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50 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know in 2020

Visual Content
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50 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know in 2020 At the end of every year, we like to read through some of the major reports on inbound marketing, content marketing, social media, and online behavior. It's amazing how fast things can change in just one or two years, and this year has a breadth of surprising statistics to reflect on. This year, we've seen the continued importance of visual content emphasized by the changes that occurred across almost every major social network, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At the same time, videos continued to grow as powerful tools for brands looking to communicate more easily with their readers, and virtual reality (VR) is finding its place as a marketing tool in numerous businesses.  To help you keep pace with these trends, let's take a look at some visual content marketing statistics that demonstrate the impact visual content has on reach, engagement, and sales. You can jump to the following categories to see statistics related to that category: General Visual Content Stats Video Marketing Stats Emerging Visual Marketing Stats Infographic Stats Social Media Stats 50 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know General Visual Content Statistics 70% of companies invest in content marketing, which could include visual marketing strategies. (HubSpot) The primary form of media used in content marketing is video. (HubSpot) One fourth of marketers are investing in content marketing related to product promotions while just over 20% of investing in...

The 21 Best iPaaS Vendors for Any Budget

iPaaS
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The 21 Best iPaaS Vendors for Any Budget As your business grows and evolves, you'll inevitably find yourself adding more applications to your growth stack. If those applications run on different platforms and can't communicate effectively, you're going to run into issues with data loss, duplication of efforts, and bottlenecks that slow your team down. iPaaS -- which stands for Integration Platform as a Service -- helps you connect the tools and systems that power your business in one place, so information can be shared without high-maintenance, one-off integrations or manual data entry. We wrote a deep dive on iPaaS here if you'd like to learn more about the basics, view a complete glossary of iPaaS terms, and better understand what iPaaS can potentially offer your business. If you've decided you want to invest in iPaaS but aren't sure where to start, you're in the right place. In this article, we'll go over some of the best iPaaS vendors, so you can discover one that fits your company's unique needs and budget. Let's dive in. 1. Dell Boomi Acquired by Dell in 2010, Boomi offers a cloud-based integration and API management solution with all the bells and whistles you could ask for: workflows, API design, application deployment, B2B/EDI management, and much more. Within Boomi, you can design end-to-end workflows and process data across multiple applications. Suitable for enterprise and small businesses from many different industries, Boomi has been considered a leader in the iPaaS space for the last...

Content Mapping 101: The Template You Need to Personalize Your Marketing

Buyer Personas
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Content Mapping 101: The Template You Need to Personalize Your Marketing What is a Content Map? A content map is a plan to deliver the right content, to the right people, at the right time. Content mapping takes into account the characteristics of the person who will be consuming the content and their lifecycle stage. Marketers hear it all the time: The content you create needs to be personalized. It needs to be aligned with the wants and needs of your customers (and prospective customers). It needs to resonate with them. It needs to feel like it was created just for them. On its surface, this sounds like great advice. Personalization, giving people content that they're actually interested in ... it makes perfect sense. But coming up with the actual topics that make for a highly targeted content strategy isn't that easy. To help you brainstorm and map out content ideas for targeting specific segments of your audience, we've created a new free template resource: Content Mapping Template: Using Buyer Personas & Lifecycle Stages to Create Targeted Content. I'll talk more about how you can use this template in a bit. But first, let’s take a look at how this whole "content mapping" business works. And when think you've got this concept down, you'll want to check out HubSpot Academy's free content marketing training resource page to learn how to map a content strategy for your business. What Is Content Mapping? When it comes...

