Practicing inbound marketing means sending emails to people who actually want to hear from you. You’ve probably Googled “best email marketing tips” so your emails don’t end up getting lost in a customer's inbox — or worse, their spam folder.

Here are our top email marketing tips that are perfect for small and growing businesses that anyone can embrace. With this advice, you can improve your emails' open rates, click-through rates, and lead generation potential.

1. Do not buy email addresses.

I know what you're thinking: In the early stages of an email marketing newsletter, you want to do whatever it takes to get eyeballs on your business. However, you should resist the urge to purchase an email list.

There are many ways to buy an email list, but none of them will benefit your campaign. Why? Since the owners of these email addresses didn't explicitly agree to receive content from you, there's no telling how interested they are — or if they're even a fit for what you have to offer.

A bought email list is also in violation of GDPR (we'll talk more about this in just a minute).

Purchasing email lists is always a bad idea.

2. Abide by CAN-SPAM rules.

CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) is an act that was passed in 2003. This law establishes the rules for commercial email and messages.

CAN-SPAM gives recipients the right to have a business stop emailing them, and outlines the penalties incurred for those who violate the law. To be compliant, your email messages must follow these rules, which are available on the FTC's website. A few highlights:

• Include your valid physical postal address in every email you send out.
• Give recipients a clear and obvious way to unsubscribe from every email you send. (HubSpot customers: Don't worry. You can't save an email template unless it includes this element.)
• Use clear "From," "To," and "Reply to" language that accurately reflects who you are.
• Avoid "no-reply" or similar sender names, which prevent recipients from opting out of an email newsletter if they'd like to.
• Avoid selling or transferring any email addresses to another list.

If you have questions about CAN-SPAM compliance, reach out to your business’ legal council.

3. Ensure your opt-in process complies with GDPR.

You've probably heard of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law enacted across Europe in May 2018 to better protect internet users' personal data.

We don't expect you to have this long piece of legislation memorized. However, if some of your email recipients live in Europe, there is one key guideline by which you should develop your email marketing campaigns.

When your website users land on a page that solicits their personal information, tradition might tell you to include a pre-checked box that opts the user into an email campaign so they can receive updates and special offers related to your business.

Today, having this box pre-checked violates GDPR. So, to comply with GDPR, make sure your European users and customers are given the clear option to opt into your email newsletter themselves — don't decide for them.

Image Source

This rule might sound like bad news for your email marketing campaign, but it can actually improve your open and click-through rates.

Limiting your subscriber list to just those who specifically asked to join you will ensure only the most interested people are receiving your messages. This maximizes the chances that you'll convert readers to qualified leads as a result of an email send.

4. Email new contacts within 24 hours.

It's important to take advantage of the window of opportunity when your brand is at the top of your prospects' minds.

Send an initial email within the first 24 hours of subscribing to your newsletter, signing up for an offer, and so on. Plus, this is a great opportunity for branding and setting expectations.

If you don't have any automated email workflows set up, you're missing out on some major opportunities to nurture and engage your existing contacts.

HubSpot customers can use HubSpot's Workflows App to create automated email workflows that can get triggered in a number of different ways. That includes when a contact gets added to a list, clicks a link in an email, views a blog post, or becomes a marketing-qualified lead.

5. Send your emails from a real person, not your company.

When you send emails from a real person, your email open rate increases. Plain and simple. Based on past tests we've conducted, recipients are typically more likely to trust a personalized sender name and email address than a generic one.

People are so inundated with spam nowadays they often hesitate to open emails from unfamiliar senders. They're more likely to trust a personalized sender name and email address than a generic one.

At HubSpot, we found that emails sent from "Maggie Georgieva, HubSpot" perform better in terms of open and clickthrough rates than emails sent from just "HubSpot." So, it may be best to do this…

• Sender name: Paul Smith
• Sender email address: psmith@company.com

Instead of this:

• Sender name: Marketing Team
• Sender email address: marketing@company.com

If you’re a HubSpot customer, learn how to personalize the "From" name and email address.

Note: Our tests showed personalization works, but we've also found that a combination of a person's name and a company name together in the sender name works well, too. A/B test what works best for your brand, as well as what's ideal for your audience.

6. Pre-set the preview text.

Email clients like the iPhone Mail app, Gmail, and Outlook will display the first few lines of text from the body of your email alongside the subject line. This is a text preview of the content inside the email. The exact amount of text shown depends on the email client and user settings.

Use it to provide a short, to-the-point synopsis of what you're offering. Keep it to 50 characters or less.

When you don't set the preview text, the client will automatically pull from the body of your email, which not only looks messy but is also a wasted opportunity to engage your audience.

HubSpot customers can follow these steps to set email preview text.

7. Write clear and clickable subject lines.

Your marketing emails have a lot to compete with in recipients' inboxes. The best way to stand out is to write compelling, "can't-help-but-click-on-this" subject lines.

To entice readers to click, be sure your subject lines:

• Are super clear and understandable.
• Are fewer than 50 characters, so they don't get cut off, particularly by mobile devices.
• Use language and messaging that your target buyer persona is familiar with and excited about.
• Include verbs and action-oriented language to create a sense of urgency and excitement.
• Include an exclusive value proposition (like 20% off an item or a free ebook) so people know what they're getting.
• Avoid spam triggers like “Cash,” “Quote,” and “Save."
• Are timely, if applicable. (One of my favorite subject lines came from Warby Parker and read: "Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring.")
• Include their first names sometimes (it could increase clickthrough rates), or even add something about their specific location.
  • You'll want to do this sparingly, like for your most important offers, rather than overdoing it and being repetitive or intrusive.

Read this blog post for more tips on writing clickable, delightful subject lines.

8. Keep your emails concise.

People prefer short, concise emails with an obvious focus. When your users are scanning through all their emails in a short amount of time, they're more likely to find the overall message before deciding to take any action.

Another reason to keep your emails short? Too much copy is actually a red flag for spam filters, too.

To keep your emails short and compelling, write your email like you were talking to someone in real life. If your email has to be on the long side, break it up into multiple paragraphs and provide visual breaks. That'll make skimming it much easier on your reader.

Read this blog post on how to write compelling emails for more tips.

Here's a great example of a concise email:

9. Include one call-to-action button per email.

Remember when I said a lot of your email recipients will scan your email without reading all the copy? That's why you want to have a clear call-to-action (CTA) button that's easy to spot for even the quickest email scanners.

Without a CTA button, you won't be calling on your recipients to take any action that actually benefits them — and the growth of your business.

You'll want to place your CTA in a location where it's easily visible and where it makes sense for someone to click on it. For example, you might put a CTA to download a free ebook in an email that describes new strategies for using your product.

Once you've determined where you want to put your CTA, it's time to create the button itself. Click here to download 50 free CTA button templates to get you started.

HubSpot customers can easily add CTA buttons to emails.

10. Add alt text to your CTA image.

Many email clients block images, including your CTA buttons, by default. That means a good chunk of your audience may not see your beautiful, optimized CTA. Instead, they see this:

When you set an image's alt text, though, you let recipients who can't view images in their email know exactly where to click to complete the action.

You can either edit the alt text in your email tool's rich text editor (just right-click the image and edit away), or you can manually enter it in the HTML editor of your email tool like this:

<a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="HTTP://YOURLINKHERE.COM"><img class="alignCenter shadow" src="YOUR CTA BUTTON IMAGE SOURCE HERE.JPG" alt-text="YOUR ALT-TEXT GOES HERE"/></a>

11. Hyperlink your emails' images.

Your ultimate goal in email marketing is to get people to click through to a web page. One way to increase the clickthrough is to hyperlink the images in your email to the webpage that corresponds with the image's content.

Let’s say you're inviting readers to download an ebook, and you have a picture of the ebook included in the email. Don't just hyperlink the text next to the image telling people to "download it here." Hyperlink the ebook's picture, too.

People are drawn to images more commonly than text, and you want to give your email subscribers as many options to get your ebook as you can.

You can simply click on the image and then use your email tool's "Insert/Edit Link" option, or you can link an image in the HTML editor using the following code:

<a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="HTTP://YOURLINKHERE.COM"><img class="alignCenter shadow" src="YOUR IMAGE SOURCE HERE.JPG"/></a>

12. Include noticeable text links.

Link to your featured offer in multiple places in addition to the clear and focused call-to-action button.

Having more links increases the opportunity for engagement. You may just convince your reader to click through.

13. Place at least one clickable item above the fold.

One way to increase email engagement? Place one or more of your clickable elements, whether it's a CTA button, a text link, or a clickable image, near the beginning of your email.

This is especially useful for mobile users. Mobile tends to require a lot of scrolling and sometimes squinting, pinching, and zooming. Giving a recipient something actionable that is seen upon opening can lead to more clicks in this environment.

14. Add alt text to all of your images.

A lot of email clients out there block images by default. Here's the full list from Campaign Monitor.

In those cases, images won't load unless the recipient clicks a button to show them or change their default settings.

Adding alt text to your email images helps recipients understand your message, even if they can't see the images right away.

You might consider making the language in your alt text actionable, such as "Click here to download the ultimate content creation kit." Actionable alt text will essentially turn every linked image into another CTA.

So, even if someone doesn't see the snazzy GIF of my latest offer, the alt text will beckon them to click.

15. Avoid background images.

This is especially important if your target buyers tend to use Outlook as an email client.

Microsoft Outlook doesn't recognize background images, period. Given that Outlook is the fifth most-used email client with 7% of the market share — and that's in total; your industry might have a lot more — it's best to avoid using background images altogether.

Instead, use a background color and use images in other ways in your email, as Harry's did in their email below.

16. Add social sharing buttons.

Increasing the number of people who see your link will increase the number of people who click on it. So, be sure to extend the life of your email by adding social sharing buttons.

Many email tools will come with templates (like HubSpot) that have built-in social sharing buttons that make it easy — just fill in the destination URL, and you're good to go. If you don't have built-in capabilities, here’s a cheat sheet for creating your own social sharing buttons.

Note: If you want to increase clicks, you want to add sharing buttons, not follow buttons. The former will allow your email recipients to pass along the offer URL in your email to their followers. The latter will prompt them to add your company's social media channels.

17. Simplify sharing with ready-made tweets.

People are far more likely to take action if you make it really, really easy for them. For recipients out there who are too lazy to tweet the wonderful content you sent them via email, you can make it easy for them by creating what we call a "lazy tweet."

One simple way to do this? Using ClickToTweet, a free custom tweet link generator. First, go to ClickToTweet's basic tweet generator. Then, type in your tweet, desired (trackable) destination URL, and hashtags.

Click "Generate New Link," and then grab that link. Then you can link it to your Twitter sharing button. Or, if you're segmenting your list by attributes such as "topic of recent conversion: social media" (you'll need marketing intelligence software like HubSpot for this), you can even include it in your main email copy.

18. Add an email forwarding option.

Another way to extend the clicks on your email beyond its shelf life is to prompt your audience to forward the offer.

The folks at Litmus found that the most forwarded emails were 13 times more likely than the typical email to include “Share With Your Network” calls to action. By including forward-to-a-friend or social sharing links, you put it in recipients' minds to share.

You can add a little postscript to the end of your email copy, such as "Not responsible for your company's social media? Feel free to forward this ebook to a friend or colleague using social media marketing."

Link the call-to-action to a pre-made email, complete with subject and body text. That way, all someone has to do is enter their associates' email addresses and hit "Send."

You can highlight text or an image and add the URL via your email tool's rich text editor and then enter a mailto:? link. Here's what this looks like:

mailto:?subject=Your%20subject%20here%20&body=Your%20email%20body%20text%20here.

You can also create this in your HTML editor. Here's how to attach a mailto:? link to text:

<a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="mailto:?subject=Your%20subject%20here%20&body=Your%20email%20body%20text%20here.">

forward this ebook</a>.

And here's how to attach your mailto:? link to an image, such as a sleek call-to-action button that says "Email This Offer":

<a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="mailto:?subject=Your%20subject%20here%20&body=Your%20email%20body%20text%20here."><img class="alignCenter shadow" src="YOUR IMAGE SOURCE HERE.JPG" alt-text="YOUR ALT-TEXT GOES HERE"/></a>

Just make sure you use the "%20" tag to separate words! Otherwise, your message willreadlikethis (not too appealing, right?).

19. Clean up the plain-text version of your emails.

Not every recipient will see the beautiful, HTML, rich-text version of your email. Some clients don't support HTML-rich emails, while other times, a person may simply choose to only view messages in plain text.

When you don't optimize the plain-text version of your email, this is what happens when someone views it.

Scary, isn't it? People won’t bother to read through this garbled mess.

So, cut out the extra text, replace long tracking URLs with shortened ones, and keep the body simple. Taking five extra minutes to optimize your email's plain-text version could help you reach more of your target segment and keep you out of the spam folder.

Note: When you're cleaning up your plain-text emails, don't change the actual copy, or you'll risk it getting marked as spam.

20. Optimize your emails for mobile users.

As more and more people use their mobile devices to read email and surf the web, it's more important than ever that marketers design their emails with mobile users in mind. Otherwise, their user base will be significantly affected.

How? Here's a visual example of what happens when images aren't optimized for mobile (first) versus when images are optimized for mobile (second):

Isn't the second image a much better user experience?

Here are a few ways to optimize your emails for mobile devices:

• Reduce your images' file sizes to make up for mobile devices' generally slower download speeds. (Images uploaded to HubSpot's software are automatically compressed. Otherwise, tools like TinyPNG will help you reduce file size.)
• Ensure the CTA buttons and links are larger than 45-57 pixels for the best user experience.
• Invest in responsive email templates. Creating your own responsive template may be beyond your particular skill set or bandwidth. Sometimes, the most economical solution is to just license or buy email templates from the people who do it best.

21. Preview and test your emails before sending them.

When you're finally ready to hit "Send" on your email, make a habit of double-checking one last time whether your emails look good. If your email marketing tool lets you, preview what your email looks like in different email clients and devices that are popular with your audience.

HubSpot customers can preview what your emails look like in 30+ email clients, as well as preview what your emails will look like on any device — including desktop, tablet, or mobile devices. Learn how here.

You should also send out a test version of your email before you send out the real deal to ensure it's working properly for everyone on your email list. Start incorporating these as final steps in your email review process.

22. Don't be afraid to “clean up” your contact list.

It's tempting to keep every subscriber you win on an email campaign until they personally choose to opt out.

But just because they haven't opted out of an email newsletter doesn't mean they're still interested. Subscribers who have become inactive can kill your emails' open and click-through rates.

To make sure you're only sending emails to the people who want to read them, clean up your email list so that it excludes recipients who haven't opened a certain amount of emails in the campaign's recent history.

This ensures your emails' analytics reflect only your most interested readers, allowing you to collect more effective data on what is and isn't working in each email you send.

On top of that, a good email list cleaning service removes other email addresses that pose a risk to your inbox placement.

“Invalid, abuse, and temporary emails will affect your sender reputation, so it’s best to weed them out,” says Liviu Tanase, CEO of ZeroBounce. “Your desire to grow your list is only natural, but you can’t afford to expand it at all costs. Emailing only valid and active addresses allows you to connect with people who care about your brand, and that’s what every email marketer wants.”

At HubSpot, lists that add and remove members based on their email behavior are called smart or "active" lists. Learn how to create them in HubSpot Academy.

23. Monitor each email's performance.

What's working in your email campaign this month might not work quite as well next month. It's imperative that you check on your emails' open and click-through rates for opportunities to improve your copy.

To do this, of course, you'll need a tool to track your email analytics.

If after a month of email sends, for instance, you find 10 messages are getting double the engagement as the other 20, analyze them.

What did you do differently with the higher performers? Was it the imagery? The subject line? Maybe you have more than one audience segment, and one of them just isn't as interested in your current email content.

Use your email performance data to run A/B tests that are designed to show you what your email recipients really want out of your newsletters, and steer into the trends that you see to make your email campaigns more desirable.

Leveling Up Your Email Marketing

Email marketing can be tough at times — we’re right there with you.

By sending compelling offers to the right target segments and paying attention to the little details that go into an email, you can increase the opens and clicks in your emails and generate more leads.

Some presentations are better than others. They may have gorgeous designs. Others have insanely actionable takeaways. Some just give down-to-earth advice. But the best presentations represent all three.

And if you're looking to get started making your own presentation, why not learn from the best of the best?

To help you kick your own presentations up a notch, we've curated 20 awesome PowerPoint and SlideShare decks below.

When you're clicking through the presentations below, notice how they weave an interesting story through the format, design their slides, and make their presentations interactive with features exclusive to the platform on which they were created.

These are all crucial elements to making an awesome presentation — ones that you can certainly adapt and apply to your own with the right approach.

Even better — you may just learn something new about marketing while you're at it.

What do good presentations have in common

The best presenters rehearse the material for smooth delivery, use eye contact, and engage their audience. You’ll also find great slides and a strong storyline.

Here are five elements you’ll find in every great presentation.

The presentation is highly relevant to the audience.

The best way to engage your audience is to talk about things that matter to them. By choosing topics that are genuinely interesting, solve their problems, answer their questions, or offer actionable ideas, you’re on the right track for a great presentation.

The icing on the cake? Having great titles. Your slide titles should pique people’s interest and curiosity while clearly stating the topic so your audience can decide if it’s relevant.

The presentation has a clear objective.

People sitting in on a presentation should have a reasonably clear idea of what you’re covering.

Whatever the topic, your slides and commentary should clearly relate to your key takeaways.

The presentation follows an organized storyline.

While closely related to the item above, your slides should tell a story that your audience can follow, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

By following the key elements of storytelling, it’s much easier to demonstrate the point you’re leading towards.

The audience understands the next steps.

Defining the action you want your audience to take at the conclusion of your presentation and offering a compelling reason to do so helps them understand and follow your ideal course of action.

While this is often a call to action, it can also be a thought-provoking question or a list of key takeaways.

The audiences leave with contact information and/or resources.

Often, your audience wants to dive deeper into your material or topic. Offering contact information or additional resources helps listeners find what they need, whether it’s a conversation with you or a link to more information.

Now that you know what to look for in a great slide deck, let’s dive in and explain how you can create your own. Follow these four guidelines for the best results.

1. Less is more.

Keep your slides simple when delivering a presentation to an audience in-person. You want the focus to be on the message, rather than just the slides themselves. Keep the slides on-topic but simple enough that people can still pay attention to what you're saying.

Remember, your visuals and text support your message. The true power is in your delivery.

2. Keep text to a minimum.

One way to accomplish the aforementioned simplicity is to reduce the amount of text in your presentation. Too much text can leave your audience overwhelmed. They’ll be preoccupied with reading your slides instead of listening.

Instead of large amounts of text, think about fewer words in a bigger font. This will help your audience up close and in the back of the room read your slides.

3. Rethink visuals.

People recall information better when it’s paired with images (as opposed to text). When you reduce the amount of text in your slides, you'll need compelling visuals to support the message you're delivering to your audience.

That doesn't mean you can just throw some nice-looking photos onto your deck and move on. Like any other content strategy, the visual elements of your presentation need to be strategic and relevant. We’ll discuss different types of visuals, and their best practices, below.

Template

Download 10 PowerPoint Templates for Free

While PowerPoint templates have come a long way since the program was first unveiled to the world, chances are, they're still commonly used.

To make your presentation unique, choose a theme that your audience hasn't seen dozens of times before — one that matches your brand and complements the topic you're speaking about.

Sometimes, it pays to look at presentation platforms other than PowerPoint to find templates, like Prezi.

There are also many visual content design sites that offer customizable templates that you can adapt for your own brand and topic, like Canva. In fact, in addition to templates, Canva also offers its very own platform for building presentations from scratch.

Additionally, you can also take a look at Venngage's free presentation maker for more professionally designed templates, icons, and high-quality stock photos that you can use right away.

Charts and Graphs

Image Source

One of the best ways to support the message you're delivering in your presentation is by including data and statistics. That's where charts and graphs come in: They provide a colorful and engaging way to present the details that support your point.

That said, make sure they fit in with the rest of your presentation's visual theme. Otherwise, your data points can distract the audience from what you're talking about, rather than enhancing it.

Color Theme

There's been some research on the way color can influence our emotions, especially when used in marketing.

While the goal of your presentation may not necessarily be to make a sale, you might be trying to invoke certain feelings or impressions, which a strategic use of color can help you do.

Check out Coschedule's guide on the psychology of color in marketing, which highlights the ways different tones, shades, and combinations can influence purchasing decisions.

Font

When you include text, you want it to be easy to read and interpret. If you include text that's too small or dense to easily read, participants become too focused on trying to decipher it to pay attention to what you're saying.

That's why the designers at Visage recommend choosing Sans Serif fonts that opt for "legibility over fun," noting that text should not only be big enough for people in the back of the room to read but also presented in the right color to maintain visibility over your background.

Image Quality

Incorporating this fabulous visual content into your presentation will go to waste if the images are low-quality. Make sure your photos and other visual assets are high-resolution enough to be crisp and clear when displayed on a huge presentation screen.

4. Incorporate multimedia.

There's a reason why we love examples. You can give out the best advice available, but sometimes, in order to believe it, people need to see it in practice.

Multimedia is one way to achieve that — in a manner that can also capture and maintain your audience's attention.

A simple Google search for "music in presentations" yields enough soundtrack results to suggest that it's a unique way of engaging your audience, or at least creating a welcoming atmosphere before and after you speak.

Within the presentation itself, video serves as valuable visual content to keep your audience engaged. After all, 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers.

Video helps to illustrate and explain theories in practice in a way that the spoken word or photographs can't do alone.

Best PowerPoint Presentations

Every item on this list meets the criteria for a great PowerPoint presentation. As you peruse these examples, take inspiration from our favorites and use what you learn to create your best presentation yet.

1. ChatGPT What It Is and How Writers Can Use It by Ads

We all get writer's block sometimes. You'll stare at a screen, hoping for inspiration to strike — and for that idea to be amazing. ChatGPT can help with the writing process.

The presentation below explains what ChatGPT is and all of its functionality, all with the goal of making the writing process easy.

What we love: This presentation maintains a limited color palette. The designer makes use of bold white text over a blue background to call out important headings. Key definitions are centered in white space, allowing these sections to naturally catch the viewer’s eye.

2. How Google Works by Eric Schmid

Ever wonder what it's actually like to work at Google? The presentation below from Eric Schmidt (Alphabet, Inc.'s Executive Chairman and ex-CEO of Google) could clue you in.

This presentation outlines some of the top lessons he and his team have learned from running and hiring at one of the top companies in the world. Besides giving you a peek behind the scenes, Schmidt inspires you to make changes to the way your business runs.

What we love: This presentation has minimalist slides that balance simple illustrations with short text. Viewers can consume information quickly. Just as valuable, Schmidt ends with a thought-provoking question and information about where to go for more information.

3. Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint by Slide Comet

This presentation has some awesome takeaways we all could learn from. Even if you're following all the tips in this presentation (inspired by Seth Godin's ebook), you can surely be inspired by its expert copy and design.

Seth Godin is arguably one of the greatest marketing minds of our time, so a presentation based on his book had to achieve high marks. In addition to the compelling design, the simplicity of the text stands out, making it easy for viewers to follow along.

What we love: This presentation example is best for understanding principles of great design and organization, while simultaneously teaching you how to create better slides.

4. 2022 Women in the Workplace Briefing by McKinsey & Compan

This presentation outlines the key findings from McKinsey’s 2022 research on women in the workplace. Focusing on original data, the slides below use a variety of graphs and visual representations to show how the expectations women face at work have changed over time.

Pro tip: If your presentation focuses on original research, use multiple types of graphs to show your finding. Only using bar graphs or pie charts can be tedious. Using many forms of data analysis will keep your presentation engaging.

