and book a suggested time that works. When you do this, you can also put notes in the description area such as, "I'd like to book this meeting to discuss the marketing newsletter. Let me know if this time doesn't work for you." 20. HowspaceHowspace is a digital facilitation platform that helps you deliver large initiatives, such as organizational transformation, learning programs, workshops & events for large groups. Remote Work Tools For Quick Chats With Colleagues21. SlackSlack is great for real-time communication for one-on-one conversations or with everyone on your team. You can also organize chats by subject, and integrate activity from platforms like Github, Trello, and Pingdom. I like the thought expressed here that Slack is as close to a virtual office as you can get. You can even create one channel for every client, and invite only the people on that project to be on that channel. (Want to learn more about Slack? Here's a guide to all the hacks you didn't yet know you could do with the platform.) 22. WhatsAppIf you have a remote or globally dispersed team, or communicate regularly with international clients or prospects, WhatsApp is a great communication platform that allows you to create group chats with them, send text messages, host multiple-person video calls, or make voice calls for free on a Wi-Fi network. 24. FlowdockFlowdock is simple and easy-to-use instant messaging app and website similar to Slack. It also integrates with Jira, GitHub, Basecamp, Asana, Assembla, Trello and many other apps. Remote Work Tools For Asset Management25. Google DriveI love Google Drive, but it does tend to update rather frequently — meaning, just when you’ve figured it out and have all your things organized, things change. With that said, it’s free, stores and organizes all of your content and information, and you can work on the same document with multiple people at the same time. 26. DropboxSharing large files doesn’t work so well over email, which is where Dropbox and Dropbox Business come in. This is a great tool for organizing freelancer work. Just have the freelancer upload their documents into monthly folders and message you when their work is in. 26. Adobe Creative CloudAdobe Creative Cloud programs like Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator allow you to create design files or visual assets that can then be edited or updated by your team. 27. CanvaSimilar to Adobe, but easier to use for design novices, Canva allows you to create team accounts where you can share design templates and assets with your colleagues remotely. This ensures you're able to access and edit any design files or brand imagery you might need while working from home. Remote Work Tools For Announcements and Internal Documentation28. ConfluenceConfluence allows you to create an internal blog or wiki for your team. It’s more of a team manager, keeping documents, notes, best practices, product requirements, and plans all in one easily searchable place. Pro tip: You can also use the Gliffy integration to do quick wireframes. 29. GitHub WikiSavvy inbound marketing companies use GitHub Wiki for employee onboarding by organizing helpful resources for new employees. 30. LoomRealize that speaking out loud is a better way to communicate a team announcement, but don't have time to book a meeting? With Loom, you can record a presentation or just your voice to give an announcement or play-by-play to your team. Then, you can get a link to share the recording and easily circulate it across channels like instant messengers or email. Remote Work Tools For Tracking Team Progress31. Time DoctorNeed to keep a close eye on how your team is spending their time, for client billing or productivity purposes? Time Doctor can help you do just that. With the tool, you and your team and/or remote freelancers can create projects and start a clock when starting a new task. Then Time Doctor's dashboard shows a report of how many hours your colleague has worked throughout the day and which projects they've spent the most time on. 32. HarvestFor keeping track of time and expenses, this is a simple few-frills tool. With Harvest, you simply create projects or to-do list items and start the clock when you start working on each tasks. Then you can see how much time you've spent on different list items, such as writing blog posts, strategizing, or producing marketing emails. 33. iDoneThisI don’t know about you, but sometimes I can’t remember what I did yesterday. iDoneThis solves that problem for individuals and teams by sending a "digest" of what everyone did. Remote Work Tools For Team Decision-Making34. Polly.aiWhen your team needs to make a decision that doesn't require a full meeting, Polly.ai enables you to create a survey that you can then send through platforms like Slack. From there, your colleagues can simply vote on an option. 35. DoodleNeed to plan a group meeting? Doodle is a polling platform that allows you to ask quick questions to your team and see how they vote. You can also create a meeting-time poll which enables your team to vote on a meeting time that works best for them so you're able to accommodate schedules. Navigate the Remote Work Landscape with Helpful ToolsToday, your employees must have the ability to effectively do their jobs remotely — they need access to the right resources to help them be as productive at home as they are in an office space. It's no secret that everyone works a little differently and has a unique set of challenges. But when our problems have to do organization and productivity, try implement one of the tools mentioned above. To learn more about how to master remote work, check out success tips from HubSpot's remote workforce. Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in 2015 and was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in July 2020. [Read More ...] from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/remote-work-tools |
Joseph Ashley
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