39 Call-to-Action Examples You Can’t Help But Click

Calls-to-Action
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39 Call-to-Action Examples You Can't Help But Click Think about all the times you've signed up for things in your life. Did you once download Evernote? Dropbox? Spotify? Maybe you've even taken a class on General Assembly. Each one of these signups is likely a result of an effective call-to-action (CTA). Think about it: If you hadn't been drawn in by the copy or design of the CTA, or been guided so eloquently through your sign-up process, you would probably use a lot fewer apps and websites than you do now. It's really important to guide your visitors through the buying journey using strategic CTAs. What a CTA Means in Marketing As a marketer, CTAs are relevant because they encourage your audience to take action on a marketing campaign. Ultimately, the goal of any marketing campaign is to guide your audience in the buyer's journey so they eventually make a purchase. However, each marketing campaign might have a different action for the audience to carry out because there are several tactics you can use to guide your audience in their journey. Below are a few examples of the types of CTAs you might use in marketing: Sign up. In this type of CTA, the audience might be invited to sign up for a free trial, an online course, a future event, or even a software product. It all depends on the CTAs context on an ad or website. Subscribe. This CTA doesn't commit a person to a...

What Are Content Managers, and How Do You Become One?

Content Planning
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What Are Content Managers, and How Do You Become One? When I was in college, I had a mentor during my summer internship. When we were talking about my career goals, I explained to her that I wanted to be someone who creates, distributes, strategizes, and promotes content. "It sounds like you want to be a content manager," she said. I had no idea what she meant by that — I'd never heard of a content manager. Instead of asking her to clarify, I decided to smile and nod. But my curiosity was immediately sparked. After all, I had no idea there was a 'perfect' role out there for me. Ultimately, my mentor was right. Content managers have a hand in content strategy, creation, and distribution of marketing communications for a company. They're organized, well-versed in fostering a brand voice, and often know their way around a blog post. Maybe you are in a position like the one I was in — someone just learning about the content management role, and want to know the basics. Or, maybe you know this is the job for you, but want to make sure you're prepared to be successful. Below, you'll find everything you need to know about content managers, from what they do to how to become one. Let's take a look. What are content managers, and what do they do? According to Senior Brand Manager Alicia Collins, "Content managers wear many hats. Their job consists of so many moving...

How Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of the Australian Stimulus Package

Marketing Resources
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How Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of the Australian Stimulus Package In light of the evolving situation around the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian Government has released a number of economic responses to support individuals, households and businesses and improve stability in this particularly volatile environment. With so much information being circulated, updated and changed so frequently, we wanted to provide a summary of the government’s response in a more easily digestible format. Below is a guide to the Australian government support that is currently available for: Individuals and households Businesses The flow of credit for businesses and lending institutions You’ll also find a summary of timings at the end of this page, where the implementation dates of each initiative are listed in accordance with government guidelines at the time of writing. This blog post is meant as a basic resource and not a comprehensive guide. For the most up-to-date information visit the official Australian government website, which outlines in detail the official economic response to the Coronavirus. Support for Individuals and Households 1. Income support for individuals. The Government is providing an income support payment of $550 to individuals every two weeks. This is limited for six months as a temporary Coronavirus supplement and is applicable to new and existing recipients of existing support payments such as JobSeeker Payment, Parenting Payment etc. You can apply for this by creating and/or signing into your myGov account online and registering your intention to claim a Centrelink payment. 2. Payments to...

11 Cover Letter Templates to Perfect Your Next Job Application

Cover Letter
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11 Cover Letter Templates to Perfect Your Next Job Application No one seems to agree on cover letters. How much time do you need to spend perfecting them? Do hiring managers even read them? Is it better to just send in your resume and call it a day? I'm not in HR, but I've been approached by applicants who wondered whether their cover letter would actually be read. My answer is one not many of them wanted to hear: "sometimes." Sometimes it will be read. Other times, you can get away with just sending in your resume -- like when you network your way into applying for a position. The truth is, you can't really predict on a case-by-case basis -- and you're better safe than sorry. For the most part, having a cover letter will give you an upper hand in ways your resume doesn't. It allows you to show off your writing skills, provide details that you couldn't fit on your resume, demonstrate your passion, and show your willingness to put in as much time and effort as possible. Seems fairly basic, right? Cover letters can hold different levels of importance to an employer depending on the industry you're in and the job you're applying for. If you do plan to write a cover letter, keep in mind there are certain qualities it should have that are not included in the definition above. What to Include in a Cover Letter So, what should you include? We'll let...

