My Blog My Blog

RFIs: The Simple Guide to Writing a Request for Information

RFPs
March 5, 2022/by
RFIs: The Simple Guide to Writing a Request for Information Large corporations and government agencies don't shop around for the best contractors and freelancers the same way a SaaS company or a small business might. Rather than relying on word of mouth, a quick Google search, or a Facebook ad, these organizations follow a procurement process that ensures fair business practices and quality results. As a preliminary step in the procurement process, an RFI gives a company or organization the information it needs to move forward with an RFP and RFQ. But what exactly is an RFI and what does this acronym stand for? RFIs are important because they reduce blind spots and empower your team to make better decisions. With more information at your disposal, you can understand the marketplace and get a better sense of the questions you'll need to ask as you move forward in the procurement process.   How does an RFI work? Step 1: The buyer develops the RFI. RFIs are written documents with the goal of collecting information from sellers. This information can be used to help buyers make a purchasing decision. The questions that are included in an RFI are specific and straightforward so that the sellers understand what the buyer is asking for. Sellers can find an RFI on the company's website, in databases like Procore, and government web pages like grants.gov. Step 2: Sellers draft responses to the RFI. Once a seller finds an RFI, they have a window...
Read Full Story

How to Insert a Checkbox in Excel in 4 Easy Steps

Excel
March 5, 2022/by
How to Insert a Checkbox in Excel in 4 Easy Steps Adding a checkbox to your workbook may sound simple but it can expand the possibilities of what you can do in Excel. From checklists to graphs, there’s so much you can do. However, it starts with the checkbox. Learn everything you need to know about checkboxes below. How to Insert a Checkbox in Excel Add the developer tab to your Ribbon. Navigate to the Developer tab and locate the "Checkbox" option. Select the cell where you want to add the checkbox control then click the checkbox. Right-click the checkbox to edit the text and adjust sizing. To do this on Windows, click File > Options > Customize Ribbon. Then, select the Developer checkbox and click "save." On IOS, click Excel > Preferences > Ribbon & Toolbar > Main Tabs. Then, select the Developer checkbox and save. On Windows, there are a few extra steps to see the checkbox option. Under the Developer tab, click "Insert" and under "Form Controls," click the checkbox icon. Note: Currently, you cannot use checkboxes in the web version of Excel. If you upload a workbook with these controls, you’ll first have to disable them to start editing. How to Format a Checkbox in Excel Open up the format control. Modify the value and cell link, then click "OK." To...
Read Full Story

How To Create a Google Sheets Drop-down Menu

Google Sheets
March 4, 2022/by
How To Create a Google Sheets Drop-down Menu A lot of the data you enter into your Google Sheets tables may be repetitive, like tracking whether an influencer you’ve reached out to for a partnership has agreed to working with you or not. It can get tedious to go in and type each yes or no as time goes on, which is where a critical tool, the drop-down list, becomes your best friend. In this post, we’ll go over how to add a drop-down list to your own Google Sheets data set to help save time. How to Add a Drop-down List in Google Sheets As mentioned above, a drop-down list can help you easily change elements of a cell when the content is repetitive. The example data set for this walkthrough (as shown in the image below) is tracking the progress of marketing campaigns on different channels and the stage they’re in; not yet started, in progress, or completed. I want to create a drop-down menu so I can easily go in and change the status of the campaign as time goes on. Before going through the steps, it might be helpful to see what a drop-down menu looks like so you can contextually understand each instruction. The gif below shows a final drop-down menu and how it applies to the sample data set. Let’s go over how to add a drop-down list to your Sheet. 1. In the toolbar header, click Data. 2. In the...
Read Full Story

What is Context Marketing? Why It Matters in 2022 [+Examples]

Marketing Strategy
March 3, 2022/by
What is Context Marketing? Why It Matters in 2022 While it's fair to say most marketers are on-board with the importance of content marketing, there's still an aspect of marketing that doesn't get as much love: context marketing. Whether you know what context marketing means or not, I'm willing to bet you want to deliver the right campaigns to the right customers at the right time. That’s what context marketing is all about. Here, we're going to introduce the concept of context marketing and dive into strategies you can use to implement it into your overall marketing strategy. My favorite context marketing definition is delivering the right content, to the right people, at the right time. Let me explain what I mean by context a little more, though. When you have context around something, you have a larger, more telling picture — you know, those little details that lend more clarity to things that would otherwise be pretty general, unspecific, and, well, uninteresting. The best marketers leverage context about their audience, leads, and customers in their content marketing. They create audience profiles and buyer personas and use that information to create more effective marketing and advertising campaigns. Now that we have a basic understanding of context marketing, you might be wondering what the difference is between content marketing and context marketing. Let’s take a look below. A marketer using context would know more about a lead than her first name. They might also know what industry...
Read Full Story

What is a Media Mix & The Most Effective Types [HubSpot Blog Data]

Media Planning
March 2, 2022/by
What is a Media Mix & The Most Effective Types I’m willing to bet that today, the typical campaign at any brand uses a media mix. This refers to the process of using multiple channels to meet marketing goals. The question is, how exactly does it help brands better plan campaigns? Let’s dive into how it works, review some stats, and see some brand examples. A media mix is another term for an overview of the channels businesses choose to execute their marketing strategies on. Ultimately, media mix optimization is the process of analyzing the performance of those channels. Think about the last campaign you saw from one of your favorite brands. What did they do differently that really clicked with you? By incorporating a media mix into your yearly planning, you can narrow down what resonates with your audience. Media Mix Example To see how a media mix works for a campaign, let’s use makeup brand The Lip Bar’s latest campaign: "Something BAWSE is coming." To build anticipation around its latest product launch and celebrate its 10-year company anniversary, The Lip Bar launched a multi-channel campaign that reached audiences both online and offline. First up, website. Image Source When you land on the brand’s homepage, you’ll see an image of the CEO with the following sentence "Shark Tank said no, 12,000 5-star reviews later, 100% that bawse." Upon clicking on the image, you’ll arrive at a landing page that has a timeline of the brand....
Read Full Story