5. Email Marketing Trends by Gabriel Blanche

Most marketers are looking to grow, but sometimes they can get stuck making incremental improvements. To help you get unstuck, Gabriel Blanchet shares trends to keep an eye out for.

What we love: These slides use a bright color pallet and use clean flow charts to present information. Best of all, it drives action by explaining each trend and explaining why it works.

6. Digital Strategy 101 by Bud Caddel

Even though this presentation is almost 100 slides long, its content is pure gold. Caddell answers some of the biggest FAQs about digital strategy in a very accessible way.

The reason his slides are so straightforward is because of the way he's laid them out. He's really adept at making "animated" slides that explain his story — something we all should learn how to do.

What we love: In the first few slides, Caddell lays out his objective and explains exactly what the presentation will cover. Viewers instantly understand what they’re going to get out of the presentation.

7. A Product Manager's Job by Josh Elma

Product managers are the backbone of every new initiative. These slides from Josh Elman describe what the role actually entails on a daily basis.

This presentation uses limited text in big font to drive home the highlights of the role. Plus, Elman starts off by discussing brands he’s worked with in the past, giving his presentation credibility.

What we love: Elman’s slides have a consistent color. By adding a blue filter to images, each slide in the presentation feels cohesive.

8. SEO, PPC, and AI in 2023 and Beyond by Lily Ra

Smart designers choose a consistent theme for their presentations. In this presentation, Lily Ray and her co-presenter pull from the world of science fiction.

When discussing AI and the future of marketing, they playfully evoke imagery reminiscent of Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell.

Pro tip: Picking a theme with cinematic imagery will help you stand out in a sea of corporate clipart.

9. The HubSpot Culture Code by HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Sha

Not to toot our own horn, but this presentation has been one of our most successful. The secret? Dharmesh chooses a central theme, the acronym HEART (Humble, Empathetic, Adaptable, Remarkable, and Transparent).

This simple phrase provides a concise framing of our company’s values, as well as a central message for the presentation. Plus, heart icons in the presentation make the connection clear.

Pro tip: Consider adding a theme or acronym that ties your presentation together.

10. How I Got 2.5 Million Views on SlideShare by Nick Deme

Feeling inspired to create a SlideShare of your own? Make sure you flip through Nick Demey's presentation first. He shares some tried-and-true tips for creating awesome presentations that rack up tons of views.

Here’s what works: right off the bat, Demey tells you how to get in touch with him. He’s already successful, so if someone wanted to reach out directly to his agency, they don’t have to wait until the end to connect with him.

11. Intro to Azure Data Platform by Karen Lope

Making technical information easy to digest is a formidable challenge, especially in a slide deck. Karen Lopez tackles the challenge in her slide deck. Her presentation makes use of tables and flowcharts — creating clear visual representations of complex technical ideas.

Pro tip: If you’re presenting on a complex process, find ways to explain each step using charts and infographics. A few images can help a greater portion of your audience understand what you do.

12. Insights from the 2022 Legal Trends Report by Clio

From a design perspective, your presentation should have imagery. However, these images don’t need to be photographs of a boring office. Consider something more abstract, like Clio has done below.

Each slide of the presentation includes simple objects, like triangles, rectangles, and circles. These shapes seamlessly integrate with the different charts and graphs in the presentation.

Pro tip: Instead of using cliche visuals, shapes, and patterns can give your presentation an artistic flair.

13. Displaying Data by Bipul Deb Nat

We admire this presentation for its exceptional display of data — now this post will explain how to do the same in your own presentations.

I also love how this presentation is concise and minimal, as it helps communicate a fairly advanced topic in an easy-to-understand way.

What works: This presentation example has a clear objective — showing the audience how to effectively display data. Because of that, the visuals here take center stage, expanding on the meaning of the text, which makes it easy to absorb the key takeaways from the presentation.

14. 2022 GWI's Social Report by GWI

In this presentation, Leticia Xavier shows the power of a limited color scheme. She uses different shapes of pink and purple to create contrast. All of the graphs, backgrounds, and images use different hues of the same colors.

When she breaks the color scheme, as she does on slide 12, the viewer’s attention is immediately recaptured.

Pro tip: If you’re worried about contrasting visuals, pick one or two colors. You can then choose different hues and tints of these colors to make your slides cohesive.

15. Digital 2023 Global Overview Report

If you’re looking for a dark color scheme to replicate, look no further. This slide deck from DataReportal uses a deep blue background throughout its presentation. Graphs are in bright yellows and greens, while the text is white.

Remember to keep a high level of contrast between your text and your background. This will make your slides easy to read.

Pro tip: If you’re going to present in person, consider your environment when choosing a color scheme. If the lights will be off in the room, a dark background will work for your slides. If everything will be bright, a light background with dark text will be easier to read.

16. How to Turn Wild Opinions into Traffic, Backlinks, and Social Proof by Animalz

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SEO’s changed a lot in the past two decades. Most of us are concerned with keeping up with the latest and greatest changes. This presentation walks through today’s marketing landscape, where everyone has both opinions and ways to express them.

What we love: This presentation uses emojis, a staple of the social media world, as a stand-in for bullet points. Smart presenters match design elements with their subject matter.

17. 5 Killer Ways to Design the Same Slide by Crispy Presentations

While keeping everything consistent can be good for branding, it can also prevent people from noticing the new content you’ve put together. This presentation shows you a few different ways you can design the same slide — all depending on what you want it to accomplish.

What we love: Everyone who sees the title instantly knows what they’re going to learn. It’s short, which makes it easy to consume in very little time.

18. The HubSpot Customer Code by HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah

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When it comes to working with a company, it helps to set customer expectations and to clearly lay out your value proposition. HubSpot does both in the slide deck below. Instead of relying solely on product images, this presentation includes drawn images and lively colors.

Pro tip: Use bright colors for different words and phrases that you want to stand out. These will naturally catch your viewers’ eyes.

19. ThinkNow Culture Report 2022 by ThinkNow

Thus far, we’ve seen slides that use neutral backgrounds that contrast with colorful charts and graphs. In this presentation, ThinkNow successfully subverts expectations.

The slides use colorful icons and accent colors in magenta and yellow. Meanwhile, graphs throughout the piece are made in black and white. This works well by creating high-contrast, easy-to-read visual representations.

Pro tip: Don’t be afraid of using classic color schemes like black and white. These simple colors can balance out loud accents.

20. How to Gain a Massive Following on Instagram by Buffer

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When choosing a presentation topic, find ways to hook your audience. For example, this presentation from Buffer makes use of a numbered list. Listeners know exactly what they’ll get from the presentation and how far along in the presentation they are.

Pro tip: Keep your slides simple. Instead of choosing a text-heavy design, Buffer limits text on the slide just to each tip.

The best PowerPoint presentations have gorgeous designs, give insanely actionable takeaways, and provide down-to-earth advice.

Learn from the presentation examples above to create your own that represents all three.

In today's day and age, people are consuming marketing and media in more ways than one. Media planning software is essential for those who want to reach their audiences across several channels, including TV, publications, online, and radio.

If you're ready to get started with media planning, we've rounded up a list of the essential media planning tools, software, and templates to use this year to help grow your audience.

The Best 15 Media Planning Tools

1. HubSpot Media Planning Template

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HubSpot's paid media template can help you track your spending on paid media when your messages are going out and how much revenue you're generating from each source.

With this media tool, you'll have access to charts that automatically adjust when you add your spending and ROI information. This resource is free — get your copy now.

What we like: You can use this template to compile monthly data from your media efforts. With this media planning tool, you'll see which paid media channel works best for your company and produces the best results for your bottom line.

2. Bionic Media Planning Software

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Bionic has some of the best media planning tools. They offer companies flowcharts, IOs and RFPs, trafficking, reporting, and dashboards about clients.

It has an average of 3.1 software updates on a monthly basis, meaning agencies using the software are provided with up-to-date planning tools to run and organize their campaigns.

What we like: Bionic is a cloud-based media planning tool. You can be up and running with this tool in minutes with unlimited training, support, and data backups at no additional cost.

3. Kantar SRDS Media Planning Platform

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The most important tool in media planning is data, and Kantar SRDS offers companies some of the best data-gathering tools. Thanks to their top-notch data-gathering software, you can feel confident promoting your media on all platforms.

What we like: You'll have access to extensive datasets that showcase audience statistics and demographics. This will help you choose the right platforms and messages to target specific audiences.

4. Media Plan HQ

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Media Plan HQ is a great media planning tool that doesn't rely on spreadsheets. A real-time interface tracks dates, placements, and budgets without relying on Excel. The organized interface will make it easy for you to share all the data with your team and stakeholders.

What we like: It's a collaborative tool allowing you to work alongside team members without all the back-and-forth communication in emails.

5. BluHorn

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BluHorn promises companies easy media planning and buying by integrating with Nielsen and Comscore to give you instant access to data insights. Some of the best features that BluHorn offers are a vendor database, data filters, and post-buy.

What we like: BluHorn allows you to use Google Analytics and Facebook for further tracking and seamless digital buying of products. One of the best things about this media planning tool is that you can integrate with Amazon AWS.

6. Quantcast

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When you use Quantcast, you'll have insights with data from over 100 million websites. The tool uses AI so users can better predict how their media will influence their target audience. Due to the continuous bombardment of ads for products and services, this feature is essential.

What we like: Quantcast is fantastic for understanding your audience's behavior. It provides real-time insights based on your ads and media to your audience, which can help you better understand them and create ads they'll appreciate.

7. Basis Technologies

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If you're looking for the number one demand-side platform, it's Basis Technologies. Basis Technologies gives you access to 9,000 vendors and over 11,000 publishers and provides them with over 180 data points. You'll also be able to use the messaging tool to help communicate with your team.

What we like: When running multiple ad campaigns, it can feel chaotic. Basis Technologies allows you to integrate all your ads and media in one location across several platforms.

8. Comscore

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Comscore is for transacting, evaluating, and planning media over various platforms. It's best known for providing data for social media, television, and film and allows companies to see measurable metrics to promote their products to their audience.

What we like: You can see the real impact of your media and then optimize your plan throughout different media and screens.

9. Nielsen

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Nielsen is a household name in audience measurement. It's mainly for television metrics, but you can use it for other metrics across platforms. As it analyzes your ads, it provides an all-encompassing view of your audience.

What we like: Nielsen has advanced audience segmentation and competitive intelligence that shows you the total picture of the media landscape. This media planning software can help your brand stand out among your competition.

10. HubSpot Social Media Software

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HubSpot Social Media Software is the best option for those who want to plan media specifically for social media. It allows you to publish any media on Twitter, Instagram, or another social media platform. You can also see how your audience converts from social media to CRM.

What we like: It can be time-consuming to constantly refresh your social media to see how many people have interacted with your ads. This platform will help you save time and effort from continually refreshing your socials.

11. Scarborough from Nielsen

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Scarborough is another name from Nielsen in media planning. It's a media planning tool that helps you get more hyper-focused on audience insights from locals from your area. It's perfect for region-specific ads and promotions.

What we like: You'll be able to profile consumers much more than with standard demographics. You'll see their shopping behaviors, media consumption, and lifestyle. You can further narrow it down by people who watch specific sports or what they stream on devices.

12. MRI-Simmons

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MRI-Simmons gives a company both national and regional focus. This focus can help you learn more about your audiences and target your media more. Clients who use MRI-Simmons include Spotify, Coca-Cola, Dell, and more.

What we like: MRI-Simmons is a powerful segmentation tool that can help you find new audiences and follow trends. Knowing your new audience can help you anticipate their behavior and attitudes and find the best ways to market your products or services to them.

13. SQAD

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This streamlined and intuitive software is ideal for brands, agencies, and advertisers. With SQAD, you can use transaction-based cost data and analytics reporting from marketing giants Comscore and Nielsen to plan and manage all your media strategies.

What we like: This platform covers all media strategies, including digital channels, local networks, and television. The platform is easy to use, allowing you to analyze your audience data efficiently.

14. Monday.com

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Monday.com is an all-encompassing tool that enables you to schedule your media and implement it in the best ways possible for your audience. You can also use the task management features to check off your to-do list.

What we like: It's an affordable media planning tool. Major companies like Hulu, Canva, and NHL use it, to name a few.

15. Mediatool

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Mediatool is a collaborative marketing platform that can help companies plan media to target whoever they want to. You can leverage actionable insights, collaborate with your team members, and develop impactful ad campaigns to make you stand out.

What we like: There are only four steps to using the platform to plan media. It's efficient, easy to understand, and easier to use than other media software.

Bonus Resource: HubSpot Academy's Paid Media Course

HubSpot Academy's paid media course is a great introduction to media planning software.

It's perfect for all budgets and can allow you to develop paid media strategies and use media through the consumer's journey.

Planning Your Media Strategy

With today’s saturated media landscape, planning your media strategy becomes essential.

Decide first which platforms you want to use — from traditional advertising to social media. Then find which of the tools above most aligns with your plan.

To create professional-looking infographics and captivate your audience, you can benefit from learning how to create your own infographics in PowerPoint.

PowerPoint can be a marketer’s best friend when it comes to visual content creation, including infographic design. 

But it can be intimidating to create your own infographic when you don’t have a design background. You could always commission an agency or hire a designer, but that can get pricey fast.

So you may be thinking, where do I start? We’ll guide you through how to create your own infographics and even give you examples of different types you can work with using our 15 fabulous infographic templates for free within PowerPoint.

Use Cases for PowerPoint Infographics

PowerPoint infographics are a powerful tool to present data-heavy information in an accessible, digestible format — no matter if you plan to disseminate the infographic digitally or in person. You can also simply use PowerPoint as an infographic maker if it’s your preferred design software.

Here are some of the ways you can use PPT infographics:

1. Presenting a Case Study

Designing a beautiful, readable case study is no easy task. You can create a PowerPoint infographic that showcases the key facts of your case study, such as the problem your customer experienced, the solution you served, and the outcome. You can include beautiful graphics, as well as dynamic typography — something you may not be able to include in a traditional, one-page case study.

2. Presenting Research

PowerPoint infographics are an excellent medium to present data, trends, and research. You can use all the data visualization options PowerPoint offers to present your data in a digestible way.

Since the infographic will be larger than a typical slide, you can be as descriptive as you’d like. But if you’d like to reuse the same information, you only need to copy it into a new PPT presentation.

3. Presenting a Pitch

You can PowerPoint infographics to present a pitch to stakeholders or potential buyers. You can include data points, testimonials, expected results, and even descriptions of the prospect’s problem to emphasize the importance of purchasing your solution.

Images and graphics can be more effective than just words, and since you’re in PowerPoint, you can create an infographic of any size, including the horizontal 16:9 dimensions.

4. Presenting a Multi-Step Process

Whether you’re onboarding a new team or informing stakeholders on a new process, a PowerPoint infographic is an effective medium to communicate your message. PowerPoint comes packed with plenty of “process” graphics, such as text-filled arrows, cascading charts, and grids.

5. Presenting an Announcement

A complicated company announcement — with many moving parts or components — merits an infographic to make it easier for stakeholders to read and understand. You can create one right in your PowerPoint presentation and include all pertinent information in one convenient slide.

Alternatively, you can use PPT as a design tool and simply download your infographic for easy saving and sharing.

Infographics are an oft-used type of content marketing. And it’s plain to see why. Marketers who align the topic, content, and style of their infographics with the needs and preferences of their target audiences find success among their audience.

Now, let's walk through how to make a simple timeline infographic in PowerPoint so you can reap these benefits.

1. Download HubSpot’s free infographic templates.

Download This Free Template (and 10+ More) Here

If you’d like to skip some of the steps below, download a kit of free, premade infographic templates you can edit right in PowerPoint. Choose from data infographics to image-heavy templates to timelines, then customize the colors and fonts to reflect your brand.

Plus, the kit includes Adobe Illustrator versions in case you prefer editing your infographic in Illustrator instead.

2. Identify the purpose of your PowerPoint infographic.

Prior to sitting down and designing the infographic, think about what your audience should take away from it first. Do you aim to share research, deliver a pitch, or explain a concept? Will it be included in a presentation, or will you want users to download it?

Depending on your goals, you’ll choose different designs and typographic elements that will best convey your message. For instance, if you plan to present the infographic in person, you should aim to use a larger font for easy reading. If you aim to include data, you should first gather all the numbers and create the charts in a more sophisticated tool such as Excel.

Now, let’s get into the tutorial.

3. Create a new PowerPoint file.

First, open up PowerPoint, tap Blank Presentation in the Home or +New screen, and click Create.

If PowerPoint is already open, tap File in the top menu bar, then click New Presentation.

4. Change the Slide size to your preferred dimensions.

To begin making an infographic from scratch, you have to readjust the size of the PowerPoint Slide to give you more space to work with.

Begin by opening a new PowerPoint, in the top navigation bar, click on Design and select Slide Size.

Then in the drop-down menu, select either one of the predetermined sizes or click Page Setup.

Input your preferred width and height dimensions and click OK.

5. Browse SmartArt options from PowerPoint’s library.

To make a timeline graphic in PowerPoint, suitable for any infographic, open PowerPoint and click Insert from the top navigation bar, then select the SmartArt icon beneath the navigation bar, where you'll find several categories of graphics to choose from.

6. Choose the right SmartArt graphic that fits your data or message.

There are two categories of graphics that make effective timelines. The first is the Process category. Click this option to expand the graphics menu shown below.

Creating Graphics for Timelines

If you’re working to create a timeline infographic, we've highlighted in red a few of the most fitting timeline-related graphics.

Aside from the Process menu of graphics, you'll also find a viable timeline graphic in the Picture category. Select this category and you'll find the Alternating Picture Circles option near the center of the graphics menu. We've highlighted it in red, below.

7. Add or remove elements from the SmartArt graphic.

We'll use the Alternating Picture Circles graphic from the Picture menu. Once you've inserted this graphic into your first PowerPoint slide, you can add or remove circular icons to match the types of data and inputs you’re presenting.

8. Insert your data points and edit the text.

At this point, the size of your timeline graphic should match the amount of data you have. Begin to fill your timeline with the information you plan to report on using this timeline and explore PowerPoint’s excellent drag and drop features to help arrange graphics as necessary.

As with the other graphics available in PowerPoint's SmartArt, you can edit the text and the images associated with your timeline to your liking. As you can see below, we've edited the years and the images to better represent what happened at each point in time.

To insert images into your timeline graphic, right-click the square landscape icon, select a graphic From File and upload an image from your computer onto your PowerPoint slide.

To tell your story, you can update the time periods in the center circles, replace the placeholder text, and adjust the visuals and colors to your liking. For those latter adjustments, you can choose Insert > Shape in PowerPoint to add in different visuals and use the paint bucket (a.k.a. Color Fill) icon to change the colors of different elements.

9. Add your logo, desired images, and background colors.

You now have the perfect bare-bones infographic, but to truly make it pop, you’ll need to add more imagery and background colors. Doing this from scratch can seem daunting, but even changing the slide color from white to a light yellow can immediately make your design look more polished and cohesive.

Prior to taking this step, review color theory to choose the right palette. You should also add your logo, so that if people download the infographic alone, they will know where it comes from. (If you’re presenting it in person, you should still do this in case your audience takes pictures.)

10. Download your infographic or create a slide-friendly version.

Now that you have your infographic on hand, it’s time to save it to your laptop. To do so, tap File in the top menu, then click Save As. Ensure you save only the infographic slide, and not the entire presentation.

Alternatively, in this step, you may choose to create a 16:9 version of your infographic that you can easily integrate into any presentation. You may even divide the different parts of the infographic into several slides. This would be useful if you want to “zoom in” to different sections as you present.

If you’re looking for something more convenient, you can download our infographic templates that open directly in PowerPoint so you can get to creating faster.

PowerPoint Infographic Examples

1. Data-Centric Infographic Example

Infographics and data visualization are the peanut butter and jelly of the visual content world.

When you have new data to reveal to the world, you can use an infographic to display that data as part of a cohesive, visual narrative. And that's exactly what the Data Geek template is for.

We've loaded this template with a variety of different charts and graphs, which you can easily update with your own data. (Just right-click on a graph, choose Edit Data, and you'll be able to customize the values in an Excel spreadsheet.)

What to Add to a Data-Centric Infographic

• Column chart: Use for comparing different categories or for showing changes over time (from left to right).

• Pie chart: Use for making part-to-whole comparisons. (Note: They work best with small data sets.)

• Line graph: Use for showing data that changes continuously over time. Ideal for displaying volatility, trends, acceleration, or deceleration.

• Doughnut chart: Use a pie chart. This stylistic variation allows you to put a number, graphic, or other visual in the center of the chart.

• Bar chart: Use a column chart. (The horizontal bars make it easier to display long category names.)

2. Timeline Infographic

Telling the history of a particular industry, product, brand, trend, or tactic can be a great topic for an infographic. And while there are a variety of different ways that you can visualize time — including in a circle, which is what we did with our Google algorithm updates infographic — the timeline is by far the most common and easiest design method to use.

Timeline Infographic Best Practices

• Research. Research. Research. The best timeline infographics aren't just beautifully designed — they also tell a great story based on extensive research. So before you start the design phase of your infographic, put in the time to surface the best information possible.

• Narrow the scope: Timelines that cover hundreds or thousands of years can certainly be interesting, but they can also require weeks or months of research. To keep your sanity, stick with shorter time periods.

• Keep your copy concise: Infographics are supposed to be visual. If you find yourself writing 100+ words for each date on your timeline, a blog post may be the better content format.

3. Modern Design Infographic

For this infographic template, we wanted to do something that reflected modern design trends, including using banners and arrows.

In terms of content, we provided plenty of space for both stats and copy. There's also a column chart at the bottom. But remember, you can always add different charts and graphs to the template wherever you see fit. Just select Insert > Chart ... and you'll have several options to choose from.

Modern Design Infographic Best Practices

• Experiment with new color palettes. There are tons of free color palettes online. Don't believe me? Do a Google image search of “Color Palette”. When you find a palette you like, drag the image directly into your PowerPoint presentation. Next, select the Color Fill bucket, choose More Colors ... and click on the eyedropper icon. With the eyedropper tool, you can select colors from your palette and use them for elements in your infographic.

• Take the time to manipulate shapes. PowerPoint has an extensive library of shapes — including banners, ribbons, and arrows — that you can use in your infographic design. By clicking and dragging on the little yellow diamonds that appear on these shapes, you can customize them. For example, you can make the pointy ends of a ribbon longer or shorter, or make the body of an arrow thinner or thicker.

• 4. Flowchart Infographic

While on the surface a flowchart infographic may appear simple and fun, a lot of thought and planning needs to go into making sure the different sections logically flow into each other.

In our flowchart PowerPoint template, we created a basic flowchart structure, with positive responses guiding viewers to a conclusion at the bottom left of the infographic and negative responses guiding viewers to a separate conclusion at the bottom right of the infographic.

Flowchart Infographic Best Practices

• Draw out the branches beforehand. Before you dive into PowerPoint, get out a pen and paper and do a rough outline of your flowchart. Test for weaknesses in your logic by answering questions in every possible combination and seeing where you end up. For best results, have a friend or coworker run through the flowchart, too.

• The smaller the scope, the easier the execution. The more questions or stages you add to your flowchart, the more difficult it will be to create (and the harder it will likely be for viewers to understand). So try to narrow the focus of your flowchart.

5. Image-Heavy Infographic

So far, the infographic templates we've looked at have relied primarily on illustrations that you can create within PowerPoint. But of course, there's no reason why you can't bring external photos and other images into your infographic design.

We've created this image-heavy infographic template for that exact purpose. It's great for comparing different categories, ideas, or results, and since you don't need to create or customize a lot of shapes, it's a lot less work.