The Most Underrated Online Marketing Tactics You’re Probably Not Taking Seriously

Digital Maketing
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The Most Underrated Online Marketing Tactics You're Probably Not Taking Seriously Here's a fun little challenge for you: name three marketing strategies you'd recommend to someone who's getting their start in the field. Easy, right? This is what I'd suggest — social media marketing, email newsletters, and content offers. As marketers, we can pretty much list useful, tried-and-true marketing tactics like clockwork. We know what works. But when delighting customers is a top priority, the "same old, same old" can seem redundant to your audiences. For that reason, thinking outside of the box when conducting marketing strategies is essential. You don't want to bore your customers, and you don't want to get bored creating the same campaigns, either. If you're looking for marketing strategies that aren't making an email list or writing a blog post, you've come to the right place. Here, we're going to introduce some marketing strategies that you might've seen before (or maybe not), but that you haven't seen popularly implemented in years. If you can't take much more of the same, your audience probably can't, either. Let's talk about some interesting, less-raved about ways you can spice up your marketing plan. 1. Create and distribute infographics. 19% of marketers use infographics as part of their content marketing campaigns, but they are very useful for audiences. If you're distributing data on social media, infographics present the complicated information in a simple, fun format: Visual content is more engaging than text, and still presents...

The Ultimate List of Types of Marketing [41 and Counting]

Marketing Strategy
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The Ultimate List of Types of Marketing Like many of the people who work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Back then, email was the age of most college graduates, AT&T launched the first banner ad, and the CRM industry was just starting to thrive. Needless to say, marketing has evolved at breakneck speed since then, sprouting many more types of marketing. Some are definitely more effective and relevant than others, so read on to learn about the top types of marketing around today. The Ultimate List of Types of Marketing 1. Traditional Marketing Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on any kind of channel that has been around since before the advent of the internet. Because information wasn’t as easily accessible and readily available, the majority of traditional marketing relied on outbound tactics such as print, television ads, and billboards. 2. Outbound Marketing Outbound marketing refers to intrusive promotion such as print ads, TV ads, cold calling, and email blasts. This marketing method is called “outbound” since the brand is pushing their message out to all consumers to spread awareness — whether they are in need of it or not. 3. Inbound Marketing Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. The majority of inbound marketing tactics fall under digital marketing as consumers are empowered to do research online as they progress through their own buyer’s journey (more on that later). The focus for inbound is on...

How to Live Stream Successfully: A Preparation Checklist for Marketers

Live Streaming
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How to Live Stream Successfully: A Preparation Checklist for Marketers Raise your hand if you’d rather watch a video to learn something new than read about it. Go ahead — you’re not alone. 59% of executives say they’d rather watch a video than read text, too. And really, that number makes sense — we are a society of video streamers. (I mean, hello, Netflix.) But if you’re not sure how to run a live stream event on social media, fear not. We’re here to make sure you don’t just hit the “Live” button on Facebook and stare at the camera like a deer in headlights. Instead, we’ve come up with a comprehensive checklist to help you plan your first — or next — live stream.  How Live Streaming Works Live streaming is a way to broadcast your events to an online audience. It’s a digital alternative to something like selling tickets to an in-person event and allows you to reach people near and far with live video. Brands use live streaming for a few different reasons, but according to a Brandlive survey, 74% of businesses used it to engage with their consumer base. So instead of being the proverbial “man behind the curtain,” you’re allowing viewers to put a face (or faces) to your organization's name, all in real time. Live streaming can be used for a number of different event types, as well. Everyone from the White House to fashion houses to chefs have live-streamed videos of economy...