3 Roles Marketing Leaders Plan to Recruit in 2022 [New Research + Expert Insights]

Recruiting Tips
March 2, 2022/by
3 Roles Marketing Leaders Plan to Recruit in 2022 The new year can be an exciting time to consider how you might expand your team to reach new goals in 2022. But it can also be stressful for that very same reason. With a limited budget, how can you ensure you're making the right hire? HubSpot's Blog Research uncovered the top three roles marketers are planning on hiring in 2022. Let's explore why those three roles matter, according to experts. The Top 3 Roles Marketing Leaders Plan to Hire in 2022 1. Creative Director Nowadays, brands are expected to create top-notch content across platforms. To successfully reach new audiences and increase sales, you'll want to have strong social media, content marketing, and video marketing strategies — to name a few. As Wistia's Creative Director, Adam Day, puts it, "In the context of today's media landscape, the opportunity for brands to express themselves through multiple mediums is more attainable than ever — and consumers are demanding more than ever, too." Day adds, "It's not just about blog posts anymore. Video consumption, alone, is up 121% from 2019, and in a recent survey of Wistia customers, we learned that most companies are increasing their production budgets by more than 10% this year. Businesses need someone who can oversee the creative execution of all this work while maintaining the consistency and quality it takes to have a world-class brand." That's all well and good. But what, exactly, does a creative director...
Read Full Story

How 500 Marketers are Leveraging Instagram Shopping Tools [Data]

Instagram Marketing
March 2, 2022/by
How 500 Marketers are Leveraging Instagram Shopping Tools Does anyone remember the days when all we saw on Instagram were poorly lit pictures our friends took and memes we didn’t want our parents to see on Facebook? Well, we’re long gone from then. The platform has evolved from a simple image-sharing social platform to a money-making content curation one. With the addition of Instagram’s shopping tools, it’s steering more toward ecommerce and less on the social aspect. So what does that mean for brands? We surveyed over 500 marketers to learn more about their Instagram strategy. Find out below what we found out as it relates to the social platform’s shopping tools. The Benefits and Challenges of Instagram’s Shopping Tools When we asked marketers the biggest benefit of using Instagram’s shopping tools, their number one answer was the increased product discoverability. In the past, users had to navigate to a brand’s website to get product or service details. Today, they can learn everything they need to know about it. In addition, Instagram’s "wishlist" feature also allows users to save products they like to a specific folder on the app. Image Source The second biggest benefit is the simplified shopping experience. Gone are the days when you need to leave the app to make the purchase. You can discover a brand and make a purchase all in the same breath. This means a more enjoyable process for consumers, which can lead to more purchases for brands. Another key...
Read Full Story

How to Run an Effective Vetting Process for Candidates in 2022

Recruiting Tips
February 24, 2022/by
How to Run an Effective Vetting Process for Candidates in 2022 Imagine you're a hiring manager and put up an ad for a role. After a lengthy process, you hire someone you think is a great fit. Except, reality sets in a few weeks later when you realize they were a bad hire and you have the start all over again. A robust vetting process would help you avoid this costly mistake. However, it's not enough to come up with a process, you have to make sure it's inclusive, fair, and efficient. Let's show you how. Hiring the wrong employee can cost companies hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back in 2016, The U.S. Department of Labor estimated this cost was close to 30% of the former employee's first-year earnings. Today, that figure could be even higher. Undoubtedly, recruiting and hiring candidates is an expensive and time-consuming process. This is on top of figuring out which candidates are most qualified to succeed at your company for the long haul. A vetting process should include a few critical elements. Let's cover how to run an effective vetting process that's efficient and free of bias as possible. How long does the vetting process take? The vetting process can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on what your process looks like, the seniority level for the role, and the industry. For instance, a role at the Federal Bureau of Investigation likely has a much longer vetting process...
Read Full Story

SEO vs. PPC: When to Optimize and When to Pay for Traffic

PPC, SEO
February 24, 2022/by
SEO vs. PPC: When to Optimize and When to Pay for Traffic If you're struggling to get the word out about your brand new business venture, you’re not alone. Like you, many business owners struggle to acquire customers in the beginning.Balancing the cost, maintenance, and results of a marketing campaign isn't easy. Most of the time, the solution to this problem is one of two marketing strategies: search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. But which method is suitable for you? In this article, we've explored what you can expect to achieve from each of these acquisition strategies. We’ve also provided some pros and cons of SEO and PPC strategies along with descriptive statistics and real-life examples to help you decide whether your business is best suited for SEO or PPC — or both. What is SEO? Search engine optimization is the process of enhancing your website’s visibility to make it rank and gain organic traffic from search engines. Just as you turn to your favorite search engines, such as Google or Bing, to look up a new marketing acronym or where to get good pizza, so do your consumers. When you invest in SEO, you're increasing the likelihood of your target audience finding you when they make a Google search for keywords related to your product or service. In fact, 61% of marketers say that SEO is a top inbound marketing factor for their business. But it's easier said than done. Here's an example of SEO in...
Read Full Story