Image-Heavy Infographic Best Practices

• Use high-quality images. It's better to scale down a big image (e.g. 2,000 pixels by 2,000 pixels) than to scale up a small image (e.g. 20 pixels by 20 pixels) to fit a particular space. The latter approach will result in images appearing pixelated and grainy.

• Use borders. Adding borders to your images will help make them feel like their part of a cohesive design. In PowerPoint, you can control the size, style, and color of borders under the Format Picture tab.

• Save your infographic as a PNG file. This is a best practice for all infographics but is particularly relevant when publishing an infographic that contains photographs. The PNG extension offers better quality than other options. To save your finished infographic as a PNG file, you simply need to choose File > Save As ... and select PNG from the dropdown.

Make an Eye-Catching Infographic Today

The possibilities are endless when you discover how to start creating infographics. You’ll be able to expand your skills as a marketer and create more elaborate content that your audience will be intrigued by and engage with. We hope you found this article useful and that you’ll take the initiative to build your own infographics in PowerPoint.

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

Access to relevant information is, without a doubt, the number one requirement for making good business decisions. For this reason, most companies use tools that help them gather and analyze customer data.

There are three types of platforms that are particularly popular — CDPs, CRMs, and DMPs. But what do these abbreviations stand for? How do these solutions differ, and which is best for you?

This guide shares the key features of each platform, as well advantages and disadvantages. Let’s get started.

CDP vs CRM vs DMP

CDPs: How do they work?

CRMs: How do they work?

DMPs: How do they work?

Before we dive into details, let’s take a quick look at what CDP, CRM, and DMP are.

Customer Data Platforms

Customer data platforms (CDPs) are tools for gathering first-party data from various sources to gain a full view of each customer. The data is then used by marketers to create personalized marketing campaigns. CDPs are specifically designed for marketers.

While HubSpot’s known for its CRM, some customers can use it as a CDP alternative as some packages track data like:

• Contact-level interactions with your site, landing pages, emails, social posts, and reps.
• Website and various inbound marketing analytics.
• Payments or deal progress of those purchasing products.

Customer Relationship Management Platforms

Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms track and manage interactions with customers and prospects throughout their entire lifecycle.

CRMs have a positive impact on improving business relationships, which translates into the company’s growth. It can be used by sales, marketing, and customer success alike.

For example, CRMs like HubSpot help sales teams automate processes like data entry, email sequences, logging interactions, and customer service.

For more on CRMs, check out this guide.

Data Management Platform

Data management platforms (DMP) collect and organize data from first-, second-, and third-party sources including online, offline, and mobile. It includes data like demographics, browsing behavior, location, and device.

DMPs enable businesses to effectively segment customers, which in turn helps with creating a more personalized offering.

All of the above-mentioned platforms share the same goal: Improving the customer experience through data. However, they each use a different approach to achieve it.

While both CRMs and CDPs collect customer data, the former focuses on customer interactions with your team and the latter collects data on customers’ interactions with your product or service.

Similarly, CDPs are often confused with DMPs, as both of these platforms focus on gathering information. DMPs, however, usually anonymize customer data gathered from second- and third-party sources.

Customer Data Platforms: How do they work?

A CDP is a platform for collecting data from online and offline sources. This information is then used to build a 360° view of customers. The data can be stored for as long as necessary.

When it comes to data updates, you don’t have to do them manually in the platform. A CDP pulls data automatically from other systems and aggregates it.

Now, let’s explore the advantages and disadvantages of working with a CDP.

Advantages of CDPs

1. Building Unified Ideal Customer Profiles

A CDP comes in handy when building ideal customer profiles (ICPs) as it stores all your customer data. Regardless of your campaign source — be it social media, email, or search — you can gather all the data in a single place. This helps with two things:

1. You can gain a better understanding of each customer’s journey.
2. You can create effective strategies for reaching them.

CPDs have become even more important now that companies use multiple touchpoints to communicate with customers. Using various platforms to collect data and make sense of it can be counterproductive and confusing. Turning to a CDP is a much better option.

2. Better Personalization

The more data you have, the more personalization opportunities you get. As marketers, we know that that’s exactly what customers want. In fact, 60% of customers admit they’ll become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience.

While the stakes are high, a lot of businesses struggle with personalization due to insufficient customer data. A customer data platform can be a solution to this problem.

3. Higher Revenue

CDPs can boost customer satisfaction and intelligent targeting, which results in higher revenue. By collecting data from a number of sources you get a full view of each customer. You can then adjust your offers and your messaging to match their preferences.

That should result in better brand recognition and customer engagement, all of which positively impact conversion rates and your revenue.

Disadvantages of CDPs

1. Hard to Scale

Not all CDPs are created equal. If you use a CDP designed to process smaller amounts of data, then you might face scaling issues when your customer base starts to grow. The processing speed decreases significantly and you might even come across redundancies.

Initially, it might not seem like a big issue. However, if you want to make the most of your customer data, it’s best to select a platform that can handle a growing data volume.

2. Difficult to Extract Data from Source Systems

As mentioned earlier, a CDP is priceless when it comes to creating ICPs, provided that it effectively extracts data from various sources. Unfortunately, some platforms lack key technology components to do that. They may not integrate with third-party software.

In such a scenario, the IT team has to manually extract structured and unstructured data from different sources and input it into the CDP. This is very time-consuming and inefficient. Alternatively, they can write custom code to automatically extract information.

To learn more about CDPs, look at our customer data platform guide.

Customer Relationship Management Platforms: How do they work?

CRMs are where your marketing, sales, and support teams enter information about their interactions with customers. These commonly include notes from all calls and video meetings, support request tickets, live chat conversations, and customer satisfaction survey scores.

In essence, CRMs are your single source of truth where you consolidate all the insights on a client. This allows everyone to stay informed and, ultimately, build stronger business relationships.

Advantages of CRMs

1. Improved Customer Service

Let’s begin with the goal CRMs were built for and, simultaneously, their biggest advantage: They strengthen the bonds between the company and the customer.

Let’s say there’s a new account manager at your B2B company about to contact one of your clients. To find out who they’re reaching out to, they open the customer’s profile in the CRM. They see a history of all actions, like purchases and when they last called your support team.

The profile also features firmographic information, like their industry, the primary contact person’s job position, and company size. There might even be information on when the company last received funding. And this is truly just the tip of the iceberg.

The easier it is for your team to learn about a customer, the higher the chances of keeping them happy. And this boosts the chances of selling.

2. Reduced Business Silos

Did you know that support agents who don’t have access to unified tools dedicate 15% of their time to searching for customer information? That’s about six hours a week, which could be spent more productively. A CRM counters this issue, but it also supports a higher company objective — minimizing business silos.

Teams that contribute to and use CRMs for information are better at collaborating. They understand where each team’s role starts, ends, and overlaps.

Plus, if they have a question regarding a recent interaction, they’ll know exactly whom to reach out to for answers.

3. Higher Productivity and Efficiency

CRMs leverage marketing automation, which makes your employees’ daily work much easier and more productive. These tools can help you with repetitive tasks like clicking “send” on emails to relevant customer segments on the right day and time. As a result, your team can focus on tasks that require creativity and human attention — for instance, attending a conference or writing a report.

What’s more, you can use it to spot any patterns that need more attention from the business. For example, if you see a drop in CSAT scores for a customer segment, you can look into the reasons and discuss how to address them.

Disadvantages of CRMs

1. Potentially High Cost

While CRMs are a data gold mine, those that offer advanced features and lots of integrations can be costly. There are a few factors you need to account for to figure out the total cost of CRM software:

• Subscriptions.
• Cost of upgrades.
• Potential customization, especially if the tool lacks integrations.
• Staff training.
• IT resources required for software maintenance and implementation.

Additionally, data migration and potential disruptions in business operations might add to the total implementation costs.

2. Integration Problems

Truth be told, your CRM is as good as the data it collects. So if the CRM you use lacks integrations, it won’t properly fulfill its role.

You might also have to spend significant time and money trying to customize your CRM, which might result in a lot of frustration. It’s crucial to ensure that the CRM you’re planning to purchase integrates with the rest of your software before you implement it.

DMPs: How do they work?

DMPs allow for high-level data management, like collecting demographic info for better customer segmentation. As these platforms don’t need to bind data to specific customer profiles, all information is anonymized.

In addition, DMPs don’t retain historical data, unlike CRMs where keeping history is the main objective.

Advantages of DMP

1. Streamlined Data

The larger the company, the more platforms marketers need to use. In fact, those working at enterprises use an average of 52 tools. With so much technology, it’s virtually impossible to keep an eye out for all critical customer insights.

Here’s where DMPs step in. They allow you to collect data from numerous sources and create accurate audience segments. This means you can build your campaigns and other strategic work on cohesive data.

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2. Gaining Access to Second- and Third-Party Data

When we compare CDPs versus DMPs, there’s one key difference — the latter collects and integrates data from second- and third-party sources. It’s also one of its biggest advantages.

This is ideal if you need more information for your personas than what you’ve collected internally. The insights you can access via DMPs come from reputable external sources, which also match your customer profile.

3. Efficient Budget Management

DMPs help you lower advertising spending. How so? You don’t have to run multiple ads simultaneously to boost your chances of reaching the right audience.

DMPs let you engage in re-targeting. For example, you can reach out to prospects who visited your “pricing” page. Or, if you aren’t a subscription-based business, you can even re-target those who bought your product or service in the past.

Each of these groups can be reached through the right channel with tailored messaging.

Disadvantages of DMP

1. Complexity

One of the potential downsides is that DMPs can offer complex functionalities and dependencies, particularly if it has tens or hundreds of integrations. This means that it might have a steep learning curve to use properly (or to its full potential).

Some platforms might also require help from technical teams, like administrators and developers, whenever you need to tweak settings.

2. High Maintenance

As you handle vast amounts of data, you must ensure high-end security to prevent data breaches or cyber-attacks.

That’s not to say that DMPs come unprotected. Quite the contrary — their developers are compliant with the latest protocols. However, you’ll need a security expert to make sure your internal systems are also bulletproof.

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Making the Right Choice for Your Team

When it comes to deciding between CDP, CRM, and DMP, it’s not a matter of choosing one or the other. These platforms fulfill different roles and complement each other.

DMPs can help you with lead generation. CDPs are great for engaging with leads and prospects, while CRMs are made for managing the relationship with your customers. They work best when used together.

All of these tools help you better understand your customers and, as a result, create more personalized experiences, positively impacting revenue.

Whichever solution you go with, make sure it fulfills your needs and, most importantly, that it integrates with your software. Only then you’ll be able to make the most of your data and save yourself from unnecessary frustration and costs.

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team.

This week, fashion brand Telfar took its reputation for price accessibility to the next level.

During its latest clothing drop on March 27, the brand began testing a dynamic pricing model, letting customers determine how much they wanted to pay.

Here's how it worked:

• When pieces from the collection dropped, they were listed at wholesale prices (around 50% less than retail).
• Prices raised incrementally each second, capping at the full retail listing.
• The price pieces sold out at then became the final price.

In other words, the more popular an item was, the lower the price was for everyone.

This style of pricing could be a win-win for the brand and customers. The brand now knows exactly how many units to order from manufacturers and won’t have to rely on steep price cuts to move product, and customers are able to get designer pieces that fit into their budgets. With this model, Telfar can immediately gauge which items its customers like most and gain valuable insights that will help influence future designs and prices.

Affordability has been a part of Telfar’s ethos since the brand launched in 2005. Founder Telfar Clemons told Fast Company, “Many brands use price as a barrier for entry. I never wanted that for my brand.”

Telfar will continue testing the dynamic pricing model on its clothing drops through April 24. By allowing consumers to choose their own pricing, Telfar is emphasizing its commitment to accessibility in real time.

Elsewhere in Marketing

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

Levi’s is receiving backlash for using AI-generated models in its ads instead of hiring diverse human models.

Substack just announced its opening a community fundraising round to support platform growth.

Twitter’s For You page will soon only show tweets from Twitter Blue subscribers, per Elon Musk.

Instagram just introduced a collaborative collections feature, allowing users to share saved posts with up to 250 people.

Save time with AI: here are five AI-powered tools that make social media marketing a little easier.

Spotify is partnering with Creative Juice to invest in video podcasting.

While branding can feel like a vague concept, it's one of the most important elements of a marketing strategy.

Why? Consistent branding leads to increased brand awareness which can then help build brand salience, gain investors, and drive revenue to your business. Consistently presented brands are 3.5 times more likely to have excellent brand visibility than those with inconsistent branding. Additionally, 82% of investors say name recognition is an important factor guiding them in their investment decisions.

In this post, we'll review what brand salience is, how you can increase your brand visibility, and how to measure it.

Skip to:

• What Brand Salience Is
• Brand Salience Marketing
• Increasing Brand Salience
• Measuring Brand Salience
• Brand Salience Model

If you have high brand salience, then you have a strong brand presence that consumers recognize and think about when they need a product.

If you have low brand salience, then consumers might not know your brand exists and therefore won't think of your brand when they need to make a purchase.

Essentially, brand salience is a similar metric to brand awareness except it's focused on measuring awareness during the actual purchasing decision instead of overall brand visibility.

For example, when someone wants to get a cup of coffee and is driving around, what's the first brand they think of? Probably Starbucks. When they want to buy tissues, they think of Kleenex. When they want to search for something online, they Google it.

All of these brands have transcended the perception of being a random company, and are now household names in their own right. Most people think of these brands and know of them whether they've been there or used those products before. These brands have high brand salience.

Importance of Brand Salience

To have high brand salience, your customers need to think about your brand as the first solution to their wants or needs when they have to make a purchasing decision.

The concept of brand salience is actually psychological in nature. According to research done by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp, brand salience is "a brand's propensity to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations."

This means that you have to capture people's attention and be memorable enough for consumers to recall your brand when they're purchasing something.

For example, when a consumer has a choice of brands to purchase from, they'll rely both on their memory and attention salience. This means they'll recall brands they know and then see what captures their attention.

This process is actually scientific. People who have studied brand salience have studied the human brain — how do people recall information and how does a brand associate positive memory structure with their product?

When they want to buy an item, people are far less likely to run through a list of options and do the mental gymnastics of figuring out the pros and cons of each.

Instead, they’ll choose the option that first comes to mind as it’s often the one they are most confident about. Having a high brand salience increases the odds that the brand they choose is yours.

To increase your brand salience, some of your marketing campaigns probably won't even focus on persuading consumers to buy your product. The goal of many branding campaigns is to constantly reinforce positive associations with your brand.

Familiarity is important. Constant marketing messages from a brand ensure that the brand is top-of-mind when a consumer is making a purchasing decision.

Next, we’ll discuss how brand salience impacts marketing efforts.

Brand Salience Marketing

Brands create high brand salience by using distinctive brand assets that capture attention and create positive memories for their audience.

This means your marketing assets promote positive storytelling and create a meaning associated with your brand. When you promote your values, you're differentiating your brand from the competition and increasing brand salience.

Your strategy should be two-pronged, capturing both the attention and memory of your target audience.

• Memory: Being top of mind for customers when they make purchasing choices.
• Attention: Being able to capture the customer’s attention at the time of purchase.

To create campaigns that will improve brand salience, think about the emotional impact of your assets. Your campaigns should be meaningful, authentic, and portray your values as a company.

All of this will help customers create a positive association with your brand and remember your brand when it comes time to make a purchase.

For example, let's say I want to buy some gum. When I think about gum, one of the first things I think of are the commercials for Extra. I've never forgotten those commercials because they were emotional and created a positive experience for me.

Now, when I think about gum, I usually buy Extra even though that brand has never been my favorite gum company (I used to buy Orbit). But since those commercials, I've leaned toward Extra because of the positive association and it's one of the first brands I recall.

Ultimately, brand salience is a combination of brand awareness, familiarity, relevance, frequent communication, and emotional connections between brand and consumer.

How to Increase Brand Salience

Creating brand salience takes time and a carefully crafted strategy. Let’s go over a few methods to boost your brand salience.

1. Establish an emotional connection.

Humans are emotional creatures. What better way to create customer memories than to trigger an emotional connection to your brand?

Just like the Extra gum commercials have cemented themselves into my consciousness making it my gum of choice, you can use storytelling to do the same for your brand.

Take the vacation rental company VRBO. Instead of just persuading people to use their service based on how nice the available rentals are, they built a narrative around the moments created while staying in one of their rentals.

From family reunions to holidays to game nights, VRBO’s commercials instill memories of togetherness with our favorite people.

2. Create a brand that stands out.

It’s difficult to cultivate brand salience if your brand gets lost in the crowd. Being unique and most importantly, authentic goes a long way in setting you apart from the competition.

What are your brand’s values? Does your product aim to solve a major problem in your industry or market? Whatever drives your company, lean into it. Having a brand that conveys authenticity will help build trust with customers and gain their loyalty.

3. Expand brand awareness.

Increasing your brand awareness will aid your efforts to improve brand salience. After all, you can’t build a connection with customers if they are unfamiliar with your brand in the first place.

What challenges or obstacles are your customers facing? Focus your messaging on these obstacles and how your brand solves them. Communicating that you understand the customer’s pain points will make them more likely to want to learn more about your brand and the products you offer.

4. Keep marketing efforts consistent.

Distance may make the heart fonder in romantic settings, but it has the reverse effect when it comes to marketing. In order to build brand salience, you’ll need to get your brand in front of prospects over and over again.

Presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%. You can use a variety of touchpoints:

• Social media ads: Use video and other visuals to help build a narrative that connects customers to your brand.
• TV commercials: This is a pricier option, but a great way to reach a large audience if your budget allows it.
• Email marketing: Create a newsletter or email campaigns that will keep you in contact with potential customers and keep your brand top of mind.

5. Test and make adjustments.

Your advertising campaigns aren’t set and forget tasks. You’ll need to continue to monitor and make changes based on the results you find.

Use Google Analytics to check the performance of not just your website, but also your promotions. What is resonating with customers? What can be changed?

Are you seeing increased revenue? That’s a sign of success. Conversely, if you see a drop, that could mean you need to tweak your marketing efforts. Surveys and focus groups — more on those later, are also excellent tools for testing brand salience.

Get creative. The methods above aren’t your only option. For example, if your goal is to educate customers, using a podcast format or video may be more useful to your brand.

Now, you might be thinking, "This all sounds great, but how can I measure this and prove its effectiveness to my managers?"

Let's dive into that below.

How to Measure Brand Salience

Brand salience is rather conceptual in nature. Unfortunately, it's not a mathematical metric that is easily measured. So, what do brands do?

Use Surveys

Well, one of the only ways to measure brand salience is through surveys. It's important to ask your customers when they think of you, what they associate with your brand, and if they recall your company when making a purchasing decision.

Your survey can include descriptive assets to track your brand's distinctive assets. For instance, what tone of voice, logo, color, or slogan comes to mind when users think of soda. They might say red, because they've associated Coca-Cola branding with soda in general.

To measure this, you can present survey respondents with a randomized list of cues and attributes by asking them which brands they associate with each statement.

It could be questions like "when I want to eat something quick and healthy" or "I know I will not overpay there."

Use Focus Groups

Focus groups allow you to ask similar questions to those in your surveys, but also the bonus of digging deeper into their responses. The dynamic is more of a discussion among customers rather than having them quickly rattle off answers to a list of questions.

You can ask customers whether they recall or notice your brand relative to competitors.

Then, ask whether your brand is just thought of or sought after to determine how favorably your brand is judged. The more they talk, the better insights and feedback you’ll receive.

Using a survey or focus group will help you determine how high your brand salience is compared to competitors.

Now, let's look at the brand salience model that you can use to strategize your brand positioning.

Brand Salience Model

In his book, Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, Kevin Keller developed a model for brand salience that has become popular in digital marketing.

In the graphic below, Keller creates a pyramid of building blocks to pay attention to when you're trying to increase your brand salience.

Image Source

This model focuses on increasing deep, broad brand awareness by creating an identity that customers remember. At the foundation of the pyramid is salience, which you can increase by defining your brand in detail, frequently communicating with your audience, and using creative assets to tell a story.

Then, you create meaning and authenticity to differentiate your brand from the competition. And then, you use frequent messages to create positive, accessible reactions in your customers. And then you create loyalty by building a relationship and emotional connection with your audience.

With this model, you can increase brand salience, drive revenue, and even attract investors.

Brand Salience is Key to Success

Needless to say, branding is important for your business to succeed. Although brand salience isn't the easiest metric to track, the science proves that focusing on it will help your company become a household name for your customers.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in July 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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

Innovation and creativity are driving the new workforce, and many underrepresented professionals are making career pivots to monetize their talents through entrepreneurship. The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship report more than four million minority-owned companies in the United States today.

Despite these numbers, minority business owners still face systemic barriers to accessing capital, resources, and support. These barriers prove why choosing where to start or scale a business is essential.

Read ahead to learn about some of the best cities supporting underrepresented founders in elevating their businesses.

1. Houston, TX

Houston, Texas, is one of the top cities that offers ample economic opportunities for minority entrepreneurs. As one of the most diverse cities in the nation, minorities make up 30.45% of the 5,600 startups in Houston’s metro region, according to JobSage.

Although people of color make up 64% of the area’s population, they still face inequities that continue to take place in the rest of the country. As a result, officials, community members, and organizations offer substantial support for minority entrepreneurs. For example, The Houston Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc, The Greater Houston Black Chamber, the Business Ecosystem Alliance for Minorities & Women, and Great Houston LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce are a few resources business owners can utilize.

2. Atlanta, GA

Atlanta is the prime hub for development and culture in the South. From tech startups to restaurants, minorities own a diverse range of businesses.

As the capital of Georgia, Atlanta is an ideal location to start a business. It offers numerous resources for people of color to access funding and network. On top of that, startup costs are low.

Atlanta is especially a hot spot for Black-owned businesses. Lending Tree reports that Atlanta has the country’s highest rate of Black-owned businesses, proving why it’s known as the “Black Mecca.”

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of programs, initiatives, and organizations like:

• University of Georgia’s Office of Minority Business Development
• Startup Runway
• Ascend Atlanta
• Atlanta Black Chambers
• Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council
• OUT Georgia Business Alliance

3. Charlotte, NC

The “Queen City” made it to the list because studies have crowned it as a place that offers many opportunities for minority entrepreneurs.

Not only are minority-owned and diverse small companies growing in Charlotte, but the cost of living is 4% below the national average. Both serve as benefits for startup companies.

Like Atlanta, Charlotte is a good place for Black entrepreneurs. The city offers many opportunities for business owners to connect and attract customers. Founders can connect through organizations like Charlotte Business INClusion and Black Business Owners of Charlotte.

4. Washington, D.C.

The nation’s capital is a physical representation of why the country is known as a “melting pot.” The city’s rich, diverse culture is home to many minority founders.

D.C. has a total of 4,599 minority startups. They bring in over $2.4 billion in annual sales across industries such as tech, hospitality, and cybersecurity, according to JobSage.

Business owners have access to a plethora of resources for networking and venture capital investments. They can receive support from organizations like:

• Latino Economic Development Center
• National Association of Asian American Professionals
• Greater Washington DC Black Chamber of Commerce
• Green Book DC

D.C.'s proximity to other states like New York, Maryland, and Virginia can offer founders access to a broader network to help them grow.

5. San Antonio, TX

Houston isn’t the only location in the Lone Star State where minority entrepreneurs can scale and succeed. San Antonio is a major metropolitan city in Texas that has proven to be a great location for companies. It has a diverse economy of advanced manufacturing, aerospace, and information technology. Still, the most active industry for minority entrepreneurs is retail.

San Antonio raked in over $1 billion in annual sales from minority-owned startups. That platform expects the number to grow as Black and Hispanic people continue to move there.

Organizations like the San Antonio MBDA Business Center, the Business Empowerment Program, and the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce are a few organizations that support minority entrepreneurs in the area.

6. Memphis, TN

Memphis is another Southern city known for its rich culture and talent. It has invested a lot of effort in supporting minority business owners’ entrepreneurial endeavors over the years.

Memphis has attracted a lot of founders because of its low cost of living. We Are Memphis reports that the city’s cost of living is roughly 12% below the national average.

The area stands out because of the community's supportive atmosphere for entrepreneurs. Residents encourage creatives to follow their dreams through support and initiatives from organizations like:

• Black Business Association of Memphis
• EpiCenter
• Greater Memphis Chamber
• Choose901
• Memphis Moves

7. Fresno, CA

Fresno is a small city with a population of a little over a million. Still, it has generated over $678 million in annual sales from 754 minority-owned startups.

These sales stem from the economic initiatives the city has placed to invest in “inclusive economic development,” The National League of Cities (NLC) reports. In addition, the NLC’s Equitable Economic Mobility Initiative (EEMI) program has helped BIPOC businesses access to grants and receive hands-on assistance.

Other organizations, such as SCORE Central Valley, the Asian Business Institute & Resource Center, and the Central California Hispanic Chamber Of Commerce, provide education, coaching, and other opportunities for entrepreneurs in the area.

Embracing diversity lies at the forefront of economic success. Minority entrepreneurs have some of the most creative business ideas that continue to positively impact our country. These above cities serve as examples of why it’s essential to invest in their businesses.

Our 2023 Marketing Trends Report found that data-driven marketers will win in 2023. It makes sense, but data analysis can be challenging and time-consuming for many businesses.

Enter AI analytics, a time-saving process that brings marketers the answers they need to create data-driven campaigns. In this post, we’ll discuss:

• What is AI analytics?
• How to Use AI in Data Analytics
• Benefits of Using AI Analytics
• Business Applications of AI Analytics
• Limitations of AI Analytics

As with all machine learning, AI analytics gets more precise and accurate over time, especially when trained to learn industry preferences to contextualize results to individual business needs.

AI analytics is sometimes referred to as augmented analytics, which Gartner defines as “The use of enabling technologies such as machine learning and AI to assist with data preparation, insight generation and insight explanation to augment how people explore and analyze data in analytics and BI platforms.”

How to Use AI in Data Analytics

AI analytics differs from traditional analytics in that it is machine-led. Its scale is more significant, data processing is faster, and algorithms give accurate outputs.

AI analytics can do what humans do, but be mindful of viewing it as a total replacement. If you use AI in data analytics, consider leveraging it to supplement your team's capabilities and expertise.

For example, an AI analytics tool can process the results of an A/B test and quickly say which version had the highest ROI and conversion rate. A marketer can take this information, identify exactly what impacted the performance of each version, and apply this information to future marketing practices.

Benefits of Using AI Analytics

The key differences between human-run data analysis and AI analytics are the three main benefits of using AI analytics: scale, speed, and accuracy:

1. Scale

AI analytics tools can leverage large amounts of data at a time. Its scale also brings a competitive advantage, as machines can seek publicly available data from other sources, run comparative tests, and help you learn more about competitor performance and how you measure up.

2. Speed

Machines don’t require the downtime that humans need, so data processing can happen instantaneously. It can simply be fed a data set and left alone to process, learn from, and bring insights.

3. Accuracy

Machine learning algorithms get better at understanding data while processing data, bringing comprehensive and accurate results.

You can also train algorithms on industry language and standards so results are contextually relevant to your business goals.

Some additional benefits include:

• Bias reduction: Algorithms don’t have the confirmation bias or general biases that teams might (unintentionally) have when analyzing data, so results are unbiased.

• New insights: Since the scale of data is much larger than human capabilities, AI analytics can shed light on trends and patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed by human researchers' limited capabilities.

Business Applications of AI Analytics

Machine learning and AI work together to help businesses make data-driven decisions. Marketers can get deep insights into consumer behavior and marketing performance. Potential applications include:

• Testing: Run your usual marketing tests and uncover the version(s) most likely to maximize key marketing metrics like ROI and conversions.

• Campaign segmentation: AI tools use data to discover consumer preferences so you can create segmented campaigns to maximize the potential for conversions and ROI.

• SEO: Machine learning algorithms can understand the search intent behind queries and help you learn more about the type of content to create and identify new keyword opportunities.

• eCommerce analytics: Get insight into page conversion rates and discover what might cause shoppers to drop out of the path to purchase.

• Identify problem areas: A big benefit of AI data analytics is uncovering new data points you might not find through your processing. You can discover hidden variables affecting performance and adapt your strategies to address them.

AI analytics is also beneficial to other areas of business, including:

• Sales forecasting: Teams can use AI analytics to forecast revenue and sales based on historical data.

• Customer experience monitoring: Data helps service teams understand customer satisfaction levels and learn how to build customer loyalty and reduce churn.

• Internal performance: Business leaders can use AI analytics to understand internal team performance, from win rate to customer satisfaction scores, to understand what’s going right and identify opportunities for improvement.

Limitations of AI Analytics

The most significant limitation of AI analytics is that a computer is not a human. While machines can sort through significantly more data in a shorter time, a human knows a business and its processes better than a computer can.

Be mindful of treating AI tools as a replacement for human understanding. Teams can use insights (and will greatly benefit from the insights) alongside their contextual understanding of business needs before making decisions.

The limitation boils down to this: you can’t replicate human understanding and experience, so it’s essential to consider this when leveraging AI tools.

AI Analytics Gives Businesses A Competitive Advantage

Overall, using AI analytics gives businesses a competitive advantage. Machine learning algorithms produce data-driven insights from which marketers can make data-driven decisions.

Take a look at your current data analysis process to see where it fits in, and reap the benefits.

A flowchart template will help you easily map out business processes, improve workflows, and even clarify your organizational structure — without you needing to draw a single line from scratch.

And if you think you don’t need to use flowcharts for business, think again. While bulleted lists, Word documents, or even presentations help, they don’t offer the same level of visual clarity and readability that a flowchart does. Especially if you’re trying to map out a process with different steps or stages.

Before we share the best flowchart templates, let’s answer an important question: what is a flowchart, and what can you use it for?

Flowcharts are ideal for outlining processes, and processes are the backbone of a strong business.

A clear, repeatable process has two major hurdles to a successful implementation in a business. Number one is the development of that process, and number two is getting buy-in from stakeholders on that process. That said, the best way to overcome both of these potential roadblocks is to transparently and logically outline a process.

Many businesses use flowcharts to carry out this task, as flowcharts visually outline a process roadmap for a full-scope understanding. They can also be easily digested by employees who need to know and follow the process.

In a business, flowcharts might be used for any of the following purposes:

• Team and organizational alignment: An organizational structure diagram clarifies who reports to whom in your team.
• Data management: A data flow diagram will help you understand how information progresses through your business up until deletion.
• Sales process mapping: Creating a sales process flowchart can help you shorten the sales cycle and increase revenue.
• Email nurturing: Email campaigns are famously dependent on workflows, which are a type of flowchart that decides who to enroll in a campaign and when.
• Customer journey mapping: A customer journey flowchart shows how customers find you and what their experience is like at your business.
• Customer or employee onboarding: A customer onboarding process flow can help you define what messaging to send and when during your customer’s first interactions with your business.
• A/B testing: When designing an A/B test, you’ll typically use a flowchart to figure out how many versions you’ll test and the potential results you’ll get.

You can also use flowcharts for QA-ing work, mapping out your career progression, and much, much more.

To help you create actionable flowcharts for your organization, we’ve listed the best flowchart templates for you to download and start using today to create a better process in any area of your business. Each one comes with a download link for you to start using that template right on Google Slides.

Flowchart Templates for Business

1. Basic Process Flowchart Template

Download this Template

This basic flow chart template is the ideal solution for those just getting started with flowcharts. The template allows its designers to specify a starting point, two potential outcomes, and then the resulting aftermath of those decisions. Due to its limitations, this flowchart template might be best suited for basic processes, like a simple A/B test.

Who should use this flowchart?

This flowchart is helpful for those looking to design an A/B test to determine the best way to get the results they're looking for.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

The basic process flowchart is easy to use and follow and is ideal for documenting straightforward or simple processes.

2. Swim Lane Flowchart Template

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The swim lane flowchart template divides the steps of a process into different sectors. For your business, these different sectors could be time periods, teams, employees, or work requirements.

Who should use this flowchart?

Swim lane flowcharts are particularly helpful for those who oversee cross-functional processes.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

This template visualizes the different process steps that take place across multiple teams or organizations.

3. Task Flowchart Template

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A task flowchart template simplifies complex processes with unique shapes. Each shape on the flowchart represents something different, forming a quick visual key.

This format is helpful when the work of several teams intertwines throughout a process. This is because it makes it easier for team members to figure out the tasks they're responsible for. These roles are often noted in a key on the flowchart for quick reference.

The shapes can also represent different types of actions.

Who should use this flowchart?

Project managers looking to keep track of various tasks and their outcomes.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

The task flowchart visually depicts how various contributions to a product support the end result. Each stakeholder can see how their tasks impact the flow of the project.

4. Complex Flowchart Template

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For a flowchart that doesn’t need gridlines or different shapes, this template is the best solution. It offers the option for multiple endpoints depending on which steps are taken throughout the process. Then it uses simple yes or no answers to drive you toward the endpoint.

Who should use this flowchart?

Teams looking to manage processes that could have various endpoints or projects that have multiple steps and stakeholders involved.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

Complex processes can be difficult to keep track of. This flow chart template creates an intuitive visual for multi-step processes. This makes it easier to figure out if and when you should move forward.

5. Circular Flowchart Template

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The circular flow chart template changes things up with a different shape, but it also offers a different path structure. It helps you outline both short and long processes, with different outcomes depending on the number of steps required.

Who should use this flowchart?

Social media managers, product marketers, and content strategists may find this template suits their needs.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

This template has a cleaner appearance than some of the more complex flowcharts and may be better for visual learners.

6. Linear Flowchart Template

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A linear flowchart template is a solution for when there’s only one optimal result. Every step of the process will either lead someone to that outcome or result in the process simply ending.

Who should use this flowchart?

Email marketing specialists and sales teams can benefit from this template because there’s typically one goal: to earn one more subscriber or earn one more customer.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

With one singular goal, this flowchart format has a clear beginning and end and makes it easy to outline a simple process.

7. Tree Flowchart Template

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A tree-style flowchart template makes the most sense for situations where there are multiple choices and when each option has a clear and distinct next step.

Who should use this flowchart?

For businesses, this flowchart would be perfect for the support department — which can use this template to map out responses from automated chat support or a phone tree.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

Each action has a clear next step and a predetermined outcome, but you can add more than two options — which is often not applicable to other flowcharts.

8. Organizational Flowchart Template

Download this Template

The final flowchart businesses might want to use is an organizational flowchart (or org chart) template. This is an essential chart that shows who reports to whom and helps all employees understand their position in the business.

Who should use this flowchart?

Company and department heads use this template to outline the chain of command in an area of the business. Human Resources teams can also use it to inform team structure and organizational decisions.

What We Like About This Flowchart Template

Users can see team structure at-a-glance and can quickly find who they need to go to for their project or to have their questions answered.

Now that we’ve shared the best flowchart templates, it’s time to look at them in action.

Flowchart Examples for Business

1. Basic Process Flowchart Example

This template visualizes how a user visiting a company's landing page could convert and become a lead. Notice how there are two potential final outcomes, but because of this chart’s simplicity, you can add as many outcomes as you want. With a flowchart like this, it’s important to have clear, defined goals in mind.

2. Swimlane Flowchart Example

In the example above, the swimlanes are divided by department to illustrate the process of the customer journey. This is exceedingly important for determining which teams need to interact with a customer and when. Without a swimlane flowchart outlining these roles, your customers’ experience with your company can seem haphazard and poorly planned.

3. Task Flowchart Example

In the example above, the different shapes represent the start of, end of, and actions taken during the process of viewing a landing page. This task flowchart example follows an "if this, then that" format. It shows the various outcomes that could occur when a potential customer visits a landing page.

4. Complex Flowchart Example

The above hiring visual is an example of a complex flowchart with many events and potential outcomes. It offers two potential outcomes at every stage. Then it shows with clarity what happens as a candidate moves forward. The colors also make it clear which final outcomes are positive or negative.

5. Circular Flowchart Example

In the example above, a circular flow chart offers a decision-making framework. Here, it’s used to help a social media manager figure out which site to post content on. It includes specific, targeted questions that define the assets the social media manager needs to create and which social platforms these assets are best suited for.

6. Linear Flowchart Example

A linear flowchart can be used for processes that have only one desired outcome. In the above example, it’s for an email nurturing sequence. In the image, the process ends whether someone signs up for an event or not.

A time-bound (or finite) email nurturing sequence is especially a good fit for these types of flowcharts. For continuous email marketing campaigns, you might need a more agile flowchart where you can determine when to move a subscriber to another email list.

7. Tree Flowchart Example

In this tree flowchart example, a business depicts the choices and next steps a caller can take when contacting them by telephone. Notice that there are many endpoints for the customer depending on their previous action.

A flowchart like this is useful if you’re trying to outline a process with different "branches." For instance, you might create a landing page flowchart that determines which form or CTA is depicted to a customer based on their previous activity on your website.

8. Organizational Flowchart Example

While not exactly procedural, this visualization helps those within the company quickly understand who reports to whom and who handles what. The best part of this example is that it can be as detailed or as simple as you’d like it to be; you can go down to your junior individual contributors or simply outline your leadership map.

Top Flowchart Tools and Software [Free and Paid]

Flowchart templates are incredibly useful for solving business problems and simplifying processes. That said, some issues need more custom solutions.

The flowchart tools below can help your team connect and work together on flowcharts. They make it simple to create unique and easy-to-read flow charts.

1. Miro

Pricing: Free, with paid options for extended features and enterprises.

Who should use this tool?

Teams that use flowcharts for a wide variety of users and stakeholders. This tool is also helpful for teams that create flow charts collaboratively or want to include multiple flowcharts in a single document.

What We Like About It

Miro offers tools to build and plan complex flowcharts for teams. Besides visual whiteboard tools, Miro also offers templates for strategy mapping, workflows, UX design, and more. Features like digital sticky notes make it easy to add comments to in-progress flowcharts.

2. diagrams.net

Pricing: Free

Who should use this tool?

This open-source technology is simple and quick to use for practical flowcharts and process mapping.

What We Like About This Flowchart Software

Create process diagrams for modeling, databases, networks, wireframes, and more. This tool is popular with users who want diagramming software for immediate business application. This flowchart tool also includes customizable templates.

3. Zen Flowchart

Pricing: Free, with paid options for extended features.

Who should use this tool?

Casual users and enterprise companies looking for web-based flowchart software.

What We Like About It

Zen Flowchart is simple to use with a wide range of features. You can create mind maps, wireframes, or whiteboards with this drag-and-drop tool. Its simple workspace helps limit distractions so you can focus on your business process.

This flowchart tool also has features for collaboration and real-time commenting.

4. Lucidchart

Pricing: Free, with paid options for extended features and enterprise.

Who should use this flowchart tool?

Lucidchart offers features for both individual users and collaborative professional teams.

What We Like About This Flowchart Tool

Besides real-time collaboration and ease of use, this diagram software also has a range of advanced features. You can personalize flowcharts with custom shapes and a library of shapes and icons. Automated diagramming can help new users create a flowchart without time-consuming edits and tweaks.

Integrations with Atlassian, Zapier, Notion, and more are also super useful. These connections can help integrate flowchart collaboration into your current tech stack and workflows.

5. Textografo

Pricing: Starts at $4/month.

Who should use this flowchart tool?

This text-to-diagram generator is a simple way for less visually-oriented users to create flowcharts. It's for users who understand the value of graphical flow diagrams but also may not be as quick or comfortable with visual tools.

What We Like About It

This flowchart tool offers a different approach to flowchart creation that can save many users time and effort. Textografo can help users create a flowchart, mindmap, decision trees, or animated diagrams. Users can also collaborate on the process with this online tool.

6. Cacoo

Pricing: Free, with paid options for extended features and enterprises.

Who should use this tool?

This cloud-based and user-friendly tool is useful for a variety of users and teams.

What We Like About This Flowchart Software

Cacoo is a comprehensive tool that makes it easy to personalize flowcharts for a range of uses. Whether you're creating a marketing flowchart with imported images or a wireframe with custom symbols, this tool can help. This resource also offers collaboration tools and integrations with Adobe Creative Cloud, Zapier, and more.

The central dashboard is also helpful for understanding everything your project needs at a glance.

7. Microsoft Visio

Pricing: Starts at $5/month.

Who should use this tool?

Visio is an intuitive flow chart tool for Microsoft 365 users.

What We Like About It

This flowchart tool can help you create complex flowcharts or simple diagrams. The interface and styling are familiar to many business users, which can help speed up the process of visualizing complex ideas. It also offers themes to improve the look of your flowcharts.

Visio also comes with hundreds of templates for a range of industry needs. It also makes it simple to import data from Excel, Access, and other Microsoft sources.

Using Business Flowchart Templates

Business flowchart templates are the fastest and easiest way to build flowcharts. All the above templates are downloadable and completely customizable when it comes to shape, format, color, and imagery. Click below to download the templates for free to better illustrate and communicate processes in your company.

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

Today's consumers have a lot of power. They can research your product or service and make purchase decisions entirely on their own.

Moreover, rather than talking to one of your sales reps, they're more likely to ask for referrals from members of their networks or read online reviews.

With this in mind, have you adapted your marketing strategy to complement the way today's consumers research, shop, and buy?

To do just that, you must have a deep understanding of who your buyers are, your specific market, and what influences the purchase decisions and behavior of your target audience members.

Enter: Market Research.

Whether you're new to market research, this guide will provide you with a blueprint for conducting a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more.

Market research can answer various questions about the state of an industry, but it's hardly a crystal ball that marketers can rely on for insights on their customers. Market researchers investigate several areas of the market, and it can take weeks or even months to paint an accurate picture of the business landscape.

However, researching just one of those areas can make you more intuitive to who your buyers are and how to deliver value that no other business is offering them right now.

Certainly you can make sound judgment calls based on your experience in the industry and your existing customers. However, keep in mind that market research offers benefits beyond those strategies. There are two things to consider:

1. Your competitors also have experienced individuals in the industry and a customer base. It's very possible that your immediate resources are, in many ways, equal to those of your competition's immediate resources. Seeking a larger sample size for answers can provide a better edge.
2. Your customers don't represent the attitudes of an entire market. They represent the attitudes of the part of the market that is already drawn to your brand.

The market research services market is growing rapidly, which signifies a strong interest in market research as we enter 2023. The market is expected to grow from roughly $75 billion in 2021 to $90.79 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 5%.

Why do market research?

Market research allows you to meet your buyer where they are. As our world (both digital and analog) becomes louder and demands more and more of our attention, this proves invaluable. By understanding your buyer's problems, pain points, and desired solutions, you can aptly craft your product or service to naturally appeal to them. Once you're ready to expand your business, you can also use market research to help you create a market development strategy.

Market research also provides insight into a wide variety of things that impact your bottom line, including:

• Where your target audience and current customers conduct their product or service research
• Which of your competitors your target audience looks to for information, options, or purchases
• What's trending in your industry and in the eyes of your buyer
• Who makes up your market and what their challenges are
• What influences purchases and conversions among your target audience
• Consumer attitudes about a particular topic, pain, product, or brand
• Whether there's demand for the business initiatives you're investing in
• Unaddressed or underserved customer needs that can be flipped into selling opportunity
• Attitudes about pricing for a particular product or service

Ultimately, market research allows you to get information from a larger sample size of your target audience, eliminating bias and assumptions so that you can get to the heart of consumer attitudes. As a result, you can make better business decisions from knowing the bigger picture.

As you begin honing in on your market research, you'll likely hear about primary and secondary market research. The easiest way to think about primary and secondary research is to envision two umbrellas sitting beneath market research: one for primary market research and one for secondary market research.

Beneath these two umbrellas sits a number of different types of market research, which we'll highlight below. Defining which of the two umbrellas your market research fits beneath isn't necessarily crucial, although some marketers prefer to make the distinction.

So, in case you encounter a marketer who wants to define your types of market research as primary or secondary — or if you're one of them — let's cover the definitions of the two categories next. Then, we'll look at the different types of market research in the following section.

Primary vs. Secondary Research

To give you an idea of how extensive market research can get, consider that it can either be qualitative or quantitative in nature — depending on the studies you conduct and what you're trying to learn about your industry.

Qualitative research is concerned with public opinion, and explores how the market feels about the products currently available in that market. Quantitative research is concerned with data, and looks for relevant trends in the information that's gathered from public records.

There are two main types of market research that your business can conduct to collect actionable information on your products, including primary research and secondary research. Let's dive into those two types, now.

Primary Research

Primary research is the pursuit of first-hand information about your market and the customers within your market. It's useful when segmenting your market and establishing your buyer personas. Primary market research tends to fall into one of two buckets: exploratory and specific research.

Exploratory Primary Research

This kind of primary market research is less concerned with measurable customer trends and more about potential problems that would be worth tackling as a team. It normally takes place as a first step — before any specific research has been performed — and may involve open-ended interviews or surveys with small numbers of people.

Specific Primary Research

Specific primary market research often follows exploratory research and is used to dive into issues or opportunities the business has already identified as important. In specific research, the business can take a smaller or more precise segment of their audience and ask questions aimed at solving a suspected problem.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is all the data and public records you have at your disposal to draw conclusions from (e.g. trend reports, market statistics, industry content, and sales data you already have on your business). Secondary research is particularly useful for analyzing your competitors. The main buckets your secondary market research will fall into include:

Public Sources

These sources are your first and most-accessible layer of material when conducting secondary market research. They're often free to find and review — lots of bang for your buck here.

Government statistics are one of the most common types of public sources according to Entrepreneur. Two U.S. examples of public market data are the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor & Statistics, both of which offer helpful information on the state of various industries nationwide.

Commercial Sources

These sources often come in the form of market reports, consisting of industry insight compiled by a research agency like Pew, Gartner, or Forrester. Because this info is so portable and distributable, it typically costs money to download and obtain.

Internal Sources

Internal sources deserve more credit for supporting market research than they generally get. Why? This is the market data your organization already has!

Average revenue per sale, customer retention rates, and other historical data on the health of old and new accounts can all help you draw conclusions on what your buyers might want right now.

Now that we've covered these overarching market research categories, let's get more specific and look at the various types of market research you might choose to conduct.

1. Interviews

Interviews allow for face-to-face discussions (in-person and virtual) so you can allow for a natural flow or conversation and watch your interviewee's body language while doing so.

Your interviewees can answer questions about themselves to help you design your buyer personas. These buyer personas describe your ideal customer's age, family size, budget, job title, the challenges they face at work, and similar aspects of their lifestyle. Having this buyer profile in hand can shape your entire marketing strategy, from the features you add to your product to the content you publish on your website.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups provide you with a handful of carefully-selected people that can test out your product, watch a demo, provide feedback, and/or answer specific questions.

This type of market research can give you ideas for product differentiation, or the qualities of your product that make it unique in the marketplace. Consider asking your focus group questions about (and showing them examples of) your services, and ultimately use the group's feedback to make these services better.

3. Product/Service Use Research

Product or service use research offers insight into how and why your audience uses your product or service, and specific features of that item. This type of market research also gives you an idea of the product or service's usability for your target audience.

In a 2020 report, respondents rated usability testing most highly in terms of usefulness for discovering user insights (rating it 8.7 out of 10). By comparison, digital analytics was rated 7.7, and user surveys 6.4.

4. Observation-Based Research

Observation-based research allows you to sit back and watch the ways in which your target audience members go about using your product or service, what works well in terms of UX, what roadblocks they hit, and which aspects of it could be easier for them to use and apply.

5. Buyer Persona Research

Buyer persona research gives you a realistic look at who makes up your target audience, what their challenges are, why they want your product or service, what they need from your business and brand, and more.

6. Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation research allows you to categorize your target audience into different groups (or segments) based on specific and defining characteristics — this way, you can determine effective ways to meet their needs, understand their pain points and expectations, learn about their goals, and more.

7. Pricing Research

Pricing research gives you an idea of what similar products or services in your market sell for, what your target audience expects to pay — and is willing to pay — for whatever it is you sell, and what's a fair price for you to list your product or service at. All of this information will help you define your pricing strategy.

8. Competitive Analysis

Competitive analyses are valuable because they give you a deep understanding of the competition in your market and industry. You can learn about what's doing well in your industry, what your target audience is already going for in terms of products like yours, which of your competitors should you work to keep up with and surpass, and how you can clearly separate yourself from the competition.

9. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research

Customer satisfaction and loyalty research give you a look into how you can get current customers to return for more business and what will motivate them to do so (e.g. loyalty programs, rewards, remarkable customer service). This research will help you discover the most-effective ways to promote delight among your customers. If you're using a CRM system, see if you're able to send out automated customer feedback surveys to aid in this process.

10. Brand Awareness Research

Brand awareness research tells you about what your target audience knows about and recognizes from your brand. It tells you about the associations your audience members make when they think about your business and what they believe you're all about.

11. Campaign Research

Campaign research entails looking into your past campaigns and analyzing their success among your target audience and current customers. It requires experimentation and then a deep dive into what reached and resonated with your audience so you can keep those elements in mind for your future campaigns and hone in on the aspects of what you do that matters most to those people.

Now that you know about the categories and types of market research, let's review how you can conduct your market research.

Here's how to do market research step-by-step.

1. Define your buyer persona.

Before you dive into how customers in your industry make buying decisions, you must first understand who they are.

This is where your buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas — sometimes referred to as marketing personas — are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

Use a free tool to create a buyer persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

They help you visualize your audience, streamline your communications, and inform your strategy. Some key characteristics you should be keen on including in your buyer persona are:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Job title(s)
• Job titles
• Family size
• Income
• Major challenges

The idea is to use your persona as a guideline for how to effectively reach and learn about the real audience members in your industry. Also, you may find that your business lends itself to more than one persona — that's fine! You just need to be thoughtful about each specific persona when you're optimizing and planning your content and campaigns.

To get started with creating your personas, check out these free templates, as well as this helpful tool.

2. Identify a persona group to engage.

Now that you know who your buyer personas are, use that information to help you identify a group to engage to conduct your market research with — this should be a representative sample of your target customers so you can better understand their actual characteristics, challenges, and buying habits.

The group you identify to engage should also be made of people who recently made a purchase or purposefully decided not to make one. Here are some more guidelines and tips to help you get the right participants for your research.

How to Identify the Right People to Engage for Market Research

When choosing who to engage for your market research, start by focusing on people who have the characteristics that apply to your buyer persona. You should also:

Aim for 10 participants per buyer persona.

We recommend focusing on one persona, but if you feel it's necessary to research multiple personas, be sure to recruit a separate sample group for each one.

Select people who have recently interacted with you.

You may want to focus on people that have completed an evaluation within the past six months — or up to a year if you have a longer sales cycle or niche market. You'll be asking very detailed questions so it's important that their experience is fresh.

Gather a mix of participants.

You want to recruit people who have purchased your product, purchased a competitor's product, and decided not to purchase anything at all. While your customers will be the easiest to find and recruit, sourcing information from those who aren't customers (yet!) will help you develop a balanced view of your market.

Here are some more details on how to select this mix of participants:

• Pull a list of customers who made a recent purchase. As we mentioned before, this is usually the easiest set of buyers to recruit. If you're using a CRM system with list segmentation capabilities, you can run a report of deals that closed within the past six months and filter it for the characteristics you're looking for. Otherwise, you can work with your sales team to get a list of appropriate accounts from them.
• Pull a list of customers who were in an active evaluation, but didn't make a purchase. You should get a mix of buyers who either purchased from a competitor or decided not to make a purchase. Again, you can get this list from your CRM or from whatever system your Sales team uses to track deals.
• Call for participants on social media. Try reaching out to the folks that follow you on social media, but decided not to buy from you. There's a chance that some of them will be willing to talk to you and tell you why they ultimately decided not to buy your product.
• Leverage your own network. Get the word out to your coworkers, former colleagues, and LinkedIn connections that you're conducting a study. Even if your direct connections don't qualify, some of them will likely have a coworker, friend, or family member who does.
• Choose an incentive. Time is precious, so you'll need to think about how you will motivate someone to spend 30-45 minutes on you and your study. On a tight budget? You can reward participants for free by giving them exclusive access to content. Another option? Send a simple handwritten 'thank you' note once the study is complete.

3. Prepare research questions for your market research participants.

The best way to make sure you get the most out of your conversations is to be prepared. You should always create a discussion guide — whether it's for a focus group, online survey, or a phone interview — to make sure you cover all of the top-of-mind questions and use your time wisely.

(Note: This is not intended to be a script. The discussions should be natural and conversational, so we encourage you to go out of order or probe into certain areas as you see fit.)

Your discussion guide should be in an outline format, with a time allotment and open-ended questions for each section.

Wait, all open-ended questions?

Yes — this is a golden rule of market research. You never want to "lead the witness" by asking yes and no questions, as that puts you at risk of unintentionally swaying their thoughts by leading with your own hypothesis. Asking open-ended questions also helps you avoid one-word answers (which aren't very helpful for you).

Example Outline of a 30-Minute Survey

Here's a general outline for a 30-minute survey for one B2B buyer. You can use these as talking points for an in-person interview, or as questions posed on a digital survey that can be made with tools like HubSpot's free online form builder, to administer as a survey to your target customers.

Background Information (5 Minutes)

Ask the buyer to give you a little background information (their title, how long they've been with the company, and so on). Then, ask a fun/easy question to warm things up (first concert attended, favorite restaurant in town, last vacation, etc.).

Remember, you want to get to know your buyers in pretty specific ways. You might be able to capture basic information such as age, location, and job title from your contact list, there are some personal and professional challenges you can really only learn by asking.

Here are some other key background questions to ask your target audience:

• Describe how your team is structured.
• Tell me about your personal job responsibilities.
• What are the team's goals and how do you measure them?
• What has been your biggest challenge in the past year?

Now, make a transition to acknowledge the specific purchase or interaction they made that led to you including them in the study. The next three stages of the buyer's journey will focus specifically on that purchase.

Awareness (5 Minutes)

Here, you want to understand how they first realized they had a problem that needed to be solved without getting into whether or not they knew about your brand yet.

• Think back to when you first realized you needed a [name the product/service category, but not yours specifically]. What challenges were you facing at the time?
• How did you know that something in this category could help you?
• How familiar were you with different options on the market?

Consideration (10 Minutes)

Now you want to get very specific about how and where the buyer researched potential solutions. Plan to interject to ask for more details.

• What was the first thing you did to research potential solutions? How helpful was this source?
• Where did you go to find more information?

If they don't come up organically, ask about search engines, websites visited, people consulted, and so on. Probe, as appropriate, with some of the following questions:

• How did you find that source?
• How did you use vendor websites?
• What words specifically did you search on Google?
• How helpful was it? How could it be better?
• Who provided the most (and least) helpful information? What did that look like?
• Tell me about your experiences with the sales people from each vendor.

Decision (10 Minutes)

• Which of the sources you described above was the most influential in driving your decision?
• What, if any, criteria did you establish to compare the alternatives?
• What vendors made it to the short list and what were the pros/cons of each?
• Who else was involved in the final decision? What role did each of these people play?
• What factors ultimately influenced your final purchasing decision?

Closing

Here, you want to wrap up and understand what could have been better for the buyer.

• Ask them what their ideal buying process would look like. How would it differ from what they experienced?
• Allow time for further questions on their end.
• Don't forget to thank them for their time and confirm their address to send a thank-you note or incentive.

4. List your primary competitors.

List your primary competitors — keep in mind listing the competition isn't always as simple as Company X versus Company Y.

Sometimes, a division of a company might compete with your main product or service, even though that company's brand might put more effort in another area.

For example, Apple is known for its laptops and mobile devices but Apple Music competes with Spotify over its music streaming service.

From a content standpoint, you might compete with a blog, YouTube channel, or similar publication for inbound website visitors — even though their products don't overlap with yours at all.

And a toothpaste company might compete with magazines like Health.com or Prevention on certain blog topics related to health and hygiene even though the magazines don't actually sell oral care products.

Identifying Industry Competitors

To identify competitors whose products or services overlap with yours, determine which industry or industries you're pursuing. Start high-level, using terms like education, construction, media & entertainment, food service, healthcare, retail, financial services, telecommunications, and agriculture.

The list goes on, but find an industry term that you identify with, and use it to create a list of companies that also belong to this industry. You can build your list the following ways:

• Review your industry quadrant on G2 Crowd: In certain industries, this is your best first step in secondary market research. G2 Crowd aggregates user ratings and social data to create "quadrants," where you can see companies plotted as contenders, leaders, niche, and high performers in their respective industries. G2 Crowd specializes in digital content, IT services, HR, ecommerce, and related business services.
• Download a market report: Companies like Forrester and Gartner offer both free and gated market forecasts every year on the vendors who are leading their industry. On Forrester's website, for example, you can select "Latest Research" from the navigation bar and browse Forrester's latest material using a variety of criteria to narrow your search. These reports are good assets to save on your computer.
• Search using social media: Believe it or not, social networks make great company directories if you use the search bar correctly. On LinkedIn, for example, select the search bar and enter the name of the industry you're pursuing. Then, under "More," select "Companies" to narrow your results to just the businesses that include this or a similar industry term on their LinkedIn profile.

Identifying Content Competitors

Search engines are your best friends in this area of secondary market research. To find the online publications with which you compete, take the overarching industry term you identified in the section above, and come up with a handful of more specific industry terms your company identifies with.

A catering business, for example, might generally be a "food service" company, but also consider itself a vendor in "event catering," "cake catering," "baked goods," and more.

Once you have this list, do the following:

• Google it: Don't underestimate the value in seeing which websites come up when you run a search on Google for the industry terms that describe your company. You might find a mix of product developers, blogs, magazines, and more.
• Compare your search results against your buyer persona: Remember the buyer persona you created during the primary research stage, earlier in this article? Use it to examine how likely a publication you found through Google could steal website traffic from you. If the content the website publishes seems like the stuff your buyer persona would want to see, it's a potential competitor, and should be added to your list of competitors.

After a series of similar Google searches for the industry terms you identify with, look for repetition in the website domains that have come up.

Examine the first two or three results pages for each search you conducted. These websites are clearly respected for the content they create in your industry, and should be watched carefully as you build your own library of videos, reports, web pages, and blog posts.

5. Summarize your findings.

Feeling overwhelmed by the notes you took? We suggest looking for common themes that will help you tell a story and create a list of action items.

To make the process easier, try using your favorite presentation software to make a report, as it will make it easy to add in quotes, diagrams, or call clips.

Feel free to add your own flair, but the following outline should help you craft a clear summary:

• Background: Your goals and why you conducted this study.
• Participants: Who you talked to. A table works well so you can break groups down by persona and customer/prospect.
• Executive Summary: What were the most interesting things you learned? What do you plan to do about it?
• Awareness: Describe the common triggers that lead someone to enter into an evaluation. (Quotes can be very powerful.)
• Consideration: Provide the main themes you uncovered, as well as the detailed sources buyers use when conducting their evaluation.
• Decision: Paint the picture of how a decision is really made by including the people at the center of influence and any product features or information that can make or break a deal.
• Action Plan: Your analysis probably uncovered a few campaigns you can run to get your brand in front of buyers earlier and/or more effectively. Provide your list of priorities, a timeline, and the impact it will have on your business.

Lastly, let's review a resource that can help you compile everything we just discussed in a simple yet effective way (plus, it's free!).

Market Research Report Template

Within a market research kit, there are a number of critical pieces of information for your business's success. Let's take a look at what those different kit elements are next.

Pro Tip: Upon downloading HubSpot's free Market Research Kit, you'll receive editable templates for each of the given parts of the kit as well as instructions on how to use the templates and kit, and a mock presentation that you can edit and customize.

Download HubSpot's free, editable market research report template here.

1. Five Forces Analysis Template

Use Porter's Five Forces Model to understand an industry by analyzing five different criteria and how high the power, threat, or rivalry in each area is — here are the five criteria:

• Competitive rivalry
• Threat of new entrants
• Threat of substitution
• Buyer power
• Supplier power

Download a free, editable Five Forces Analysis template here.

2. SWOT Analysis Template

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis looks at your internal strengths and weaknesses, and your external opportunities and threats within the market.

A SWOT analysis highlights direct areas of opportunity your company can continue, build, focus on, and work to overcome.

Download a free, editable SWOT Analysis template here.

3. Market Survey Template

Both market surveys and focus groups (which we'll cover in the next section) help you uncover important information about your buyer personas, target audience, current customers, market, competition, and more (e.g. demand for your product or service, potential pricing, impressions of your branding, etc.).

Surveys should contain a variety of question types, like multiple choice, rankings, and open-ended responses. Ask quantitative and short-answer questions to save you time and to more easily draw conclusions. (Save longer questions that will warrant more detailed responses for your focus groups.)

Here are some categories of questions you should ask via survey:

• Demographic questions
• Business questions
• Competitor questions
• Industry questions
• Brand questions
• Product questions

Download a free, editable Market Survey template here.

4. Focus Group Template

Focus groups are an opportunity to collect in-depth, qualitative data from your real customers or members of your target audience. You should ask your focus group participants open-ended questions. While doing so, keep these tips top of mind:

• Set a limit for the number of questions you're asking (after all, they're open-ended).
• Provide participants with a prototype or demonstration.
• Ask participants how they feel about your price.
• Ask participants about your competition.
• Offer participants time at the end of the session for final comments, questions, or concerns.

Download a free, editable Focus Group template here.

Market Research Examples

1. Disney uses kid-centric focus groups to test new characters and ideas.

The Walt Disney Company can spend millions crafting what its Animation Studio team believes is a worthwhile story, but it wisely focuses on its intended audience — children — when testing how well a character or topic performs.

A few times each year, Disney executives meet with preschoolers and kindergartners in kid-centric focus groups to get their opinions and insights on TV episodes, Disney characters, and more.

Why is this an effective market research strategy? Because children are ultimately the audience Disney hopes to delight — so collecting their feedback is invaluable to iterating on their existing content and ensuring it continues to meet its audiences' preferences.

2. KFC tested its meatless product in select markets before launching nationwide.

In 2019, KFC began developing and testing a new meatless version of its chicken. Rather than instantly rolling the product out nationwide, however, it started small: In select stores in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

This is an easy, effective example of conducting market research to determine how well a new product sells on a smaller scale before dedicating too many resources to it. If the meatless chicken flopped in Georgia, KFC would need to change the product before re-launching it to the market.

3. Yamaha conducted a survey to determine whether they should use knobs or sliding faders on the Montage keyboard.

When Yamaha, a Japanese-based corporation that produces a variety of products ranging from motorcycles to golf cars to musical instruments, began developing its new Montage keyboard, the team was unsure whether to use knobs or sliding faders on the product.

So Yamaha used Qualtrics to send a survey to their customers, and received 400 responses in a few hours.

Using survey feedback helped Yamaha ensure it was designing a product that exactly fit its audiences' preferences.

4. The Body Shop used social listening to determine how they should reposition brand campaigns to respond to what their customers cared most about.

The Body Shop has long been known for offering ethically sourced and natural products, and proudly touts "sustainability" as a core value.

To dive deeper into the sustainability subtopics that meant the most to their audiences, the team at The Body Shop tracked conversations and ultimately found their audiences cared a lot about refills.

Using this information helped the Body Shop team feel confident when relaunching their Refill Program across 400 stores globally in 2021, and another 400 in 2022. Market research proved they were on the right track with their refill concept, and demonstrated increased efforts were needed to show Body Shop customers that the Body Shop cared about their customers' values.

Conduct Market Research to Grow Better

Conducting market research can be a very eye-opening experience. Even if you think you know your buyers pretty well, completing the study will likely uncover new channels and messaging tips to help improve your interactions.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are talked about a lot.

Understanding the concepts can get confusing as the terms are used interchangeably, but each has its unique set of characteristics and applications.

In this post, we’ll break down the difference between augmented and virtual reality, their unique marketing applications, and how consumers feel about them.

Table of Contents

• What is augmented reality (AR)?
• What is virtual reality (VR)?
• What is the difference between AR and VR?
• Use Cases for AR and VR
• AR vs. VR: Which Is More Effective for Marketing

What is augmented reality (AR)?

Augmented reality (AR) layers virtual elements on top of a real-world scene, allowing users to exist in the space they’re physically in but benefit from the augmented elements in their experience.

Pokémon GO is one of the most popular and notable examples of AR, where Pokémon characters are superimposed into a real-life setting, like someone's backyard or outside of their favorite restaurant.

What is virtual reality (VR)?

Virtual reality (VR) is any software that immerses users in a three-dimensional interactive virtual environment, usually using a VR sensory device that brings real-world actions into a virtual world. Many VR experiences are 360 degrees.

It’s a computer-generated simulation, and each virtual reality world allows people to fully participate in the unique world.

In addition, many VR experiences require headsets or sensory devices to work, while AR does not. It’s also commonly said that AR is 75% reality and 25% virtual, and VR is 25% reality and 75% virtual.

They’re similar in offering immersion for users, VR in an entirely new world, and 3D and virtual content.

Use Cases for AR and VR

Marketing applications for AR and VR can vary, so let’s discuss a few examples.

For one, AR is a high-quality tool for product marketing. The tech can overlay virtual elements to actual reality, allowing consumers to “test” products in real-life scenarios to see how they like it.

The IKEA Place app is a great example of AR product marketing. App users can select a piece of furniture they like and superimpose a to-scale model in their real-life space to see how it looks before purchasing. This opportunity can increase buyer confidence and sales if people see that they like how a product fits into their lifestyle.

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VR marketing applications immerse consumers in branded experiences that can build awareness, recognition, and satisfaction. People can explore the world you create, learn more about your products, and even purchase VR products.

Gucci Town is a great example of an immersive VR brand experience. It’s the luxury fashion house’s virtual world within the Roblox metaverse, where people can explore, learn about its history, and connect with people in the game. They can also purchase exclusive Gucci Town clothing for their Roblox avatars.

These worlds are a new, unique, and exciting way of interacting with their favorite brands that don’t come from watching a TikTok, visiting a store, or reading an email newsletter.

An application of AR and VR is experiential marketing, where you invite your audiences to interact with your brand as a form of marketing. It’s a valuable application because humans want to build that kind of relationship with a brand, and a fun and immersive real-world experience can build an emotional connection.

Netflix’s Stranger Things Experience was an AR experiential marketing experience to promote the show's upcoming season. Fans visited an in-person location and became part of an interactive AR game experience to make them feel like they’re in the Stranger Things world.

Consumer Preferences for AR vs. VR

Given their marketing applications, it makes sense to be curious about consumers' thoughts.

We conducted a survey to ask consumers about their use of AR and VR and if they had preferences for either. Respondents reported using AR and VR on similar levels, most often saying they use it a few days a week or once a month or less.

When we asked consumers if they’ve bought AR apps, tools, devices, or software, a majority said no (55%), 25% said yes, and 20% were thinking about it. The numbers were relatively similar for VR: 50% said no, 30% said yes, and 20% said they were considering it.

When asked if they preferred AR or VR, the majority said VR. Their reasons for preferring it were:

• It’s a more immersive experience that takes them to an entertaining world,
• The graphics and movements are smoother, and the visuals are better,
• It has more applications than AR and is better for video games and interactive entertainment,
• They’re more familiar with VR than AR.

Those who preferred AR said they appreciated it because it was more reality integrated and felt more real, they liked how they could add virtual things to real-world views and that AR was better for quality of life (QoL) applications like education, shopping, navigation, and healthcare.

A fair amount of respondents also said they didn’t prefer either or have an interest in using either. Some explicitly stated that they didn’t understand what either was, and some showed that they might not understand the difference by saying that VR is more realistic than AR when AR is the more life-like option.

This tracks with the results of our latest Consumer Trends Survey, which found that only 39% of respondents understood the concept of the metaverse (which can blend AR and VR elements). In addition,

• Only 8% of U.S. adults have ever visited a metaverse (this remained consistent between 2022 and 2023 surveys.)
• 47% bought virtual items other than NFTs, down 25% from May 2022, meaning that marketers planning to sell products in the virtual world might find consumers less willing or interested in buying.

Engagement with virtual worlds has waning hype, and consumers invest less in virtual items.

Business Preferences for AR and VR [Data]

Our marketing strategy report from 2021 found that 35% of marketers were leveraging AR or VR in their strategies, but in 2023, more than a quarter of marketers plan to stop using VR and AR. It’s still intriguing for marketers, but it can be challenging to execute on because equipment can be expensive.

However, 14% of marketers do plan on leveraging and exploring VR/AR for the first time in 2023.

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AR vs. VR: Which Is More Effective for Marketing [Data]

There is no right or wrong answer as to whether AR or VR is more effective for marketing — it depends entirely on your business goals.

For example, a study conducted by Tim Hilken in the Netherlands found that both AR and VR increased customers’ purchase intentions. AR was more effective at stimulating purchases, but VR was more effective at creating positive brand attitudes. Both were effective at fulfilling a marketing goal, but each for a specific goal.

True sensory immersive VR experiences can be costly and require consumers to have the right devices to use them, but our survey results found that most consumers haven’t invested in them. However, virtual worlds like Horizon Worlds and Roblox don’t require sensory devices.

AR can be a cheaper option, but it doesn’t have the fully immersive brand experience that allows consumers to disappear into an alternate reality. But, the Stranger Things Experience did effectively create an immersive AR experience.

This is not to say that marketers shouldn’t use either of them. It boils down to this: AR and VR are both emerging technologies for marketing. Instead of changing your entire strategy to revolve around AR and VR, consider leveraging them as experimental tools. For example, you can create an AR experience as product marketing for a new offer or offer a fun VR game for people to play on your website.

You can test it out and give your audiences a new way to interact with your business without relying on it to meet your marketing goals. It can also be costly, so you’re preserving marketing budgets and not spending all of your money on channels that might not be as effective as you’d hoped.

To find inspiration, note what other brands are doing and what people are saying online about their experiences.

Over To You

AR and VR have been around for a long time but are still emerging tools for marketers. Consider your business needs, and note what other brands are doing and what people say online about their experiences.

Staying ahead of the trends simply means paying attention. If VR and AR marketing experiences skyrocket in popularity and become a must-have strategy, you’ll already know how your business needs to respond.

"I got lucky."

"I don't belong here."

"I'm a fraud, and it's just a matter of time before everyone finds out."

Sound familiar?

That's imposter syndrome talking. Most of us have experienced feelings of doubt and unworthiness at some point in our lives. But when your accomplishments are a result of your own knowledge, hard work, and preparation and you still feel inadequate...you're probably suffering from impostor syndrome.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Imposter syndrome is a feeling of unworthiness or incompetence, despite achieving accomplishments and success. This feeling is most common in the workplace, but it can manifest itself in just about any part of life. Those with imposter syndrome often go to great lengths to hide it, which can stunt their future success.

People who suffer from this syndrome often feel like frauds—despite being smart, skilled, capable professionals who actually deserve whatever commendations and praise they're given. Rather than celebrating their accomplishments, they worry that they've somehow tricked people into thinking they're good enough. As a result, they live in fear of being "found out" or "exposed."

There are a variety of reasons why a person may feel like an imposter ranging from perfectionism to family upbringing. Regardless of the cause, this toxic line of thinking results in reduced self-confidence, low self-esteem, and limited ability to celebrate well-deserved success.

How common is imposter syndrome?

Impostor syndrome is actually fairly common: Researchers have found that up to 82% of people have suffered from it at one point or another. But the fact that it's common doesn't make it any less damaging to a person's confidence and career growth. If anything, more people are unable to show up fully in their work than ever before which is concerning for several reasons.

How to Tell If You Have Imposter Syndrome

We often overlook the signs of impostor syndrome that come up in our day-to-day lives. However, recognizing these signs is the first step toward overcoming them.

You might suffer from impostor syndrome if:

• You feel like you "got lucky" when you actually prepared well and worked hard.
• You find it hard to accept praise.
• You apologize for yourself when you didn't actually do something wrong.
• You hold yourself to incredibly —sometimes impossibly—high standards.
• You find the fear of failure paralyzing.
• You avoid expressing confidence because you think people will see it as overcompensating or obnoxious.
• You're convinced you're not enough.
• People close to you say you're not as confident as you used to be.
• You turn down opportunities for growth or visibility at work.

Pay attention to your language choices, both when you're talking to other people and when you're talking to yourself—especially when it comes to talking about work. If you find your own success or the praise others give you uncomfortable, do some reflective thinking on where those types of thoughts came from and what it means in your professional life.

The Impact of Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome doesn't always stop at feeling like a fraud. This mental state has bonafide mental, physical, and emotional effects, including:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Impaired Job Performance
• Lowered Job Satisfaction
• Burnout

Moreover, these negative mental health outcomes of imposter syndrome have been the subject of academic research for years. Most recently, Kevin Cokley, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, has explored the subject in depth and found that imposter syndrome disproportionately affects the mental health of people of ethnically minoritized backgrounds, especially African Americans. This poses a greater challenge to everyone in the workforce to attract, retain, and develop diverse talent.

If you feel like you're suffering from impostor syndrome or something like it, know that there are ways to curb these feelings in a healthy, proactive way.

8 Tips to Combat Imposter Syndrome

Getting rid of imposter syndrome isn't as easy as positive self-talk and a can-do attitude. While those things are helpful, you'll need to dig a bit deeper to uncover ways to overcome this debilitating mindset.

1. Know you're not alone.

When you have impostor syndrome, some of the most important encouragement comes from realizing how many hugely successful people, both male and female, have built amazing careers even while regularly coping with it.

Which highly accomplished people have spoken about their impostor syndrome? Here are some quotes from The New York Times and Forbes:

"I have written eleven books, but each time I think, 'uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.'" - Author, Poet & Civil Rights Activist Maya Angelou:

All I can see is everything I’m doing wrong that is a sham and a fraud.”

"All I can see is everything I’m doing wrong that is a sham and a fraud.” Actor Don Cheadle

"The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh God, they’re onto me! I’m a fraud!’ So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud.” - Actress, Writer & Producer Tina Fey, from her book Bossypants

2. Distinguish humility and fear.

There's taking humility in your hard work and accomplishments, and then there's feeling overcome with fear because of them. Sometimes, simply being good at something can cause it to discount its value. But as Carl Richards wrote in a New York Times article, "After spending a lot of time fine-tuning our ability, isn’t it sort of the point for our skill to look and feel natural?"

It all boils down to feeling unworthy. I like how Seth Godin put it in a blog post: "When you feel unworthy, any kind response, positive feedback or reward feels like a trick, a scam, the luck of the draw."

But it is possible to feel worthy without feeling entitled, and overcoming impostor syndrome is all about finding a healthy balance between the two. Godin goes on to write, "Humility and worthiness have nothing at all to do with defending our territory. We don't have to feel like a fraud to also be gracious, open or humble."

3. Let go of your inner perfectionist.

I wrote about how perfectionism, while helpful in certain contexts, can be a major roadblock for productivity. Turns out it can be a major roadblock for overcoming impostor syndrome, too.

Many people who suffer from impostor syndrome are high achievers; people who set extremely high standards for themselves and are committed to doing their best and being the best.

But perfectionism only feeds into your impostor syndrome. When you feel like a fraud, it's usually because you're comparing yourself to some *perfect* outcome that's either impossible or unrealistic.

Not only can no one do everything perfectly, but holding yourself to that standard can actually be super counterproductive. At some point, you need to take a step back and ask yourself: When is good enough good enough?

Read this blog post to see what a formula for "good enough" might look like. And if you need further encouragement, read this article from The Guardian.

Bottom line? While striving for perfection is certainly noble, it's usually not realistic — and often, it's counterproductive and will only make you feel more like a fraud.

4. Be kind to yourself.

"Take the pressure off yourself and stop trying to be the expert on day one." advises HubSpot marketing manager Jennifer Stafancik.

Impostor syndrome often manifests itself as a voice in our heads, berating us with negative messages like "you're not smart enough" or "you're a fraud."

Negative self-talk is a bad habit, and it can heavily influence our stress and anxiety levels.

"Being kind to yourself" simply means changing the way you talk to yourself in your head by practicing positive self-talk. Not only can it help you become less stressed and anxious, but it can also help you build the courage to do things that'll bring you greater rewards.

Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd College, suffered from what she called "impostoritis" for most of her career. While she found it hard to silence the negative thoughts completely, she practiced hard to add positive thoughts to her inner voice. "Now I wake up most days with a voice on the left side of my head telling me what an incredible failure I am," she wrote. "But the voice on the right side tells me that I can change the world — and I try to pay more attention to it."

First, try to catch yourself whenever you have a negative thought. Then, turn around and challenge your own claim. For example, if you find yourself thinking, "I just got lucky," challenge that by thinking, "What steps did I take and what work did I put in to get to this point?"

Then, you can answer your own question using affirmations, which are short, focused, positive statements about a goal you have. In this case, one might be as simple as, "I worked hard – and I always work hard."

"For me, I put a lot of pressure on myself when joining HubSpot since it was a lateral move, which ended up sparking imposter syndrome — something I honestly thought I was immune to. "Stefancik explains. "Once I realized there was no reason to rush and to give myself more realistic milestones the imposter syndrome symptoms started to melt away.

5. Track and measure your successes.

When you feel like an impostor, one of the hardest things to grasp is how much of a role you have in your own successes. You might default them to luck or others' hard work, when in fact, your own work, knowledge, and preparation had a lot to do with it.

To help show yourself that you're actually doing well, keep track of your wins in a private document.

There are a lot of different ways to track these successes, and the metrics you use will depend entirely on your job. If you're a blogger, you might keep track of your posts' monthly average page views and watch them go up, or compare them to the team average. You might also keep a separate tab to paste kind words people have written to you via email, Twitter, blog comments, and so on.

In the same vein as keeping track of your success metrics, keep a file on your computer of wins and positive reinforcement both at work and in your personal life. One of the best things I've done is created a folder on my personal Gmail account called "Happy," where I've stored everything from my college acceptance email to praise from my colleagues and bosses. Whenever I need a lift, I open that Gmail folder and scroll through them.

You can create an email folder for these emails as I did, or create something like a "swipe file" (i.e. a digital file) on your computer or phone to store screenshots of emails, tweets, dashboard metrics ... whatever makes you feel good about your hard work and preparation.

6. Talk about it with a mentor and your manager.

No one should suffer in silence. Sharing your thoughts and experiences with someone else will make you better equipped to deal with your impostor syndrome. We recommend sharing them with both a mentor and your direct manager.

Your mentor will be able to help you talk candidly about your struggles with impostor syndrome while giving you a more objective point of view — especially if they work on a different team or at a different company. When you share your experience with them, you might ask if they've ever felt that way, or if they know someone who has.

The best mentors are forthcoming about the struggles they've gone through and the mistakes they've made in their careers, and you may find that they have some helpful stories or advice for how to deal with what you're feeling.

We'd also suggest that you talk with your direct manager about your experiences, too. Why? Because they're more likely to have the knowledge and tools to help you overcome your impostor syndrome in the context of your current job.

For example, you might ask them to help you find a system for tracking your successes, or figure out which metrics you should measure. Knowing what they know about both you and your role, they may also help you seek out more opportunities to shine and gain visibility on your team or at your company in general.

Finding a mentor or manager to talk to is a strategy that Krystal Wu, HubSpot's Social Media Community Manager highly recommends.

"I've learned the best way to deal with imposter syndrome was to find a mentor to help guide me through my career choices," Wu says.

As an example, Wu reflects, "I was new to my social community role and to marketing and I wanted to do my best work but I didn't know what that meant all the time."

"When I put myself out there to find people in roles similar to mine, attended events to learn more about my industry and learned from my mentor it helped me gain confidence in my career," Wu explains. "The more confidence and education I had the more the imposter syndrome started to fade."

"I won't say it's completely gone — because let's be real, I'm always learning," Wu admits. "But it's not something hanging over my head all the time. It comes and goes and I know that surrounding myself with people that are more knowledgeable in my field has helped me grow."

Speaking of opportunities ...

7. Say "yes" to new opportunities.

It's impossible to say "yes" to everything, especially when you're feeling stressed or spread thin. But it's all too common for people who have impostor syndrome to turn down career-making opportunities because they don't feel like they'd do a good job.

When you're presented with a new opportunity, it's important to distinguish between the voice in your head saying you can't do it because you're not worthy and the one saying you can't do it because you have too much on your plate. The former is your impostor syndrome speaking.

But remember: Taking on challenging new work and doing well at it can open a lot of doors for you. Don't let your inner impostor turn down these game-changing opportunities. They can do wonders to help you learn, grow, and advance your career.

Keep Richard Branson's famous quote in mind: "If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you are not sure you can do it, say yes. Then learn how to do it later."

While it might be intimidating to take on a role you're not sure you can succeed in, know that you were asked to do it for a reason, and there's nothing wrong with learning new things and asking questions along the way.

8. Embrace the feeling, and use it.

It's really hard to get rid of impostor syndrome completely — especially if you've had it for years and years. The fact that hugely successful people like Maya Angelou and Don Cheadle feel that way after all they've accomplished is evidence that it can sometimes be a lifelong condition.

That's why the best angle from which to tackle your impostor syndrome isn't getting rid of it completely; it's stopping it from hindering your success.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

I like the way Richards put it: "We know what the feeling is called. We know others suffer from it. We know a little bit about why we feel this way. And we now know how to handle it: Invite it in and remind ourselves why it’s here and what it means."

Richards says he's been invited to speak about his work and career all over the world, and yet he still hasn't been able to get rid of his impostor syndrome. What he has learned to do is think of it "as a friend."

Whenever he hears that negative voice in his head, he pauses for a minute, takes a deep breath, and says to himself, "Welcome back, old friend. I'm glad you're here. Now, let's get to work."

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in January 2016, but was updated in March 2020 for comprehensiveness and freshness.

Twitter is among the most popular (and powerful) social media networks. How you leverage the platform depends entirely on how its members use, follow, post, and interact with what they care about. Luckily, there are new statistics to make your social media marketing decisions more manageable.

So, how are people using Twitter nowadays? How are businesses using Twitter? And how connected do people feel to a brand due to your Twitter presence? Look at the most remarkable Twitter stats we've found for 2023. And if you're in a pinch, jump to the information you need below:

• General Twitter Statistics
• Twitter Statistics for Business
• Twitter User Statistics
• Twitter Usage Statistics
• Twitter Followers Statistics

Twitter Statistics

General Twitter Statistics

1. Most world leaders and foreign ministries have an official Twitter account. (Statista)

2. As of 2023, Twitter.com is the 4th most visited website in the world. (Similarweb)

3. The United States is the country with the most number of Twitter users, with 79.6 million users. (Demandsage)

Twitter Statistics for Business

4. Twitter generated $4.4 billion in revenue in 2022, an 11% decline year-over-year. (Social App Report 2022)

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5. 7% of social media marketers believe that Twitter is the most effective for building an active community on social media, higher than LinkedIn but less effective than Instagram at 26%. (Social Media Trends Report)

6. 6% of social media marketers think Twitter offers the highest ROI when selling products directly in the app. (Social Media Trends Report)

7. Even though only about 17% of Twitter’s users come from the US, it accounts for more than 50% of the company’s revenue. (Social App Report)

8. The top three types of content that offer the biggest ROI on social media are relatable content, trendy content (cultural moments and news), and educational/informational content (Social Media Trends Report)

9. Almost 30M unique social media authors mentioned “reviews,” “advice on,” “pros and cons,” “alternatives,” and “best option,” on Twitter, looking for more authentic sources of information that they can trust. (Social Media Trends Report)

10. 5% of social media marketers plan to work with influencers/creators on Twitter more than other social platforms. (Social Media Trends Report)

11. The average Twitter Ads ROI is 40% higher than the average media ROI for other channels. (Twitter Marketing)

12. 66% of brands are not moving their presence off Twitter in 2023. (HubSpot Research)

13. The top three formats that social media marketers plan to invest the most in for 2023 are short-form content (TikTok, Reels, etc.), long-form videos, and audio chat rooms (like Twitter spaces) (Social Media Trends Report)

14. The best time to post on Twitter is between 9 AM to 3 PM. (Social Media Trends Report)

Twitter User Statistics

15. The leading countries based on the number of Twitter users in 2022 were the United States, Japan, and India. (Statista)

16. Twitter currently has 237.8 million monetizable daily active users. (Demandsage)

17. Twitter has around 450 million monthly active users as of 2023. (Demandsage)

18. It's estimated that Twitter's monthly active users will reach 652.23 million by 2028. (Demandsage)

19. Around seven-in-ten adult Twitter users in the U.S. (69%) get news on the site. (Pew Research)

20. 62.9% of Twitter users identify as male, one of the highest gender disparities out of all social networks. (Statista, We Are Social)

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21. Roughly half of U.S. adults who use Twitter (49%) post fewer than five tweets per month. (Pew Research)

22. 59% of infrequent tweeters (otherwise referred to as "lurkers") are between the ages of 30-49. (Pew Research)

23. Most Twitter news consumers in the U.S. say using the platform has increased their understanding of current events in the last year, but around a third say it has increased their stress levels. (Pew Research)

24. 31% of U.S. users say Twitter limiting the visibility of certain posts is a major problem, and 25% say the same about banning users from the platform. (Pew Research)

Twitter Usage Statistics

25. 80% of Twitter usage happens on mobile devices. (Google)

26. 55% of users log into Twitter each day. (Statista)

27. Twitter's global average time per visit is approximately 10 minutes and 32 seconds. (Similarweb)

28. In 2022, 😂 Tears of Joy and 😭 Loudly Crying Face are tied for the most popular emojis used on Twitter. (Emojipedia)

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Twitter Followers Statistics

29. Former president Barack Obama is the world's most-followed Twitter account, at 133.1 million followers, followed by Elon Musk and then Justin Beiber. (Brandwatch)

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30. The NBA and Google are the most followed non-media business accounts on Twitter. Their followers are 39.9 million and 28.9 million, respectively. (Statista)

31. The most followed news account on Twitter is CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk), with 58.9 million followers. CNN controls the two most followed news accounts on Twitter. (Press Gazette)

Stay Up to Date on the Latest Twitter Stats

Twitter is adapting and changing amidst the rise of new social platforms and tech, but it's still a big competitor. Social media marketers should keep it on their radar and continue to leverage it to reach their target audience — just make sure you're using it wisely.

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

Looking for website design examples? Your inspiration journey starts here.

Deciding to create a website for yourself or your business is a big decision, but all websites are a culmination of many small decisions. And the best-designed websites are made by those who take the time to craft a visual experience that feels on-brand and aligned with users’ expectations, while simultaneously incorporating elements to help it stand out.

It’s a big task, but luckily you don’t need to start completely from scratch. There are website builders and content management systems like CMS Hub that allow you to build out pages by simply dragging elements into place. Plus, there are thousands of amazing websites to reference for inspiration.

In this article, we’ll be sharing a few dozen of the best website designs we’ve ever seen to inspire yours. You can click the links below to jump to explore website designs, and we’ve also included a bonus section of designs that are just plain cool — so check them out, too!

• Best Website Designs to Inspire You in 2022
• Best Website Designs from 2022
• Best Website Designs from 2021
• Best Website Designs from 2020
• Best Website Designs from 2019
• Best Website Designs from 2018
• Best Website Designs from 2017
• Best Website Designs from 2016
• Best Website Designs from 2015 – 2014
• Where to Get Your Design Inspiration
• Website Design Inspiration Sources
• Website Design Ideas

From familiar corporations to small businesses, to international organizations, the following sites push the status quo on the web. Whether it's the design aesthetic, usability, interactivity, sound design, or value that the site provides, each one is a masterpiece in its respective industry and something to aspire to.

Not surprisingly, many organizations exist to highlight these sites and the contributions they make to the web. To help surface some of the most inspirational designs, I gathered several award-winners that have made their way through several key awards organizations — including Red Dot, Awwwards, UX Awards, The Webby Awards, SiteInspire, Best Website Gallery, and FWA.

As you browse through the list, know that each site excels in its own way and seeks to serve a unique purpose. While one site may be an excellent example of visual design, another may be an excellent example of interactivity.

This means that not all of these sites may be "conversion machines" or blueprint ideas that you can easily copy over to your site. Rather, they're great ways to gain some website design inspiration and see the cutting-edge marketing that's happening in the different corners of the web.

Keep in mind that web designs are fluid and change often. Some of the designs in this list have changed since they were awarded, but we do our best to keep them up-to-date. We’re confident you’ll find a design here that sparks your creativity.

Read More: 77 Examples of Incredible Website Design

Download this free guide to see even more examples of website blog, homepage, and landing page designs.

Beautiful Award-Winning Websites

Best Website Designs from 2022

Hyer

Award: Website of the Month (2022), CSS Design Awards

Want to make a strong impression on your website visitors? Take a page out of Hyer’s book.

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This striking illustration of the airplane, as it slowly moves across the screen, is sure to grab website visitors’ attention.

This page has everything you need in an effective homepage: An image that tells a story but isn’t too distracting, use of white space, easy nav bar, a tagline or slogan, and a clear CTA.

It’s a clean design that’s free of any distractions and invites visitors to learn more about the brand.

Mubasic

Award: Website of the Day, August 10, 2022, Awwwards

Mubasic’s site isn’t just visually compelling, it’s dynamic. Mubasic is a catalog of high-quality music for children, and the website’s design decisions help it achieve a light-hearted, easygoing feel. The poppy color scheme and effective visual hierarchy contribute to this site’s design success, however, the real reason it shines is because of how the design feels authentic to the brand’s mission.

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The homepage easily allows you to explore the company’s offerings, and even features a Q&A section set up in a unique format. Images pop up as you scroll down the page, and toward the bottom, there’s the opportunity to get in touch with contact information and a new customer form template.

When you reach the bottom of the home page, there’s a menu that features anchors to allow you to jump to wherever on the page the information you’re seeking lives.

Digital Cover

Award: Website of the Day, July 31, 2022, Awwwards

Everything from the loading screen to the homepage of this France-based digital agency’s website is a visual homerun. When you arrive on this homepage, you’re immediately swept into the world of Digital Cover. This is achieved by a graphic that appears nearly three-dimensional popping up and welcoming you into the company’s orbit.

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Similar to the previous site, the animated nature of Digital Cover’s homepage adds intrigue and establishes this site as a candidate for best website design. With a simple swipe of a mouse pad you’re led to the company’s projects, or you can navigate to the clearly labeled menu in the top left corner. When you do, several options pop up.

From there, you are escorted to the page of your selection. The white lettering against the black background allows for the copy to pop. If you scroll to the bottom of any menu page, you’ll find contact information to get in touch with the agency, which is another strength of the design’s.

Best Website Designs from 2021

IBM’s The Harmonic State

Award: Site of the Month (July 2021), Awwwards

When you land on this IBM web page, it’s clear to see why the design won an award.

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The best way to describe the website is as an immersive experience. In fact, IBM uses both visual and auditory elements to draw the visitor in and keep them engaged.

When you first land on the web page, you’re prompted to put on headphones to get the full experience. Even if you skip this step, you’re drawn in by the interactive background that reacts as your mouse navigates on the page.

In addition, the page is well balanced with a large title that grabs your attention across from a small description with a bold blue CTA.

With a topic as complex as AI, IBM then uses visual storytelling to explain how its Watson tool works in the real world. Visitors can explore three stories through video game-like functions and learn more about the tool.

It’s a fun and effective way to get users engaged in a topic that can be complicated and dry.

Looking for more corporate website examples? Check out 25 Stunning Corporate Websites to Inspire Yours.

Superlist

Award: Site of the Month (April 2021), Awwwards

Superlist is a productivity app that helps teams and individuals change the way they work.

Too often, you land on a website and have to figure out what the brand is about. With Superlist, you know exactly what to expect as soon as you get to the homepage.

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The interactive homepage shows common work accessories, like headphones and keyboard with clear, to-the-point copy.

Superlist effectively uses white space to keep the focus on its copy. However, to facilitate navigation, they include a small button with an arrow icon to indicate that there’s more to see on the page once you scroll.

From there, the fun visuals continue – keeping you engaged as you learn more about the brand.

Best Website Designs from 2020

Swab the World

Award: Site of the Day (2020), Awwwards

Parallax, bold colors, and negative space shape the design and experience of Swab the World’s website. The organization brings awareness to stem cell donations. Their mission is to “Make sure every single patient finds their match. Period.” Photos of couples exhibiting love and emotions bring a human element to a historically complex and scientific process.

From a technical perspective, the design makes moving down the page feel natural, ensuring the readers reach each point of copy and every CTA on the homepage.

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Newest Americans

Award: Honorable Mention (2020), Awwwards

An organization with a responsibility as large as honoring past, present, and future migrating identities needs a beautiful and functional website to help spread the word. Newest Americans champion immigrant experiences in cities across the state of New Jersey. The website uses beautiful imagery of people, places, and items that represent this experience in a way that flows cohesively down the homepage, telling the story of this group of America’s newest citizens.

The website is both visually appealing and functional with a simple navigation menu, stories organized by photos, and a clean press page that puts the most recent articles front and center.

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Spotify Design

Award: Honorable Mention (2020), Awwwards

Spotify is known for its fair share of amazing feats, and its latest iteration of Spotify.Design is no different. Serving as the hub for all things visual and creative for Spotify, the music and podcast streaming giant gives listeners a look into the who, what, why, and how of what makes the app so sensational.

Bright colors, drop shadows, and smooth animations give this website character and depth. The flat geometric designs with abstract accents make albums and artists practically jump off of the screen.

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Looking for more design inspiration from microsites like this one? Read our post of the Best Microsite Examples We've Ever Seen.

Andy Warhol

Award: Honorable Mention (2020), Awwwards

Artist, film director, and producer Andy Warhol’s life is encapsulated in this splendidly designed website that captures his art style in a digital format. As you peruse the page, your cursor becomes a spotlight that converts every image you hover over into a negative image or inverses the colors of the text you’re reading.

The big, bold text makes a statement and emphasizes just how important copy is to website design. Subtle animations help pace the site and set the tone for each section as you peruse the home page.

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Human Interaction Company

Award: Corporate Website (2020), Red Dot

To see video done right, look no further than the Human Interaction Company. From the moment you click on the site, the experience is lightning fast. You’re dropped directly into the action — the why, what, and how of Human Interaction and exactly what the team does.

This Red Dot Design Award winner aims to bring the study of human interaction to the masses, and in the process, show us just how engaging it can be to learn about it. Don’t get discouraged by their award status though — none of the photos on this site are photoshopped, so it’s a practical example of building quality with the resources you have available.

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Garoa Skincare

Award: Site of the Day (2020), Awwwards

How do you transform the feeling of luxury and practicality into a website? Garoa Skincare provides a blueprint. Whether your product costs half the price of your closest competitor or twice the price, your site can bring a sense of extravagance to just about any product you sell.

High-quality visuals, typefaces that complement each other, and a balance of negative space with useful copy can bring a simplistic elegance to your website.

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Best Website Designs from 2019

1917: In the Trenches

Award: Awwwards' Best Website of the Day (2019)

This website, made to promote the film 1917, lets you walk around the trenches and perform the same mission that the characters did in the film. You can also see their maps or access other tools.

This is a great example of a site that went above and beyond with interactivity as well as a site that leverages its content and prewritten storyline to market its film. This website won Site of the Day by Awwwards, which allows designers to vote and nominate great websites they see daily.

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The Octopus: A design blog by IDEO

Award: Business Blog/Website 2019 Webby award

IDEO, a global design company, won the Business Blog/Website 2019 Webby award for its Octopus blog, and for good reason. The blog features a sleek, black-and-white Octopus drawing as its homepage design, and uses yellow, black, and white to create a cohesive theme as you scroll.

If you hover over a blog post, the title is highlighted in yellow. If you hover over an image, the image is pulled towards you — two small features that make a big difference in terms of creating a unique and engaging user experience.

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Nomadic Tribe

Award: Awwwards' Site of the Year nomination (2019)

This site, which was nominated for Awwards' Site of the Year, is one of the more engaging sites I've seen.

The homepage immediately begins playing a stunning video featuring a man walking across a desert, followed by gorgeous landscape scenes and text like, "Are you lucky enough to call yourself an adventurer?"

The text throughout the website is playful, with colorful pinks and oranges and yellows, and the homepage is logically designed, with CTAs placed throughout that range in commitment-level from "Read More" to "Watch Now" and, finally, "Download the App".

Ultimately, the website is beautifully designed with strong attention to detail, and tells a compelling story throughout.

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Diana Danieli

Award: Webby 2019

This 2019 Webby-winning site shows off imagery of art and architecture with either high contrast or heavy exposure. As a website visitor, you can click and drag your mouse to change the photos and variations. Each image shows a piece of work that highlights the artist who owns the website.

A cool plus about this website is its incorporation of audio and music. Clicking on certain buttons on the screenplays a piano note and truly immerses you in the Diana Danieli experience.

Want to see more personal websites? Check out our post on the Best Personal Websites.

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George Nakashima Woodworkers

Award: Webby 2019

This woodworking website emphasizes nature and care for the woodworking trade. It's essentially a slideshow of beautiful forestry and farming images. As a new image comes on the screen, a new quote related to wood or trees also appears.

This is incredibly relaxing to the visitor and shows that the woodworkers recognize the beauty of trees and the environment. This website also won a Webbie in 2019.

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Best Website Designs from 2018

crypton.trading

Award: Site of the Day (4/3/2018), Awwwards

Meet crypton.trading, your robot accountant.

Crypton.trading is a trading hub for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, using artificial intelligence to predict changes in a currency's value and identify key buying and selling opportunities. The website was rated high for its development and design, as it gradually explains more of the developer's methods the further down visitors scroll.

This website makes tech-savvy visitors feel right at home the moment Crypton's greeting appears across the homepage, one letter at a time.

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Southwest: Heart of Travel

Award: Best Visual Design - Aesthetic, 2018 Webby Awards

When Southwest Airlines wanted to prove that its customers were "more than just a dollar sign," the company created a website where the design was assembled using the shapes of their customers' flight paths.

The website, called Heart of Travel, even allows visitors to create their own artwork out of a trip they might plan on taking. In this way, Southwest's website is a product of their most loyal passengers.

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Overflow

Award: Site of the Day (3/20/2018), Best Website Gallery

Overflow is a design tool that allows people and businesses to create story-like flow diagrams of their ideas so they're easier for others to understand. Aside from this being just a good service, the Overflow website practices what it preaches: Along with vibrant red call-to-action buttons for downloading the tool, this website promotes its product the best way it knows how — using a flow diagram.

The website delivers this flow diagram in the form of a video. While embedded videos can look clunky sitting in the middle of a website's other design elements, Overflow's is perfectly placed and exactly what you'd want to see when landing on the site for the first time.

Check out our SaaS web design post for more inspiration.

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Frans Hals Museum

Award: Site of the Year (2018), Awwwards

It can be tough for a museum to present all of its artwork together on a cohesive website. That's what makes the website of the Frans Hals Museum so impressive.

Located in the Netherlands, this museum has created a website that uses a combination of digital design elements and its own exhibits. This mixture helps visitors understand what they'll see, when they can see it, and where else they can get a taste of what this museum has to offer.

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Best Website Designs from 2017

Simply Chocolate

Award: Site of the Year (2017), Awwwards

You'll get a craving for chocolate just looking at this website — and in a way, that's Simply Chocolate's website working as designed.

This appetizing website is that of a Denmark chocolate maker Simply Chocolate. Its website uses a variety of colors (and creative product names) to promote each chocolate bar. And as you scroll from one product to the next, they all seem to remain consistent in brand.

The three-dimensional appearance of each chocolate bar makes you feel like you can grab it off of your computer screen, while the "Add to Box" CTA to the top-left is ideally placed for users to select the products they want while browsing.

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NOWNESS

Award: Best Cultural Blog/Website, 2017 Webby Awards

NOWNESS is perhaps the coolest crowdsourced video blog on the internet. That was a mouthful...what does it all mean?

NOWNESS' crowdsourcing is part of what makes it an award-winner. This means most of its content comes from independent creatives — an increasingly popular way for businesses to publish content.

NOWNESS is also a video channel, meaning all of its blog content is in video format. Together, these qualities help make Nowness a captivating hub for the stories that brands everywhere strive to tell.

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Best Website Designs from 2016

Rainforest Guardians

Award: Best Activism Website, 2016 Webby Awards

Rainforest Guardians was one of the most immersive nonprofit websites of 2016. Seeking to build awareness around deforestation, the site allows users to "visit" the various villages, natives, and waterways that make up the Amazon Rainforest.

The site puts interactivity at the center of its user experience — a wise choice if your goal is to get people to connect with your cause and convert into volunteers.

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Protest Sportswear

Award: Site of the Year (2016), Awwwards

The Awwwards calls Protest Sportswear a "shoppable lookbook," and that's exactly what this site is. As a clothing outfitter, this company has reinvented the way they market its product: Rather than promoting garments of clothing, Protest Sportswear promotes "looks."

This makes the company's product the most appealing part of the website itself, using a collage of styles to design a homepage that changes as often as its customer's styles do.

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The Teacher's Guild

Award: Best Association Website, 2016 Webby Awards

The Teacher's Guild is a professional community of educators that addresses some of the most critical challenges in education. What makes this website award-winning is how it balances diverse content types — programs, solutions, approaches, and collaborations — without overwhelming visitors.

Not only are the background visuals prominently placed, but they also use white space to emphasize the written calls to action at the center, as shown in the screenshot below.

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Best Website Designs from 2015 – 2014

Virgin America

Award: Most Significant Industry Evolution, 2014 UX Awards

In a world where airline websites are known to be riddled with major usability issues, Virgin America has one of the best websites that pushes usability, accessibility, and responsive design forward.

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Feed

Award: Site of the Day (6/6/2015), Awwwards

Not only is Feed an interesting concept, but it also has a stunning execution that challenges our understanding of what is possible on the web. Through a creative blend of animation and video, the site immerses users in an engaging experience.

As an atypical site, it contains several unique usability elements, including navigation that doubles as a scroll progress bar.

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ETQ

Award: Site of the Day (5/19/2015), Awwwards

ETQ takes a minimalist approach to ecommerce. Big, compelling visuals of their product lay against simple, flat backgrounds accompanied by strong typography that keeps the focus on exactly what the user came there to see: shoes.

Looking for more ecommerce website inspiration? Read our post of the Best Ecommerce Website Design Examples to Get Inspired.

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Mikiya Kobayashi

Award: Site of the Day (7/4/2015), Awwwards

Mikiya is a Product Designer with a minimalistic portfolio that showcases his work through strong photography and subtle animations. His full site was originally created in Japanese and then translated into English, helping demonstrate the international scalability of his design.

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Woven Magazine

Award: Site of the Day (4/4/2015), Best Website Gallery

Woven is an online publication that celebrates artists, crafters, and creators alike. Its website confirms that publications can (and should) have beautiful, engaging visuals with easy-to-read content. Free of distractions like pop-ups and intrusive ads, this site is all about the experience of the content itself.

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JOHO's Bean

Award: FWA of the Day (8/7/2015), Favorite Website Awards

The website for JOHO's Bean has incredible imagery, interactivity, storytelling, visual design, and most of all, sound engineering. These all come together to create a compelling, emotional, and engaging site that tells the story of a coffee bean's journey.

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World of SWISS

Award: Best User Interface, 2015 Webby Awards

Another airline? Yep. SWISS airlines built an incredibly immersive site that tells the story of what it's like to fly with them — and they did too great of a job to be ignored. Strong visuals and animations introduce the user to different sections of the site that are packed with information beyond the usual sales and marketing pitch.

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Other Cool Website Designs

Guillaume Tomasi

As a Photographer in Montreal, Guillaume Tomasi has built a portfolio that's truly fit to house his unique and awe-inspiring photography. His surreal photo style is juxtaposed by his simple, flat, empty, and minimalistic portfolio design that places all of the focus on the work itself.

His unique series navigation coupled with art-gallery-inspired work introductions and perfect scrolling interactions yield an experience reminiscent of that of a real gallery.

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The District

This branding agency takes its imagery seriously, and it should — it handles all channels of media for its clients. The District's website alone is a journey through some of the most beautiful artwork and photography you've ever seen.

These provocative tiles change rapidly as you explore the website, and the wackier they seem, the more interested you become in learning about their past work.

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Tej Chauhan

Tej Chauhan has turned impressionist artwork into a business model with this intriguing website. Each image on this product developer's homepage slides out to cover the previous image, offering little context around the object you now see in front of you. But it’s that lack of context that makes you want to learn more.

Plus, the tagline, "Souvenirs of The Near Future," suggests these objects are a part of their product line — and an opportunity for you to bring these innovative objects into your life.

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Want a similar look for your website? Check out the new CMS Hub theme collection on the Envato marketplace.

Amanda Martocchio Architecture

An architecture firm might not specialize in web development, but its website should still demonstrate its commitment to visually pleasing design. Amanda Martocchio took that to heart with this gorgeous website.

It's no secret that Amanda Martocchio Architecture loves its work — each picture on the homepage of its website is an enchanting shot of the houses the company designs. The website labels every house you scroll through with the type of design that was intended, along with numerous angles to each building.

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Where to Get Your Design Inspiration

If you want some design inspo, the good news is that you can find it just about everywhere.

One of the best ways to get inspiration for design is through travel. When you visit new places, you’re forced to get out of your comfort zone and experience something foreign.

What makes design so interesting is that everyone sees it differently and so, there’s always more to discover.

Another way to get design inspiration IRL is through the media. Every day, we are inundated with visual content. We make decisions about what we like, what we don’t like, and continue on our day.

But what if you were more intentional about how you viewed those interactions? You could come out of it with valuable insights.

You also can’t forget to leverage design communities. From design conferences to Reddit forums, there are hundreds of groups out there that can offer inspiration as well as advice.

Now that we’ve covered some IRL design inspiration sources, let’s cover the digital ones.

Website Design Inspiration Sources

1. HubSpot’s Website Themes & Templates Marketplace

HubSpot’s Website Themes & Templates Marketplace (previously HubSpot Asset Marketplace) houses hundreds of website templates that you can sift through to get inspired for your own website.

The best part of the marketplace is that you can narrow down by industry and feature, allowing you to see the templates that are most relevant.

Once you find a template you like, you can view a live preview of the site to get a full experience then download it if you decide to use it.

2. Dribble

Dribble is where designers go to get inspired and to share their work. The website has everything from animation and branding to illustration and mobile.

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Once you navigate to the “Web Design” tab on the homepage, you can filter results by color scheme, editing software, timeframe, and tags.

Furthermore, if you find a designer whose work you like, you can save the design for future reference and follow their work to see other designs on their profile.

This is an incredible resource to use whether you’re starting from scratch or already have a solid plan in mind.

3. Bēhance

This is another digital platform full of creative inspiration to leverage ahead of your website design project.

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One of the best features on this site is the ability to filter by location. This allows you to see how designers in different regions differ in technique and style.

This can be particularly helpful if you are designing a website for a foreign, unfamiliar market. You can gain interesting insights by evaluating the decisions made by Behance designers.

4. Pttrns

Want to focus on mobile web design? Pttrns is the place to go.

This subscription-based platform allows you to gain access to thousands of mobile design templates and get advice from top designers all over the world.

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Additional features on this platform include:

• A favorites and collections folder to store your favorite designs.
• A studio to interact with other designers and get advice.
• A design guide to understand the strategy behind the designs.

Website Design Ideas

Now that you've seen a number of beautifully designed and award-winning platforms, keep these potential ideas in mind as you create your own. Here are a few suggestions we have to help you can create a site that could appear on our best website design inspiration list.

• Consider ways that you can make your website interactive, like the 1917 example.
• Make a website that emphasizes the mobile experience, even while it still has a good UX on desktops.
• Create a website that tells a story about your brand with photos, text, or video.
• If you can't create a heavily interactive site, consider drawing in eyes with a site that presents a slideshow of your photos.
• Ensure your call-to-actions are easy to see and encourage visitors to continue exploring your site
• Keep navigation clean. Ensure your visitors always know how to get back to the homepage.
• Integrate your social media sites via social embed buttons, so site visitors can easily follow you on your various social channels.
• Keep each of your web pages consistent in design — including font, colors, images, and messaging.
• Test your website's usability with a heat map, which will show you on which web pages your visitors are most likely to bounce.
• Include a live chat or chatbot to give visitors the option to engage with you directly on your website if they prefer live chat to phone calls. Live chat can automate functions for your sales and service reps and create a better communication experience for the customer.
• Get an SSL certificate to ensure your website is secure. SSL is part of Google's search ranking algorithm, so an SSL certificate can help you rank higher in search.

Build a Beautiful Website for your Business

Now that you’ve perused our best website design inspiration, it’s time to get started creating your own site. You’d be surprised how easy designing a site is once you have a look and feel in mind.

Once you’re ready to start coding or dragging and dropping, you’ll have a beautiful website that your visitors will enjoy.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team.

In late February a new filter called “Bold Glamour” took TikTok by storm.

The Bold Glamour filter uses AI to drastically alter the facial features of those who use it and is less detectable than other filters. The filter has been used in over 30 million videos to date.

As Bold Glamour gained popularity it was widely criticized by TikTok users for promoting unrealistic beauty standards, especially for young people. Beauty brand Dove joined the conversation with a timely campaign featuring original data.

Per Dove research, 48% of girls who digitally alter their photos have lower self-esteem compared to 28% of girls who don’t digitally alter their photos. To amplify this message, Dove partnered with Ogilvy and DAVID to launch the #TurnYourBack campaign on March 7.

The campaign featured influencers and celebrities comparing their digitally altered faces to their natural appearances while encouraging their followers to turn their backs on the Bold Glamour filter in hopes that they discontinue using it.

Since the campaign launched, the hashtag #TurnYourBack has racked up over 40 million views on TikTok and has received generally positive feedback from audiences. This campaign isn’t Dove’s first stance taken against imagery promoting unrealistic beauty standards.

The company debuted its “No Digital Distortion Mark” in 2018 to authenticate photos that haven’t been digitally altered. In 2004, the company launched the Dove Self-Esteem Project which initially began with workshops for young people related to body image and beauty standards.

Currently, the Dove Self Esteem Project curates educational materials related to body image for parents, teachers, and youth leaders, and champions original research conducted by Edelman.  

Elsewhere in Marketing

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

Twitter announces plans to remove legacy blue check marks in April.

Adidas and Beyonce mutually decide to end their Ivy Park partnership.

Meta discontinues NFT support on Facebook and Instagram.

Instagram is beginning to test ad placements in search results.

Wistia’s head of production shares how AI will impact the future of video marketing.

Consumer trends: learn how consumer behavior has changed since 2022.

As the world constantly changes, it can be hard to stay up to date with ever evolving consumer behaviors, preferences, and trends.

But, as marketers, knowing your buyer persona -- and what motivates them -- is absolutely vital.

To help both marketers and business professionals alike, we conducted a bi-annual survey of 600+ U.S. adults in May 2022 and January 2023, and did a deep dive into generation-by-generation data to learn:

• What trends they're following.
• Which online platforms they use.
• How and where they prefer to shop.
• What they think about returning to the office.
• and much, much more.

Here, we'll explore some of the biggest consumer trends changes between May 2022 and January 2023. 

The 3 Biggest Consumer Trends Changes in the Past 9 Months

First, let's dive into three of the biggest changes we saw between May 2022 and January 2023. 

1. Engagement with virtual worlds stayed about the same, but consumers are investing less money into virtual items or currencies. 

Despite the waning hype around the metaverse, attitudes haven't changed much over the past six months. Both May and January's surveys found only 8% of U.S. adults have ever visited a metaverse.

Public opinion on the metaverse has improved slightly over the past nine months. 36% of consumers now say the metaverse is the future of technology — up 6% since May. And 33% say the metaverse is an extension of reality, up 18% since May. 

However, investments in virtual currencies have seen a decline. In fact, among those who've ever visited a metaverse, only 50% reported buying cryptocurrency in January — which is a 35% decrease since May. Additionally, 60% of metaverse visitors reported buying NFTs in January 2023 ... 13% lower than May's respondents. 

The decrease in purchasing virtual currencies might have to do with today's economic landscape. If people are generally more conservative with their spending, this could trickle into the virtual atmosphere, as well. However, it's important to take note of the decrease as a potential signifier that virtual currency isn't as popular as it was in 2022. 

2. Gen X and Boomers are warming up to social media as a product discovery/shopping channel, although TV ads and internet search are still preferred. 

In our January 2023 survey, we found 46% of Gen X and 24% of Boomers have discovered a new product on social media in the past three months — that's a 10% and 41% increase since May, respectively. 

Additionally, 23% of Gen X (up 28% from May 2022) and 6% of Boomers (up 50% from May 2022) bought a product on social media in the past three months. 

All of which is to say: The group of consumers willing to purchase products and services on social is growing rapidly. Continuing to invest in social media marketing as an opportunity for product discovery is a good ideas we enter 2023. 

3. Companies taking a stance on social issues has grown more influential on consumers' purchasing decisions since May 2022.

Oftentimes, consumers make purchasing decisions based on what they know of a company's social or environmental advocacy.

This trend has increased over the past six months. Some of the biggest jumps we saw include: 

• 52% of consumers say they're more likely to purchase from a company that actively tries to reduce its environmental impact (up 13% since May 2022)
• 39% say they are more likely to buy a product based on the brand’s commitment to diversity/inclusion (up 8% from May 2022)
• 69% say they are more likely to purchase from a company that donates a portion of its profits to charity (up 5% from May 2022)
• 79% of people are more likely to buy from companies that treat employees well
• 48% say a product being made by a small business makes them more likely to purchase (up 9% from May 2022)

All of which is to say: It's just as important – if not more so — to align your brand with strong values that matter to you, and to communicate those values to your consumers.

I know the power of this first-hand. I often buy Patagonia jackets, even though they're more expensive than some other coat brands, because I'm proud to support Patagonia's environmental activism. 

Next, let's dive into the state of consumer trends in 2023, and how they've changed since 2022.

The State of Consumer Trends in 2023 [Top Findings You Need to Know About]

1. More and More, Gen Z Differentiates Themselves From All Other Age Groups

One of the most fascinating things to dig into when looking at survey results were the vast differences between Gen Z and other age groups -- including their closest predecessor, Millennials. 

When taking a deeper dive into our generation-by-generation data, we found that Gen Z:

• When it comes to shopping, generations are highly influenced by price, quality, and product reviews. Gen Z especially values brands that have active communities around them.
• TikTok and Instagram are the most used social media apps among Gen Z women, while men spend much more time on YouTube.
• Gen Z is all about YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Not only for social networking and entertainment but also for discovering (and buying) products.

The findings above weren't the only interesting points to call out. Our lead researcher and analyst, Maxwell Iskiev explores the differences between how all age groups shop and discover products with this follow-up guide:

How Each Generation Shops in 2023 [New Data from Our State of Consumer Trends Report]

2. BeReal saw a 313% increase in usage between May and January. 

We compared usage of social media platforms between May 2022 and January 2023, and were surprised to see that BeReal had the biggest increase in usage (313%), followed by Twitch (29%), and LinkedIn (20%). 

However, it's important to note that this doesn't suggest those platforms are used by most consumers. BeReal, for instance, saw a 200% increase from 1% to 3% of consumers — so it's still a relatively tiny sampling of the full consumer population. 

In terms of which platforms see the most consumer usage, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram still take the lead. 

3. While social media channels are fun and emerging, search is the most valuable tool.

While age groups like millennials and Gen Z are quick to dive into new and emerging channels, especially those in the social media realm, they still turn to online searches, TV, and other utility channels to learn about everything from trends to products.

When asked where and how they discover new products, most consumers -- regardless of age group -- pointed to web searches.

To learn more about the other top channels consumers discover products or brands on, as well as the content they love to see when they're there, check out Maxwell Iskiev's post: The Top Channels Consumers Use to Learn About Products [New Data] or our FREE and downloadable State of Consumer Trends Report PDF.

4. If you don't have a mobile-friendly strategy — you could fall behind.

It's no secret that each new generation gets more and more mobile and digitally connected. And, as the years go by, technology, websites, and social media networks are getting more and more mobile.

But, today Gen Z and Millennials aren't the only ones finding themselves surfing the web on mobile devices. Now, most consumers regularly use mobile devices for everything from search, to social media, to even online shopping.

These findings aren't surprising to us. In our 2023 Web Strategy Report, web managers we polled described mobile optimization to be an incredibly effective strategy for marketing and site growth. 

5. Some consumers are stepping into Web3, but most don't even know what it is.

While some consumers, especially those in younger generations like Gen Z and millennials, are ready to throw their whole wallet into the metaverse and cryptocurrency, most are still getting their first taste of the Web3 world.

In fact, 51% of our survey participants from the May 2022 survey say they don't even understand what Web3 even is yet.

While Web3 experts believe this technology will continue to grow in the coming years, businesses don't need to pivot their whole strategy to get ahead of it right this second.

However, as the technology gets more prominent and accessible, it's still helpful to learn about the potential opportunities and risks of the Web3 space. 

That's why Caroline Forsey interviewed a handful of Web3 experts to learn more about how it could impact how consumers use the world wide web in the future.

Here is a quick, overarching summary of what Web3 could mean for future internet usage from Anna Seacat, VP of Marketing and Web3 Community at Proxy.

While Web3 might be a new concept to many, expect to hear more about it as the technology becomes more accessible to consumers and businesses in the coming years. For more expert predictions around this, hear what our CMO Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan, our SVP of Marketing, have to say about it in this episode of Marketing Against the Grain.

For more insights, check out these guides:

• How Web3 Technology Will Impact Consumer Trends [Expert Insights]
  
• How Businesses Could Shift in Web 3 [Executive Insights & Podcast]
• Everything Brands Need to Know About the Metaverse

6. Consumers crave video, and effective brands are taking notice.

By now, you know that video has played a powerful role in the lives of consumers. Not only do consumers stream more video than ever, but year-over-year, HubSpot researchers find that most brands consider it to be their most effective type of marketing content. 

But, not just any video will result in a conversion, purchase, or view. While you don't need a huge budget to woo your audiences, you will need to create content they'll actually enjoy, keep their attention on, and be persuaded by.

In fact, 69% of our January 2023 respondents say it is more important that a marketing video be authentic and relatable than polished with high-quality video/audio.

This video interview and post from Wistia CEO, Chris Savage goes into great detail on his tips for leveraging video to humanize your brand.

For more on how marketers are benefiting from video in 2023, also check out our 2023 Video Marketing Report.

7. Stores and online retailers aren't going away, But social commerce is growing.

A few short months ago, it seemed like social commerce features on Facebook and Instagram were just launching and gaining visibility. And although consumers still prefer to shop at stores and on the sites of online retailers they know and trust, some have started to make purchases via their favorite social platforms. 

When we asked consumers to select the top three ways they prefer to buy products back in May 2022, a whopping 73% still prefer to shop in-store, while an unsurprising 53% said they like to buy from online retailers.

Flash-forward to our January 2023 survey, and we still found 69% of consumers prefer to purchase a product in-store, followed by 52% who prefer to purchase through an online retailer selling a variety of brands (e.g. Amazon.com).    

Despite how new social commerce is, one-tenth of consumers or 13% like to buy products directly from social media. And, with this trend starting to grow, we're already seeing some brands thrive on social commerce channels.

Take Pink Tag Boutique for example. The Kentucky-based clothing and accessories business saw immense growth on the Facebook Shops. They attribute $44,448 in incremental sales from the tool, and have seen 66% greater average order value from social commerce buyers compared to those who bought directly from the company site.

For more examples of brands that are already excelling in social commerce, check out this post.

You can also find more shopping trend data in this follow-up report from Caroline Forsey: The Shopping Trends of 2023 & Beyond [State of Consumer Trends Data]

8. Compared to May 2022, consumers now want to return to an office. 

For the last two years, consumers -- for the most part -- have been stuck working at home. And, while many initially found it to be a tough new transition, a lot of us have learned to love it. 

Back in May 2022, in our initial survey, we found 54% of survey participants would rather quit than return to an office. 

This isn't the case anymore. As of January 2023, in-office is now the model that most workers prefer. In fact, 36% of full-time employees prefer to be fully in-office, while only 31% want to be fully remote and 33% prefer hybrid.

Additionally, the number of full-time office employees has risen from 40% in May 2022 to 48% in January 2023. 

However, remote/hybrid employees aren’t interested in going back to the office full-time. 48% of them would still consider leaving if they had to come in 5X a week, although they are more open to it than they were back in May. 

Even in times of financial uncertainty, it seems that consumers care more than ever about job flexibility -- even in a time when job security is of larger concern. (In fact, 48% of full-time employees are currently concerned about being laid off.)

In the January 2023 report, we found The #1 reason employees plan to stay in their current job is healthy/work-life balance, beating out competitive pay at #2.

After all, countless studies show that it's not healthy to make your job your entire life.

So, if you're managing a team or planning an office re-entry strategy, keep your employees' needs in mind. Below are just a few of the other workplace factors that could keep employees from looking elsewhere. 

For more on this, check out Workforce Trends You Need To Know About in 2023 [New Data].

9. Many consumers consider themselves "creators."

When looking at our survey results for the question, "Would you consider yourself a creator?", we found that 30% of 18-24-year-olds and 40% of 25-34-year-olds call themselves content creators.

What's great for brands here? Your very own audiences might jump at the chance to create content for you, which could in turn help them build online influence.

But, what exactly IS a "creator"? Check out this deep dive by Caroline Forsey to learn more: If Everyone's a Content Creator, Is Anyone?

10. Consumers care about their privacy. Brands should too.

Throughout the last two years, marketers have been pivoting due to privacy changes like Apple IOS 15's email privacy rollout and the looming phaseout of third-party cookies. But, they might not want to stop there when it comes to considering consumer privacy.

Across generations, our data found that consumers are more likely to trust, interact with, and purchase products from brands that they trust with their data.

And, while lots of data is certainly helpful for brands when learning about audiences, consumer trust is the best way to earn loyalty.

In fact, in his post about fostering a privacy-first world, HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar gives tips on how marketers can create strategies that feel personalized, but use data in an ethical, trustworthy, and transparent way.

As a marketer, it's important to identify which data points you really need and don't need from your consumers and transparently explain how data like cookies or contact information is used when consumers are asked to give it out.

What's Next for Consumers, According to Trend Analysts

Now that you've read through the biggest findings of our Consumer Trends Report, you might also be asking, "What trends and themes could come in the next six months -- or beyond?"

To give you a taste of just a few trends to keep on your radar, we reached out to Julia Janks of Trends.co to learn what she and her team of trend analysts will be focusing on. Here are three of the nine trends they're keeping on their radar.

1. Gifting strategies could catch the eyes of consumers.

Forget loyalty points — gifting is the new customer retention strategy. As remote everything continues to rise, keeping connected to clients and loved ones will be key.

Source: &Open

Gifting powerhouse 1-800-FLOWERS had a record-breaking year in 2020, and venture capital is flowing into startups like &Open ($7.2m last May) and Gracia (~$14m since its 2017 launch).

Companies will also use gifting to target employees, since worker retention is at an all-time low, and the average cost of replacing an employee is about seven months of their salary.

2. Voice search and audio SEO opportunities will grow.

The world of podcasts is growing faster than the entire internet did back in the early 2000s. Spotify alone now hosts 3m+ shows (that’s ~43x the number of titles on Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+, combined).

3. Consumers will visit pop-up shops -- in the metaverse.

Pop-up shops in the metaverse are a thing now. And, brands like Hogan are already testing them out.

We could see the metaverse shopping industry continue to grow with consumer interest, as 30% of consumers HubSpot surveyed think more brands should consider virtual stores.

For the Julia's full list of trends to watch, check out 9 Things Trends.co Analysts Will be Watching in The Next 6 Months & Beyond -- and don't forget to check out Trends.co for more business news, innovative ideas, and industry trend coverage.

Dive Deeper into Consumer Trends

In the post above, we gave just a few highlights of our State of Consumer Trends Survey, as well as our predictions for what's to come. To learn more interesting themes, check out these follow-up posts:

• The Top Shopping Trends of 2023 [State of Consumer Trends Data]
• The Top Channels Consumers Use to Learn about Products [New Data]
• How Each Generation Shops in 2023 [State of Consumer Trends Data]
• 9 Things Our Trends Team Will be Following in the Next 6 Months & Beyond
• How Web3 Will Impact the Future of Consumer Trends [Expert Insights]

Want all the data in one place? Click below to download the full findings of the survey in our State of Consumer Trends Report

Consumer Trends Post Authors

Despite their overwhelmingly bad reputation, popups are a useful tool, but high conversion potential is not worth sacrificing user experience. Luckily, with the right WordPress popup plugins, you can leverage the high-conversion potential of popups without driving users away.)

Before diving into the tools, let's look at the features to determine if a plugin suits your needs.

What to look for in a WordPress Popup Plugin

Popup plugins offer many features -- from customization to screen display locations and built-in analytics -- but the most important features to watch out for are targeting and trigger options.

Targeting refers to where the popup will appear on your website and who it will be shown to. Popular ways to target users with popups include page-level targeting, geolocation, device, and traffic source.

Triggers are actions that a user needs to take for the popup to appear. Popular trigger options include page entrance, scroll depth, clicks, time on page, and exit intent.

Having a few popup forms on your WordPress website could boost your lead capturing game. A quick Google search shows that there are many tools to choose from. To help you sort through the clutter and find a tool that moves the needle for your team, we'll take a look at 12 WordPress popup plugins you should consider below.

1. HubSpot WordPress Plugin

HubSpot’s plugin allows you to connect your WordPress website to your HubSpot account for seamless integration. Any changes made to your popups in your HubSpot portal will be automatically reflected on your WordPress website without any extra work on your part.

HubSpot’s popup tool is highly intuitive and easy to use. You are first prompted to select the type of popup you want (box, banner, or slide-in) and then taken to the customizer where you can edit the text, add an image and relevant form fields, and even design your own thank-you message at the end.

Every contact you capture is automatically added to your free HubSpot CRM account. You can also target users by simply typing in the URL of the page(s) you want your popup to show up on and choose whether you want it to be triggered by a 50% page scroll, exit intent, or time elapsed. And if users decide to dismiss your popup, you can choose when they will be exposed to it again.

All the features in this tool are free.

What We Like: Other than the obvious reason being that this is our plugin, we love it for all it offers for free. This is an all-in-one plugin that handles everything you need on WordPress. With popups, you can create or manage your pre-existing popups with little to no hassle.

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster was one of the firsts to popularize the use of popup forms in the marketing space. Its drag-and-drop feature makes it highly easy to use. You can choose from a variety of pre-built templates or create your own popup from scratch. Their Canvas feature allows you to create any type of popup (not just forms!) with the use of custom HTML/CSS and WordPress shortcodes.

Small Success is another unique feature that lets you display different offers to people who have already converted on one of your popups so you won’t annoy your visitors by showing them forms they’ve already signed up for. You gain access to plenty of triggers, such as exit intent, time on page, user inactivity, clicks, as well as many advanced targeting options like new vs returning visitor, cookie, geolocation, device, adblock usage, and more.

The main drawback with this plugin is that there is no free version. Plans start at $9/month, but you will need to upgrade to a higher tier for the more advanced features like A/B testing and exit intent.

What We Like: This is the best option for easy customizability. You have drag-and-drop for design, different templates to work off of, or even the ability to design from scratch. You’ll easily be able to with any type of popup you want to make with this plugin.

3. Elementor Popups

Design stunning popups with the popular page builder plugin Elementor and their Popup Builder feature. Elementor Popups uses the same interface as the page builder, allowing you to apply the same widgets and styling options to your popups, like buttons, countdown timers, email opt-in forms, and more. Similarly to many of the other plugins, this one offers a variety of popup forms like fly-ins and full-screen overlays.

With more than 100 beautiful templates to choose from, this popup builder lets you create WordPress specific page targeting options (categories, tags, post formats, etc.) with several triggers to choose from, such as click, time, scroll, inactivity, and exit intent.

This plugin does not come with built-in analytics or A/B split testing. And while the Elementor page builder plugin is free to use, this popup builder is only available when you purchase the pro version, which costs $49 for one website, and up to $199 for unlimited sites.

What We Like: Elementor’s popup plugin is a great choice for premium designers. You won’t need any coding experience to create stunning popups for your users. This is another all-in-one plugin that helps you build

4. Sumo List Builder

Sumo is more than just a popup form builder. On top of growing your email list, this plugin also helps with your social media, link building, and site analytics. The app has a module called List Builder, which allows you to create popups. You can set you popups to show up according to traffic source or different triggers such as clicks, time on page, exit intent and scroll depth.

Though this plugin comes with a free version, only one template is available in the free tier and you’ll need to upgrade to remove the Sumo branding. Premium plans start at $29/month, which puts Sumo on the more expensive side compared to other popup plugins.

What We Like: This plugin is great for building your email list. You have an intuitive integration with email and e-commerce, making this the perfect plugin for anyone looking to grow their business through email marketing.

5. PopUp Domination

PopUp Domination is one of the oldest popup tools out there. However, this hasn’t stopped them from making the right updates to stay competitive on the market. Its visual interface still makes it fairly easy to customize one of the 100+ pre-built templates available.

This plugin lets you show your popup to different users based on time on page, user inactivity, exit intent, clicks, total time on website, and mouse hover. On top of page-level targeting, more advanced targeting options include geolocation, traffic source, and device.

PopUp Domination has a royalty rate pricing structure. Each tier grants you access to all the features: unlimited domains and popups, A/B testing, live chat support, and more. Instead of being charged to have access to more features, you’re charged based on the number of total views your popups get across all of your websites.

If you want to use your popups on many websites that have low traffic, PopUp Domination might be a good solution. However, this may not be the best option for you if you have very few sites with high traffic volumes.

What We Like: This plugin is great for beginners since you will have many resources to help you use the tool and a relatively low price for getting started. Once your website starts getting more subscribers, however, you might want to look toward pivoting toward a more price-friendly option for your popup ads.

6. MailOptin

MailOptin is a fast-growing popup plugin for WordPress. It converts your website visitors into email subscribers using different types of opt-in forms including popups, notification bars, inline or embedded forms, scroll boxes, slide-ins, sidebar forms etc.

It is intuitive and easy to you in part because it uses the WordPress Customizer that you already know and love. It ships with a ton of professionally designed and mobile responsive templates to choose from.

It includes a number of display triggers such as page-level targeting, exit intent, time on site, pageviews, scroll trigger, adblock and referral detection, device targeting, new versus returning visitors etc. And integrates with all major email marketing providers and CRMs including Hubspot.

MailOptin is freemium. You can try out the plugin for free by downloading the lite version on WordPress.org repository or purchase a premium license to unlock more powerful features and top-notch customer support.

What We Like: This popup plugin integrates well with WordPress since you work directly through WordPress customizer. This can be great for people familiar with WordPress and just want something that works.

7. Ninja Popups

Ninja Popups is one of CodeCanyon’s top selling plugins. For $24, you gain access to their drag-and-drop popup builder with over 70 templates and animation effects to choose from.

And if you want more than just forms, Ninja Popups lets you create all kinds of popups, such as video displays and social sharing boxes. Its anti-adblocker technology lets you show your popups even to visitors who use ad blockers. This plugin also offers page-level targeting, and trigger options include scroll depth, time on page, exit intent, and user inactivity.

Although there is no free version, at only $24, Ninja Popups offers some of the most creative freedom for the price.

What We Like: This plugin is effective and enables your creativity. Bypassing adblockers is especially helpful considering 2 in 5 people use adblock today.

8. Icegram

If you’re looking for a more native option, Icegram lets you create popups right from the WordPress dashboard, thought its text-based interface makes it slightly less user friendly than most. Icegram’s trigger options include time on page, exit intent, user inactivity, clicks, and time delay. Targeting options include page, user retargeting, device, and geolocation.

This plugin offers a fair amount of value for free, but to access more functionalities, you will want to upgrade. Premium plans start at $97/year.

What We Like: This plugin is another great choice for working directly through WordPress. If you can get past the text-based interface, this is a good option for those needing a simple popup ad solution.

9. Popup Maker

Popup Maker offers a lot of flexibility in terms of what you can build. In addition to opt-in forms, you can create cookie notices, video lightboxes, notification boxes, etc.

A big draw of this plugin is its WooCommerce integration, which lets you target users based on their shopping cart items, purchase data, and more. However, this plugin’s lack of a visual editor makes it less friendly to use.

You can use Popup Maker for free, but for more functionality, individual extensions can be purchased starting at $87 per year

What We Like: This plugin lets you tailor your website popup ads to your user. You also have a good set of basic options to work off of as mentioned. Popup Maker is another good choice for those who are familiar with WordPress and just want a simple way to add popups to their page. The extra benefit is being able to work off of consumer data.

10. Bloom Email Opt-Ins

Provided to you by the devs at Elegant Themes (authors of the popular Divi theme), Bloom comes with over 100 templates to customize and lets you create a variety of forms on top of popups, including widgets, inline boxes, and optin lockers which you can use for gated content. Along with basic page targeting, this plugin contains unique trigger options -- for example, make a popup appear after a user has left a comment on your page or after a user has made a purchase.

Despite its high-quality templates and beautiful dashboard, Bloom lacks a lot of the advanced features other plugins offer like an exit intent trigger option, and it doesn't have a visual customizer.

Because this plugin comes from Elegant Theme, you can only access it by purchasing an Elegant Theme subscription, which costs $89/year or $249 for lifetime support and updates. This subscription also gives you access to 87 premium themes and 2 other plugins. But if all you’re looking for is a popup plugin, this may not be worth the investment.

What We Like: Bloom Email Opt-ins is a great choice for people who need more than just a popup plugin. You can fully customize your website through this plugin, and that includes popup ads.

11. Popup Builder

Popup Builder lets you insert any type of content into your popups and create custom animation effects. It offers features like automatic closing, user retargeting, and time delay triggers, as well as integrations with email service providers MailChimp and AWeber.

While this plugin can be used for free, just like Popup Maker, you will need to purchase extensions for additional functionality. Individual extension prices vary between $5 and $15, but you can get the full bundle starting at $49/month.

What We Like: Popup builder is a good option for those wanting to make mobile-friendly popup ads. Its intuitive user experience lets you build great looking popups in seconds.

12. Poptin

Poptin is a free popup and form builder specially designed for marketers, website owners, and digital agencies. Its powerful conversion optimization features are effective in boosting email signups, reducing cart abandonment, increasing engagement, and improving your overall sales conversion rate. It has a variety of fully responsive and customizable popup and forms templates that you can utilize without the need for coding.

In a matter of minutes, you can create your lightbox popups, full-screen overlays, gamified popups, countdown popups, slide-ins, bars, widgets, email forms, and more. You can add different elements such as images, videos, icons, countdown timer, coupons, and even custom CSS. The best part is that you can Integrate it with HubSpot CRM and emailing software to experience a seamless lead generation funnel. Poptin also offers a wide range of smart triggers and targeting rules to better convert the most qualified leads and customers.

Poptin’s free plan already includes major tools and features like analytics, A/B testing, exit-intent trigger, unlimited popups, and forms, among others. If you want to get access to more advanced features, you can always upgrade to its paid plans which start at only $25 per month.

What We Like: This plugin gives you a lot of bang for your buck. While other plugins on this list charge you for access to analytics, this tool gives you all of that for free. Poptin is best for marketers looking to add popups and dive into the data behind what makes them effective.

Choose whichever plugin fits your needs the best.

There are endless options when it comes to WordPress popup tools.

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to collect user information and convert leads, check out HubSpot's free form popup WordPress plugin. Installing the plugin will automatically connect your demand capture tools to the free HubSpot CRM so you can easily create follow-up emails for people who have filled out your form, track their activity on your site, and manage your leads all in one place.

While economists and investors debate whether we are or aren’t in a recession, 78% of marketers say it's already here.

Since marketers are usually the first to see budget cuts in an economic downturn, it’s no surprise they’re already being hit hard. As one marketer in our sums it up:

“The company is losing money, having to raise pricing, and the budget for marketing is smaller. Because prices are higher and the marketing budget is lower, there is not enough marketing for the traffic and conversions we need.”

To help marketers recognize they're not alone, we surveyed 300 marketers to find out exactly how they are being impacted by the recession.

While 47% of marketers said that the economy was already having a negative impact on their work, we also dug deeper to discover three key impact themes marketers are experiencing.

In this post, we'll highlight those themes, share quotes from anonymous marketers who's participated, and offer resources or tips to help you navigate this time.

Three Marketing Impacts Caused by Recession Concerns

1. Consumers are spending less and exercising more caution/discretion:

Though not surprising, the biggest impact marketers are seeing is that consumers are cutting costs back due to uncertainty. This aligns well with data we've found from multiple consumer pulse surveys over the last six months.  

From inflation to geopolitical uncertainty and lingering COVID-19 concerns, consumers simply have no idea what to expect from the future.

“People are spending less because they do not know how long the recession is going to last. As a result, they spend less on our products," says one survey respondent.

To make matters worse, a majority (67%) of marketers expect the recession to last more than six months, and one-third expect it to last more than a year:

While we don't have a crystal ball, aren't giving legal or financial expert advice, and can't possibly know what a full-blown recession will feel or look like at this point, it's important to remember that recessions are often unavoidable. While we can't prevent them, it's important to continue leveraging credible sources, data, and experts beyond just a few publications when determining when, if, and how a modern-day recession would impact your business.

2. Inflation has made everything more expensive across businesses.

While consumers are pulling back spending, inflation forces businesses to raise prices and cut budgets for things they're purchasing to stay afloat.

As a marketer in our survey put it, “higher prices make it hard to make ends meet. I have to delay payments, purchases, and planning.”

Company’s raising prices while consumers are scraping by leads to a misalignment between the two parties, leading to frustration on both sides.

3. 37% of marketers have already seen budget cuts.

Marketers in our survey say they’re “needing to spend more to get similar results from six months ago.” At the same time, their budgets are being cut.

With their usual marketing channels proving to be less effective than before, marketers are having to get creative.

On top of that, one in three marketers say a recession will have an even bigger impact on their marketing activities than COVID-19, while another 33% say it will be about the same.

One way to stay ahead of the game is by following suit of the 80% of established marketing leaders, who participated in another survey we ran, saying they’ve already planned or prepared for a recession. 

If you run a team or major project that requires a budget, and haven't started strategic planning for different company outcomes, here's a helpful guide. For marketers at any level, it can also be a great idea to make pivot or backup plans for how you'll adjust your content, schedules, or other aspects of your work if something unexpected happens. 

What’s Next?

So what now? We’ll run this same survey at a later data in the coming year and keep you updated on how the recession continues to impact marketers. In the meantime, you can review consumers' take on this time, get insights from marketing executives, or catch up on everything else going on in our quickly-changing field with our 2023 Marketing Strategy and Trends Report. 

Disclaimer: This blog post is not legal or financial advice for you or your company to use in navigating a recession, economic downturn, or any other type of economic landscape. Instead, it provides background information to help you better understand how anonymously surveyed marketers unaffiliated with HubSpot are currently experiencing this time.

This information is not the same as legal or financial advice, where an attorney applies the law or a financial expert applies their expertise to your specific circumstances, so we insist that you consult an attorney or trustworthy financial sources if you’d like advice on your interpretation of this information or its accuracy.

In summation, you may not rely on this as legal advice, or as a recommendation of any particular legal, economic, or financial understanding.

Video has become a cornerstone of modern marketing, landing front-and-center in many marketing strategies.

Yet, despite being an ROI powerhouse and top lead generator, video is a hard medium to pull off.

To state the obvious, video creation isn't quick. On average, it takes marketers two weeks to create a video from start to finish.

But what if there was a way to streamline the process — to quickly come up with ideas and execute them in a fraction of the time?

The solution could be here already, and it's with artificial intelligence.

Here, I spoke with Chris Lavigne, Head of Production at Wistia, to learn how AI is changing the way we create videos, and how it can power your next marketing video.

How AI is Changing Video Marketing

Imagine creating a video without writing a script or picking up a camera.

Thanks to new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools, it's not only possible, it's already happening.

Generative AI uses existing content like audio, video, and text to generate original content. In this case, video marketers can automate many stages of the process — like scripting, editing, and transcription — in a matter of seconds.

The ability to create videos in record time is an obvious benefit of using AI. But for Lavigne, it's more than just saving time. It also has the potential to push the creative envelope.

"For me, AI is opening the door to new ideas, new executions, and new visuals that I may not have come up with on my own. It's expanding my creative palette, not just saving me time," he told me.

For instance, Lavigne and his team at Wistia created a video almost entirely powered by AI.

The process began with Lavigne opening up ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot, to generate a 60-second script about how to make an apple pie in the style of a YouTube video. He then uses AI software Synthesia to create a human avatar of himself to read the script.

To top it off, he adds a few final touches with visuals and b-roll. Here's the end result:

Let's take a look at more ways you can use AI in the video creation process.

How AI Can Power Your Next Video

1. Ideation and Script Writing

For most video marketers, the hardest part of the process is coming up with a great idea, followed by a compelling script.

For Lavigne, using AI for scriptwriting has been a game-changer. Specifically, he uses ChatGPT to create a framework.

"I can input a prompt and get an incredible starting point to take me from zero to 100. I can input how long I want the video to be, how detailed I want it to be, and what style of video I want it to be. The results are quite remarkable when you prompt it with the right things," he told me.

For example, you can prompt ChatGPT to write an ad in the style of an info-mercial or a TikTok video. You can even request a specific tone, such as funny or academic.